Effective practices in education, mental health and psychosocial support for the integration of refugee children

REFUGE-ED will create the Brokering Knowledge Platform of Effective Practices (BKP), which will host and promote innovative high-quality solutions tailored for the dynamic integration of migrant and refugee children in schools and more broadly in society.

In so doing, REFUGE-ED will identify, implement, and evaluate existing evidence-based practices in education and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) that have shown to promote the educational success, well-being and sense of belonging of children (0 to 18-years old - ISCED 0-3) from recent migration cohorts, including refugees and asylum seekers, and unaccompanied minors.

The ground breaking nature of the BKP is two-folded: on the one hand, it will rely jointly on education and MHPSS; on the other, it will feature dialogic co-creation with children, families, teachers, policy-makers, practitioners working on the ground and other relevant stakeholders.

REFUGE-ED will capitalise on the social impacts of prior EU research in the field of MHPSS and education, using the Supportive Process for the Inclusion of Children’s Experience (SPICE) under the communicative methodology of research for the co-creation of knowledge and implementation of results.

The REFUGE-ED project will carry out 3 multisite pilot actions across 6 countries (Sweden, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria), in a total of 33 Communities of Learning and Practice, that is, hot spots/reception identification centres, inclusive school environments and non-formal and informal social and learning environments, and institutional care (including unaccompanied minors).

Informed by these pilots, the final co-created BKP will provide tools, solutions and recommendations, including guidelines and criteria on capacity building training, solution adaptation and community engagement in easy to use off-line package, in different formats, to support the implementation, reuse and scalability of the piloted actions, and of other practices identified as successful.