 Reintegration of children and their families What are the key actions for the sustainable reintegration of children? Often, reintegration processes involve children, whether accompanied, unaccompanied or separated. Being more vulnerable than adults, they have higher needs and require dedicated considerations, both in the immediate and long term. Building on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, reintegration practitioners should safeguard the child's best interest, while providing a favourable environment to sustainable reintegration. Doing this requires taking the following factors into account. Children's rights, their safety and protection, their development and evolving capacity, their psychosocial wellbeing, their own wishes and participation in the decision making process. The reintegration of children involves extensive preparation and follow-up. It is critical to ensure that children are involved in every step. Children are able to evolve and adapt quickly, and there are several things you can do to help them build resilience. Here are some key actions you should consider. 1. Take a rights-based and do-no-harm approach At the base of each effort to promote a child's safe and sustainable reintegration is a rights-based approach. This can be done by carrying out risk assessments to identify and mitigate risks before a decision in a child's best interest is made. Child protection specialists play a key role to provide effective reintegration assistance to children. That's why reintegration practitioners should be regularly trained on child protection matters. 2. Communicate differently with children Whereas adults are often able to understand quickly and express themselves in their needs clearly, children need more time and support to do so. Communicating with children could involve, for example, asking them to draw or engage them in a game instead of answering questions orally, keeping interactions short and fun, avoiding the use of difficult words according to their age. 3. Promote a safe and secure environment Throughout reintegration, look for ways to safeguard children's security and safety regarding their physical, emotional, and social well-being. Ask yourself, for instance, how safe is the environment of return when it comes to violence or child trafficking? What is the family context? Are there potential factors that can spark stigma or discrimination? What monitoring mechanisms are in place to ensure ongoing child safeguarding? 4. Prioritize family and child-centered efforts Particularly in the case of unaccompanied and separated children, it is vital to actively explore reintegration options within the child's family of origin. Overall, children and their families must be at the centre of all reintegration support efforts, and the child's opinion should be considered and engaged throughout. 5. Consider the child's identity and development stage Identify and recognize the child's individual characteristics, such as age, sex, gender, linguistic background, and cultural upbringing. You should aim to tailor assistance according to the child's development stage. Assisting a 6-year-old will be very different to assisting a 16-year-old. 6. Embed reintegration in wider child protection systems Safe and effective support for child reintegration must be incorporated within broader national protection systems. It is important that all actors involved in child protection, from government actors to community groups, religious leaders, teachers, children and families, work together and are all involved in a coordination and feedback mechanism. It is also vital to actively engage with other policy sectors, such as health, education, justice and social protection. Working with children requires very specific considerations and attention. A child's reintegration experience doesn't necessarily correspond to that of an adult, nor even to that of other children within the household. Recognizing and taking this into account in reintegration planning allows to promote the child's resilience and to facilitate there and the family's reintegration. To know more, consult the IOM Reintegration Handbook.