 Hello, good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Commit Webinar on Preparing Refugee Youth for a Settlement, the role of pre-departure orientation. My name is Herta Lando, I work at the IOM Regional Office in Brussels, and I will be your moderator for today's webinar. We're very happy to see so many participants amongst us to join us for this Commit Webinar, and of course we hope it will be an interesting session for all of you. So, today we are going to discuss about Preparing Refugee Youth for a Settlement, because indeed young refugees are a very specific target group under a settlement with specific needs that we can already address at the pre-departure stage through pre-departure orientation. So, today we're going to hear experiences from different colleagues who have worked on providing pre-departure orientation for refugee youth. We have speakers today, first of all Laurence Hart, who is the Director of the IOM Coordination Office for the Mediterranean, who will give us the opening remarks. After that, we'll hear from Bindu, who's a project coordinator for a settlement and integration at IOM UK, and she will tell us about the UK's experience in preparing curricula for youth pre-departure orientation and implementing this. And finally, we'll hear also experiences from the ground. We will hear both from Tala and Crystal based in Beirut to have experience in delivering pre-departure orientation training for refugee youths and children. And then last but not least, this webinar is also the occasion to launch our new Commit publication, which is a handbook on training refugee youth. So, basically, this is a tool for anyone who's looking at organizing pre-departure orientation for youth that are going to be resettled or relocated. It's a tool that we developed under Commit. Commit is a regional project funded by DGHO, under the Asylum Migration and Integration Fund, that seeks to promote the integration of refugees that are resettled to Europe. Now, while the project focuses specifically on resettlement, of course, the pre-departure orientation for youth can also be relevant in other contexts, and we are particularly thinking now of the case of relocation as also we are planning upcoming relocation movements from unaccompanied minor children from Greece to other your member states. So, we hope this webinar and the tool that we'll present can be useful to many of you in the different contexts you're working with refugee youth. Now, I would like to ask all participants to also engage with the panelists. So, if you have any questions, any comments, please do feel free to use the chat function. So, in the chat function, you can ask your questions, kindly click all panelists, and then all of us will receive your questions. As we go through the webinar, I will also invite another panelist to address your questions. So, please don't hesitate to use the chat function. Now, with this, I would like to invite Laurence Hart, Director of the IOM of Eastern Rome, to take the floor for the opening remarks. Thank you. Good morning, Hetra. Can you hear me? Just to check that we're all... Yes, Laurence. I can hear you well. Good, good. And good morning. Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon, wherever you're sitting in the world, I'm very pleased to open this webinar, this exchange between experiences and to see what works, what needs to be improved in such a delicate context. As you mentioned, Commit is a two-year regional project. Maybe there's a slide, Rabab writes, if you can project slide number two. Just to give you an introduction to the program, it's a two-year regional project involving Croatia, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, so four different contexts, although geographically quite close. And that's also an important element because of similarities. We have to also draw upon similarities. Commit in response to the AMIF 2017 call for proposal on integration of third country national. And within the priority three, there is a specific reference to the importance of pre-departure and post-arrival support for the integration of persons in needs of international protection, who are being resettled from a third country, including through volunteering services. Next slide where it says project objectives. I can't see the slide, but I trust it is being projected. So you see here in the slide that there are three specific objectives. First of all, the overarching one is to facilitate the integration of resettled refugees by strengthening the linkages between pre-departure and post-arrival support. Often in the past there was a pre-departure orientation, and then in the host country, in the host community, it was post-arrival support, but not necessarily with a link or with a continuum between the two. And I think the value is exactly there, creating that. Now, the program obviously has a specific focus on vulnerable groups, such as young refugees and women, which are a specific case loader that needs specific addressing specific issues. The specific objectives of this program is to enhance the pre-departure orientation activity. So enabling those contacts at an early stage between the refugees and the communities of destination before the departure, as well as addressing those specific needs of the vulnerable group, so that everyone is prepared and everyone has an expectation and see that that their expectation is being taken care of, not necessarily addressed, but taken care of. The second element of this program is to systematize the community support in the receiving communities by building the capacities of local actors and piloting mentorship schemes. Why is this important? Because no one, unless has a long-standing experience of resettlements, the expertise is built upon, of course, direct experience, but also at the same time by learning from others how things are being done, hence the importance of this element. And the third one exactly is to foster those transnational exchanges among the countries of resettlement to identify and disseminate the lessons learned and the best practices. Next slide, which is the one that I will conclude my remarks on, is the purpose of this webinar. So this is a second of a series