Building on the social impact of previous EU research in the field of education and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), REFUGE-ED identified, implemented and evaluated evidence-based practices in education and MHPSS that have been shown to promote educational success, well-being and sense of belonging for all children, focusing on those in recent migration cohorts, refugees and asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors, including those residing in hotspots, reception/identification centres and institutionalised care. This was done through a dialogic process of co-creation, involving all members of the education community (children and families, civil society organisations and local service providers, schools, and teaching staff; including school counsellors or other focal points focusing on MHPSS needs in education; and policy makers working in different educational settings).

At this point, this report synthesises lessons learned and best practices towards the end of the project period. At the same time, it suggests effective strategies and actions not only for the pilots involved, but especially for those interested in implementing them.

This document explains in brief the main sections of the project’s website: www.refuge-ed.eu

The REFUGE-ED Dissemination package is an important tool for effectively fulfilling the objective of “increasing EU citizenship benefits” derived from the project, supporting members of the consortium in communicating with stakeholders, making information about the project, its partners, and activities available in the public space, and to disseminate results. Dissemination is a continuous and a progressing activity within the project. Therefore, the dissemination package has evolved throughout the project lifetime, from before the kickoff meeting to the current package as presented in this deliverable, and it will continue to evolve during the last months of the project, as many of the main project outcomes will be presented at events and in the Brokering Knowledge Platform after the submission of this deliverable.

Further documents, such as news, events, blog posts, information about the project, etc. can be found on www.refuge-ed.eu

The primary objective of this report is the mapping and review of existing tools for training, social exchange and co-creation in Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) and across Successful Educational Actions (SEAs), with emphasis given to tools that address the needs of children, families and communities with a migratory or multicultural background, specifically in the European context. Project partners have worked together to define, test, refine and finalise criteria for tool identification; review the tools using a peer approach and finally select tools for inclusion in the report. Twenty-seven tools were initially identified for the MHPSS collection, and 23 for the tools for Education collection. Following a further refinement, this was reduced to a final inclusion of 19 MHPSS tools and 12 Education tools. A general overview of the resources, followed by an analysis of their strengths and gaps are included for both topic areas, with brief recommendations for use. This mapping will contribute to the development of the Brokering Knowledge Platform which is the primarily intended output of the REFUGE-ED project.

The aims and objectives of the Brokering Knowledge Platform (BKP)

The BKP (D5.2) is the main output of the REFUGE-ED project. The BKP intended to make scientific knowledge accessible to everyone; this provision of relevant, practical, and accessible information, evidence and resources provides a platform to broker scientific knowledge to users as widely as possible. Its objective was to provide a site to host and promote innovative high quality evidence-based solutions tailored for the dynamic integration of migrant and refugee children in formal, non-formal and informal educational settings and more broadly in society. The BKP also provided a space for the REFUGE-ED project’s Transnational Community of Practice and Learning (D5.3).

The REFUGE-ED project identifies, implements and tests effective practices in education and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) that promote the educational success, wellbeing, and sense of belonging of children from recent migration cohorts, refugees and asylum seekers, and unaccompanied minors. Its main output is a Brokering Knowledge Platform which will communicate and disseminate co-created knowledge, resources and tools in easy-to use packages for people working with these children.

This report makes practical recommendations about the content, design, usability and functionality of the Platform. Its findings are drawn from 24 focus groups held across the project’s pilot sites in six countries. The 120 participants involved represent a combination of teachers, support workers, family members, volunteers, and children. In addition, information from two project workshops which discussed the Platform is included.

This document was prepared at the time as a brief guide to collect and store the data collected in the fieldwork. This document was later updated as a result of the implementation of the practices.

Consistent with the principles of the REFUGE-ED dialogic co-creation process (RDCP), as outlined in D2.2 Guidelines for Pilot Actions’ Implementation, the Supportive Process for the Inclusion of Children’s Experience (SPICE) approach is also based on the premise that end-users (i.e., children) and their key integration agents (i.e., teachers, parents, community groups) should be actively involved in any research designed to evaluate practices/interventions that seek to improve, in this case, educational and MHPSS outcomes, from initial research design, to its implementation, interpretation of results, and discussion of findings. This document therefore outlines steps of the SPICE approach, as the overarching research methodology used by REFUGE-ED, with a view to guiding and supporting REFUGE-ED consortium partners in carrying out the research component of the REFUGE-ED project. Specifically, it serves to guide those consortium partners supporting pilot actions in their data collection and data analysis process, such that, as a consortium, we can offer a stronger evidence-base for our collective work. It further serves to indicate when in the dialogical co-creation process data collection will need to take place, links to relevant documents and tools that can be used as part of data collection, as well as where data will need to be stored and uploaded, such that we, collectively form a central repository to store information.

The goal of this compendium is to present a menu of potential outcomes that the pilot sites may want to measure, and recommendations for assessment tools to measure each of these outcomes.

The present report (subdivided into three ones) is framed under Work Package 3, ‘Implementing pilot actions in three distinctive settings’, and comprehensively presents implementing partners’ trainings, implementation and evaluation results. It follows up on the interim report (D3.2) (which covered all the activities conducted until October 2022), primarily focusing on the needs analysis conducted, as well as on the process of co-creation and continuous training of the practices (Successful Educational Actions -SEAs- and Mental Health and Psychosocial Support -MHPSS-).

It is aimed at presenting the pilots’ implementation progress, considering each centre’s specificities, and at providing a more holistic picture of the impact of the SEAs and MHPSS practices in the centres. The findings presented in Chapter 8 derive from quantitative and qualitative evaluation (WP3, WP4). Quantitative and qualitative evaluation was implemented in at least two strategic time points of the project (beginning and end of implementation). The former was realised through distributing questionnaires; the latter was organised via interviews, focus groups, wrap-up meetings and/or open assemblies. The final part of the report summarises the impact analysis of effective practices in education and mental health on the integration of migrants and refugees, previously identified through a co-creation process with end-users.

Three reports were developed in the context of D3.3 -one per pilot site category (Schools, Hotspots/Reception and Identification Centres and Institution Care Facilities)- gathering information regarding the implementation and evaluation of the process followed and the interventions in general.