of four on which address cross-cutting themes which characterize the resettlement, continuum, specific needs of these resettled population. So it's looking at migration and health along the resettlement continuum, mainstreaming gender into pre-departure orientation, and looking at labor market integration, which is also another key concern for many people venturing into a new life as a resettled person. Now, I think also the purpose is to look at the, as I was mentioning, it's important to build upon the expertise, the experience, the do's and don'ts that those countries with a longer tradition in the implementation of resettlement programs have accumulated over time, and look at those good practices in order to better support the integration of resettled refugees. I think the underlying, and I will conclude with this, I think the underlying question is how do we accelerate the integration process? Acceleration is important for a number of reasons. First of all, because it goes to the benefit of both the host country and the host community and the resettled people by reducing some vulnerabilities, but also empowering the resettled person to be parts of the new community and being feeling with a sense of contribution to the new community. How can I contribute to that community? I think it was for me personally, and this is a personal anecdote, it was very eye-opening when I went to Canada once and I saw a recently resettled Sudanese resettled person waving his new Canadian passport and he said, well, I feel Canadian, I'm Canadian, and I feel that I want to contribute to this new community, and I'll do my best to contribute to this new community. I think that was a very eloquent statement that that person made, and I'm sure there are others that can make that statement or are willing to make that statement. I think one of the elements that we have to always take into account is exactly this acceleration process, because the acceleration process makes the resettled person not just a beneficiary, but an actor of development, but of contribution to the new host society and community. I leave that question, how can we further accelerate this process in our activities, in our host communities, in our countries, and of course this webinar is exactly intended for that, to share that experience in order to speed up this process. Thank you very much for your attention, and I wish you a very good exchange of ideas. Thank you very much, Lawrence, for your opening remarks and for introducing the Commits Project, and indeed you're very right to point out that integration of resettled refugees is a two-way process which involves of course the refugees themselves, but also the host communities, and for a settlement to be a successful experience is important that both the refugee and the host community are prepared for this. So we hope that the webinar will shed a bit more light on this. Can we go to the next slide, please? So as I already explained, we are going to focus this webinar on how to prepare refugee youth for a settlement, particularly looking at the importance of pre-departure orientation. Now as a first speaker, we'll hear from Bindu, who's a project coordinator on resettlement and integration at IOM London, and she will tell us a bit more about the experiences of the UK on cultural orientation or pre-departure orientation, and then specifically the experience of developing pre-departure orientation for children and youth. So Bindu, very happy that you could join us. I can already see you. How are you doing? I'm good. Thank you, Etra, and thank you for the really helpful introduction, Laurence. I'm very delighted to be here to share a little bit about our experiences in the UK of developing the UK cultural orientation, specifically tailored to children. A little bit in terms of the background on how we went about developing this and the commitment to actually develop bespoke orientation for children. Sir Abab, if you can go on to the next slide, please? The next one. Thank you. Yeah, so basically in terms of a background for the UK cultural orientation for children, we were of course very much driven by the needs of the resettlement programme and the launch of the Vulnerable Children's Resettlement Scheme presented IOM UK with a very unique opportunity in fact, to develop child-friendly materials and curriculum that would be able to prepare children for resettlement. And why did we go about doing this? Why did we think that we needed a specific tailored bespoke curriculum for children? The reason behind it was very early on in the resettlement programme, UNHCR and IOM were very interested in identifying the integration outcomes for refugees that had been resettled to the UK at the very start of the programme. And we found that children and young people were disproportionately affected by the conflict in Syria. They had very strong and clear integration needs and they had very clear information needs about preparing themselves for life in the UK. We often find that children are at the forefront of integrating very quickly because they go to school, they pick up languages, they are able to help in many ways steer the entire family's integration sometimes in the host country, but equally they're also left behind in many instances in terms of their ability to access education within the resettlement country due to language barriers or having missed education. There are lots of challenges that many of them can face upon resettlement and in integrating. And this was where we felt it was really important to look at the principles that were there, very specifically in the UNCRC, whether it's the articles on the right to information or the right to education and somehow enshrining it within the broader principles of the SDGs of making sure that no one is left behind. That was primarily the intention in making sure that we develop resources across the age groups while being resettled and prepared for cultural orientation, pre-departure. So that's a little bit about the background. If you can go to the next slide, Rava. So we went about doing this collaboratively. We felt that it's something that we needed to reach out to the broader ION family, first of all, to understand from other programs that had actually developed resources. So for instance, the Canadian orientation abroad or the Norwegian orientation or Australian orientation or the US orientation programs. All of these programs had different levels and different kinds of ways in approaching the preparation of children and young people to prepare them for life in their resettlement countries. After having looked at all of this, we felt that it would be good to also look at partnerships within the UK. I must emphasize at this point we were very strongly supported by the UK Home Office who showed a very strong commitment and invested resources in developing these bespoke curriculum. And through a competitive process, we identified the British Council as a partner to help us develop a lot of these resources. And while IOM was looking at developing resources and partnership with the British Council, so looking at trainer manuals and resources and techniques for delivering and engaging children, we also had the Home Office working quite closely with the House of Illustration, who basically helped develop a suite of resources, primarily two books, which were illustrated with through workshops with children. So the idea was not just to consult with children and hear their views, but also to involve them in the preparation of the materials themselves, so that children in a way are speaking to children in the pre-departure orientation. And we found this approach to be very beneficial, the idea of working across different agencies, whether it was the Home Office or the British Council or House of Illustration and school children themselves to actually come up with a varied set of resources. So we had bespoke trainer manuals that were prepared for the ages of five to nine, 10 to 13, and 14 to 18. And my colleague will elaborate a little bit about how we developed the teaching resources for these age groups. We felt that we can't just use a one-size-fits-all. We can't just say anyone under the 18 gets the same curriculum. So we actually broke it down into different age groups trying to understand what would be the information needs for each of these age groups. What might be the priority messages? So the messages that we give a five to nine-year-old are not the same as the messages that we would give a 14 to 18-year-old. And the techniques that we use in delivering these messages would also need to be adapted. So that was why we went about creating bespoke manuals for each of these three age groups. And we developed age-appropriate journals and picture books. And some of these resources were developed again by children, for children. The reason we developed these journals is because we felt that there would be an ongoing and continuous engagement with the messages developed for pre-departure orientation, even post-arrival. We felt that this would be a good link for children to mark their transition, to look at their hopes and dreams, and their aspirations for resettlement. So these were the set of resources that we developed. But we also felt that in addition to this, there was a group of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children that were looking, that the UK was looking to transfer through the Section 67 Immigration Act, which allowed for children to be brought into the UK from within Europe. But equally, we also had unaccompanied children coming in through the resettlement program. So we had multiple routes through which the UK had made a commitment to offering protection to children in need. And within the cohort of unaccompanied children that were coming through the resettlement program, we felt that there was an opportunity to facilitate contact, to reduce some of the anxiety around resettlement for these children with their social workers or foster carers here in the UK. So in addition to the orientation program that they received, which my colleague Talar will elaborate a little more about, there were also phone calls that we facilitated, video calls, which helped children connect with the foster carers and social workers to help them understand a little more and prepare better, and hear directly from their support workers or their social workers or the foster carers about the kind of support that they would get in the UK. And we found that this was very helpful and reassuring to the children. Next slide, Rafa. And so again, to just reiterate what were the objectives in developing the cultural orientation, but also in the delivery of cultural orientation. So all of our trainers in the pre-departure context are very keen to ensure that the way in which we develop and deliver the orientation provides children with the information in an accessible format. The primary goal of delivering cultural orientation for children was to reduce a lot of their anxiety, to help them understand that there is a safe space within which to learn, to acknowledge the children have the right to protection as enshrined in the UNCRC, and that they are rights holders by themselves, and to introduce child-friendly material within a broader safeguarding framework. Because we felt that there needs to be an understanding of their own agency, their own autonomy within the broader protective frameworks, whether it's the UK legislation framework or whether it's the framework given to all of us under the UNCRC. The idea also is to communicate the key priority messages that we agreed on with the Home Office to ensure that children understand what life in the UK will look like, what are their rights, what are their responsibilities, and what are the freedoms that they enjoy. And all of this to be communicated in an age-appropriate manner, but also using child-friendly and participatory techniques. The next slide, Rava. So the key considerations in driving us to develop age-appropriate methodologies and to ensure that the techniques were used, were participatory and child-centered, were that we felt that young people and children will learn best when they're engaged and when they're doing. So there was a lot of emphasis on activity, there was emphasis on play, and there's also an emphasis on reflection. So if there was an activity, we would always have a little bit of a debrief to try and understand what the children feel, what do they think about it. We also recognized very early on, as we were developing the curriculum and thinking about the suite of resources, that children will come from varied backgrounds and they will come from varied levels of awareness about their rights, about their understanding of resettlement, but also in terms of their levels of literacy and their socioeconomic backgrounds. We also realized that within a resettlement context, children will not have attended school continuously, there is a disruption in their education and there is also a possibility that they might have stopped going to school altogether because of no access in their host countries. So there might be an unfamiliarity with, say, a classroom setting. So we felt that there was a need to understand that these might be challenges that children will bring with them, but they were also opportunities for us to then innovate and think out of the box in terms of the resources that we developed. And at all times, whether it's the adult curriculum or the children's curriculum or the young people's curriculum, we've always as IOM made sure that we place an emphasis on pre-literate populations understanding that not everyone might be able to read or write. And therefore we created activities that would allow the whole class or the whole group to actually be engaged and to participate. And my colleague, Talaad and Crystal, who will be presenting after me, will be able to guide you through some of these considerations and show you how we actually use them in the classroom. At this point, I'm going to pause and pass on to my colleagues. Thank you. Thank you very much, Bindu, for giving us the background on how you went about developing the curricula for youth video and children's video. Lawrence, can you kindly switch off your microphone? Thank you. So excellent, Bindu. And I'm very pleased to hear also how actually many of the resources were designed by children, for children, so that you actually involved refugee children also in the design of your information and training materials. That's excellent. And of course, good to hear that the focus remains on playing, on activities, of course, with a necessary reflection not to forget that many of the refugee children might not have been able to go to school, might not be able to read and write. So very good to hear that you took all of that into consideration. Now, I would like also to ask all participants to use the chat function if you have any questions for Bindu at this point. Feel free to ask. I see a first question here, which is how long did it take to develop all the materials? It did very good question, because I see you went with different materials for different age groups. I can imagine it took a while to develop this. How long did that take, Bindu? So we basically started thinking about developing these materials way back in 2016. And it took a few months for us to go through the approval process and everything. And we spent the bulk of 2017, the latter half in 2018 actually commissioning different organizations to actually develop these resources. So I would say it took us about six to nine months in basically developing all of these curriculums. And then we also developed training to help our trainers deploy the curriculums, because we felt that that was a very important component as well, because it's important to use child friendly techniques. And so in addition to this, we had a train the trainer where we developed the training to actually help our trainers deliver the curriculum. Okay, thank you very much, Bindu. There is another question from another participant asking if we can find those materials. Well, in any case, I can already inform you that many elements have also been incorporated in the Commit Handbook on Training Refugee Youth. My colleague, Rabab, already shared in the chat function the link to the website, the IUM Regional Office website where you can find this handbook. We will also share that link again later on when we will present the handbook. So please do consult that. I'm seeing a lot of other questions coming in. Do you always have a specific trainer from the UK implementing the children's and youth PDO, Bindu? Is it someone from the UK or how does this go? Yeah, so we've always used our trainers who are based in the region who have an experience of delivering across different cultures. So we call them cross-cultural facilitators in some contexts and in other contexts, they are essentially individuals who are able to use intercultural competencies and have been trained to help participants understand a little more about the different cultures that they are trying to introduce them to. So we use trainers in the region for the UK program up until the 31st of March 2020, the program was primarily focused on the Middle Eastern North Africa, so Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. And our trainers in all of these countries were trained to deliver. They are all proficient in Arabic and many of them speak additional languages as well that the refugees speak when needed. We used interpreters but majority of the caseload that came through the program were Arabic speaking and therefore we used trainers from the region who knew the language and were able to communicate quite effortlessly and have also been able to travel to the UK, understand the context and present this to the children. So there's a lot of yeah. Yeah, thank you Bindu. So indeed you're using a cross-cultural facilitator, so trainers who speak the language of the children but who have been to the UK to understand the context. Thank you for answering that. There is another question asking if how long the children's and youth PDO classes for the UKCO last. Can you tell us a bit more about that Bindu? Yeah, absolutely. So when we designed the curriculum we actually designed it with a lot of hours of mileage from it because we felt that we were making an investment. So in terms of the curriculum content we have about 10 of teaching material. The reason we did that was not because the delivery of UKCO for children is for 10 hours, it's primarily for two hours, spread across two days, so an hour each for each of the age groups. The reason we have 10 hours of teaching material is because we felt the trainers should have a suite of resources that they can actually dip into based on the group that they're teaching. So we developed extensive resources that can be adapted to a two-hour slot, so one hour each day. So in terms of the delivery it's two hours but there's a suite of resources but my colleague Talar will actually be able to tell you a little more about it. I don't want to dip into her presentation. Okay, so we'll have to wait for Talar to tell us a bit more on how this goes. Now there is another question that came in if you would actually have some examples of peer education, so children teaching each other. Yeah, absolutely. So there's again Talar, my colleague in her presentation will actually allude to it but for us it was very important. So the way in which we conceived this was basically to ensure that children here in the UK had an opportunity to interact with children overseas. Now we were not able to do this in a physical format due to various considerations safeguarding being one of the most primary ones but what we felt is there was definitely an opportunity for us to create a link through resources. So we created activities through which children could speak to each other. The books themselves that were developed by House of Illustration are a very good example of this because children in the UK actually sat down and thought about what it is that they want to tell children who are coming to the UK and all of the illustrations reflect that. So they have things about you know food, about favorite activities, things like that. Young people wanted to say I want to tell them about the music, I want to tell them about a day in my life. So you'll see that these resources developed by the Home Office and the House of Illustration actually capture this peer education. Okay thank you, thank you Bindu, very nice to hear that. I have another question, do you have three guides? So three guides, three resource materials, one for each age group, is that correct? Yes, so we have three trainer manuals, five to nine, a trainer manual in English and Arabic, 10 to 13, trainer manual in English and Arabic and then 14 to 18, trainer manual in English and Arabic. In addition to this we have journals, again for each of the age groups, so the five to nine, 10 to 13 and 14 to 18. We also have in addition to this the two illustrated books for the five to nine and 10 to 13 age group and it can be even given to the 14 to 18. Okay, good, another question here, a very interesting question. Have you ever done an evaluation of the youth PDO with a participant? If so, what was their feedback? How did I find the PDO helpful and where there perhaps any gaps, any teams or topics that I felt were missing and that I wished to be included in the curriculum? Yeah, so we haven't had an official evaluation that we've done of the children and young people's curriculum once it was deployed. It was deployed in the summer and autumn of 2018, so we've been delivering this for over a year now and we are keen to hear from children but we've always had anecdotal feedback and Talar will share some of those quotes with you from children themselves on their experience of receiving the cultural orientation. What we did in the past few months along with UNHCR and UNICEF was we spoke to young people and there's a publication out called Refugee and then it speaks to the experience of unaccompanied children who have come into the UK and subsequently sought protection. This publication captures varied experiences. There's some indication there where you can find a little bit of information on children actually emphasizing that they want to know more, they want to be prepared, not just pre-departure but also post-arrival that they want curriculums that help them understand. So children are not saying you know I want a class or I want a curriculum. What they're saying is that I want to know more and I want somebody to spend time explaining this to me and I want to interact with other young people. So there's definitely evidence that there is a need for investment on this but I don't have an evaluation document exclusive to the UK cultural orientation. But we're keen to hear and we wouldn't be looking at something like that in collaboration with the Home Office. The publication you mentioned sounds very interesting. Could you perhaps share a link to the publication in the chat for all participants? Yeah absolutely I can do that. Give me a couple Okay thanks and then there is a final contribution from a cooperative that would like to do work on the settlement in Italy. Who should we contact to start? Well perhaps I can invite you to reach out to the colleagues of IOM Rome to provide you further guidance. Good colleagues I think with this Bindu we really need to move on to hear from Talar and Crystal who have both been engaged with the youth and the children to provide a pre-departure orientation. Talar, Crystal? Hello. Hi. Hello. Thank you Bindu and welcome all. Well to add on what Bindu actually highlighted. Can we move to the second slide please? Thank you. Now as Bindu had mentioned the UK child CO sessions were rolled out in Beirut and Jordan around July 2018 and it was a pilot phase. Of course after a lot of trainings and the trainers who were going to deliver the child CO when we went to the UK we had hands-on experience to actually get familiarized with the material that was developed and so basically as Bindu also mentioned the child CO the child PDO basically is divided into three different age groups five to nine ten to thirteen and fourteen to eighteen and all three age groups have their own training materials which can be adapted in the classroom depending on class size also or the number of children and their literacy levels. So as trainers we went to the UK and also experienced these activities ourselves to see how they can be implemented in the classrooms and also the UK colleagues were very keen on receiving our feedback to see how things are going to work. So once that was done we started implementing the sessions in the region and I will now focus more on the 14 to 18 and I will leave room for my colleague Christelle to talk more about five to nine and ten to the age groups five to nine and ten to thirteen. Now for the group 14 to 18 as maybe you are aware every child who is above the age of 14 is entitled to attend the normal PDO with their parents in a classroom and along with those 15 hour PDO sessions we have the two hour additional CO for these age groups. Now what happens is that these sessions are delivered in front of the parents. Parents have their have the freedom to observe what we do during the sessions for the 14 to 18 because we want to ensure that we have a lot of transparency and we want parents to hear about what we're going to talk about or what we're going to encourage children to think about. But just to add children usually prefer not to have the sessions delivered in front of their parents because they feel more comfortable to talk freely to the trainers or to raise their concerns to the trainers because sometimes they are a bit ashamed or they don't want to discuss certain topics in front of their parents. Now to highlight more about how we deliver the sessions as you know sessions are not delivered in a say traditional classroom setup. What we do is we use the we use the process of inquiry approach. The process of inquiry is of course an educational technique that is used as a method of delivery. It is basically more of a discovery learning approach where trainers can do the warm-ups and of course raise stimulus within the children and all this the technique is used through activities and we want children to actually think by themselves because we want to have them to start thinking critically and we don't the trainer here becomes a facilitator. The trainer is a guide that helps the children come up with their own questions, come up with their own views and ideas and give their opinion about certain topics that are raised and through this process they can come up with answers, they can come up with decisions or just to give a highlight of one simple activity that we do it's about social skills because we know that children that we are dealing with come from various backgrounds and they don't know much about the social skills probably in the UK. So what we want them to do is to learn more about the what kind of social skills they need to develop and how they need to do and so we have an activity where we actually help children develop critical thinking about setting boundaries, giving consent to different things, having the freedom to say no if they are approached by people and we also through the activity we also highlight the fact that males and females, boys and girls are considered friends in the UK, they attend classes together in the UK and they are equal to each other and eventually they live equally in a society. So basically this approach is used because we don't want to just lecture the children, we want them to think by themselves because when they get to the UK this is what they will have to go through. Apart from that basically just to highlight a bit more about why we have such one hour or two hour sessions with the children on a daily basis because we really want to have room or to give room for the children to have maximum retention of information and to also have time to absorb what was delivered and have to or would be able to think by themselves and go home and digest all that was done for them and all these activities are done in a very fun setup and children really enjoy participating and for the 14 to 18 what happens is that when the children are attending the PDO session with their parents they're receiving a lot of information of course through learner-centered approach again and once the extra two hours are also given it reinforces all the information that they also received while attending the 15-hour PDO themselves. Now what I will do I will pass the microphone to my colleague Christelle to talk more about the the two other age groups 5 to 9 and 10 to 13 and highlight the experiences of the children also in the for these two age groups. Christelle. Hello everyone and thank you for joining us today. So I delivered the UK PDO for the age group 5 till 13 where in my classroom I want children to feel at ease to express themselves freely to share with me anything they want. So to start in my classroom I start with a warm-up activity and to break the ice between the students between the children and I. So we start with a small game it's a remembering names game where we express themselves by saying our names what do we want to do what do we expect in the UK and then during the session during the sessions when I want to stimulate the students critical thinking let's say let's say I'm talking about the education topic I asked my children to stand up take a look around the room we have a lot of pictures on the wall that are posted we have a picture of students in the UK in their schools so the children here they stand up take a look around the room and while they are looking around the room on the pictures at the pictures I ask them questions to stimulate their thinking and their creativity so I ask them to take a look while I'm asking them what do you see in these pictures what do you expect in the UK how's the school setting what do you see as for the technology what do you think at what time starts the school in the UK at what time you'll be back at home at what time you will have your lunch break or breakfast so the students here they have time to think and then we will discuss what do what do they have seen already on the post so the students will have few minutes to come up with few thoughts and then they will share it with me so my role here is not a teacher or a lecturer I'll be a facilitator I will guide them I will explain any misconceptions and at the end of each session we have a game that is a competition game where students will answer two or four questions that are also provided in the UK material book I will ask them the questions and at the end of the competition I will share who's the winner with them and at the end of the sessions we have a ticket an exit ticket where the students or the children will share with me their thoughts about how was the sessions and how was everything with them how did you find the sessions and can we please move to the second slide where we can see the codes that the children shared with us the second slide please too yes so in this slide we will go through the codes that the children have shared with me in the exit tickets so if you can please take a look at them and if you have any question please can you ask us and there is also please if you can move to the next slide where Talar will talk about it the building tomorrow together thank you Cristal well building tomorrow together was another activity that was initiated by the UK colleagues basically to actually it was created to support young people waiting to be resettled as refugees in the UK and this this basically project was it was created to help people understand that children understand that there are other children that they will be going to school with that have the same probably concerns and thoughts and ideas for a better future and a better tomorrow together and what we did between the UK and Lebanon is that we piloted this project and children were came to our classes they expressed their opinions also through different activities like the one you see in the picture where they talk about where they see themselves or how they see the future and through these activities we sent the material to UK where children from the same age groups also shared had shared their opinions or ideas and they exchanged these to see that they are somewhat alike and they think alike and they all wish to have a better future probably together and how it feels like being a refugee or a refugee going to the UK and becoming friends with children their age in the UK and as you see through the codes just to highlight that all children sometimes have the vision of a better future together where they talk about no please let's go to the building tomorrow together yes they talk about having living in a better world they wish to see a better world and going to a school where teachers do not hurt them or having interacting with each other in kindness and being respected and living in a place where the environment is clean and people follow rules and regulations and laws and by these activities it was there was the highlight was that we wanted to reduce discrimination and you know and encourage children to celebrate and respect diversity to have a positive shared future with each other and and think about what they can do to have a better future and how they can actually build tomorrow together and live in a better world thank you we are ready for questions Gertra thank you very much Cristal and Talar from sharing your experience in actually working with the children and the youth and it's excellent to hear how you're maybe not seeing yourself as a teacher but rather you know as a faceted act how you're encouraging you know the children to to think themselves because indeed pre-departure orientation is not just about conveying information it's also much more about you know encouraging you know the thinking and the skills so great to hear that I have a question for you as it is easier for children to learn new languages are you encouraging language skills as part of the process of inquiry when we talk about language skills of course you know we need to we have a lot of children sometimes who come who have some knowledge of let's say English because we're talking about the UK but then again there are words that are let's say used while facilitating these sessions that children can grasp we cannot fully focus on the language still because we want to focus on the skills as they start and the attitudes and building the knowledge skills and attitudes and then the language fails phase comes along while or when they resettle but when we have children who know the language we encourage them to share words or ideas with each other and also peer teaching can help a lot over here they can teach each other let's say certain words that they know certain expressions that they know and in this way language is mildly incorporated in the let's say during the sessions okay thanks Talad I have two questions that are perhaps a bit related so I will ask both questions and I think it's do you but perhaps also to Bindu to answer the question is do you use tablets laptops smartphones to facilitate activities for children and a related question to that is all of the training performed in person is technology used for any of the training or the follow-up okay um we can answer or if Bindu would like to intervene also Bindu yeah yeah sure um thank you Talad and and Hetra um yeah I think it's a really important question to to to dwell upon whether we're able to use technology and smartphones um in the UK CO classroom and it's something that we've been grappling with both for the adult curriculum but also for children but more so on the adult curriculum what we found is that it's not as easy to facilitate access to this because of the limited duration within which we engage with refugees but we're very keen to engage with technology and use technology so I think it's it's a work in progress at this point we we have been in contact with with companies to try and understand but there are a lot of considerations that we need to think about one is the digital literacy of refugees themselves and um given the vulnerability of the cohort I mean I think with the manner we found that at least with smartphones there's there's a lot more um interest and ease in using their smartphones maybe not so much with tablets and laptops uh whereas with campus refugees we find that that is uh even smartphones are are a far cry in terms of their access to to digital technology and and um ability to navigate the internet that being said their resettlement context is entirely technology driven so their access to benefits or their ability to navigate um life in the UK is all driven by technology so there is very much a need and we recognize this need however at this point we do not have the infrastructure in place to actually use all of this that doesn't mean we're not interested it just means we are very keen to see how we can make it accessible to a wide range of individuals some who are proficient to some extent with digital literacy and others who have not even got a smartphone yeah we do so you talk about indeed digital literacy that they're like actually of people to have access to laptops uh tablets and so forth um one of the participants is also asking is is there a connection issue as well um I think the connection is not so much a challenge I think in terms of infrastructure we are able to address that and there are different initiatives within the private sector for sure um in terms of you know digital classrooms or classroom in a box so those um challenges I think are more easily addressed um having said that I think technology is an issue for all of us connected even holding this webinar is a challenge so yeah sure and we're supposed to be experienced with this yes yeah would you like to also add to that that question uh regarding laptops, smartphones and uh tablets well it's also very important putting technology aside being active in the classroom is really important because children learn in such a fun way by running around the classroom by discovering things so having a laptop or a tablet will not facilitate that we want children to move we want children to discover rather than being bound to a screen so that's why the technique used was inquiry uh the inquiry uh process of inquiry because we want them to discover themselves and as Christelle was also explaining in the classrooms where children receive the child co we have a lot of colorful pictures hanging on the walls with where children have to go and discover themselves what they mean so that they can come up with questions and ideas rather than just having to scroll on a tablet or a laptop so that's why using uh the tablets or the laptops is not preferred in this case we would like children to be active because children have to be active basically and it really helps them to learn better okay thank you Talar I have a few more um questions um I was wondering is there not a risk uh for the children or the youth of getting disillusioned once they arrive to the UK how do you avoid children creating false expectations yeah indeed the whole question of expectation management who would like to answer okay Bindu do you want me to answer or would like to answer I think if you're okay give it a go I'm more than happy why don't both of us give it a go now as the pre-departure orientation programs as a whole our whole aim is managing expectations uh we're very realistic when it comes to the information delivered and while using activities and live pictures basically real life examples we really want children or the youth basically to discover the the reality of life rather than just drawing a picture which does not exist that's why we have this approach as we go back to the inquiry uh learning tool basically the scenarios that are given the activities that are given are real life experiences basically and how life is in the UK we just don't want to raise expectations we want them to discover and learn what life really is and how things happen that is why also for the children we have a lot of actual pictures of things in the UK like the library the school the transportation all of that and children are actually able to see and experience these things and ask questions about those and this is where the role of the trainer slash facilitator comes in we need to facilitate to tone down their expectations we need to facilitate them to for children to find out what the reality is rather than just having you know imagining or drawing let's say fairy tales in their minds so this is why the approach itself is used to manage expectations Bindu would you like to add yeah sure um I think from our rent also um uh continually to to to emphasize what what Allah said the effort is is to help children understand their role as rights holders and that's not just in a public space or at a societal level but also in family interactions in their relationships understanding things like consent understanding things like uh the way in which they can be communicated to um is is beating allowed is corporate punishment allowed how how what is a respectful way of being communicated to and these are all emphasized in the activities because like I said at the very start one is about managing expectations with the expectations of children are also about like the last said a happy life able to play and these are all what are the rights that are enshrined in the U. S. C. R. C. These are all what are the guiding philosophy of leave no one behind and particularly refugee children are a vulnerable uh cohort with whom we find that it's very important to talk about how they are able to navigate on their own issues of consent issues of um um uh freedom of expression the right to knowledge and information how to use a lot of that information um so when it doesn't directly answer your question um I wanted to emphasize that that is also a key part of of the cultural orientation for children and young people thank you thanks a lot uh I think that leads us nicely to the next question it's a question for Thalaire and Crystal um do you also touch sensitive topics like sexuality violence conflict between parents harassment and if yes how do you manage such sensitive topics okay um Crystal do you like to go ahead hello again so those sensitive topics yes we do talk about a few of them when it comes to the children there is sensitive topics that we cannot discuss with them but there is violence that we can discuss with them we give the students or the children the police number the number that they should have so if anything happens with them if there is any discrimination even so they can contact the police or they can even tell to their parents or in case there is any emergency too they can contact them so that's for the children so as for the youth I would give it to Thalaire thank you Crystal well for the youth um when we're discussing social skills or relationships yes these topics are touched upon let's say talking about if drug use is accepted or setting boundaries giving consent uh to the sexual talking about a bit about sexuality or the freedom of choice so this is why also the sessions for the youth are done in front of the parents to ensure the transparency because we know that parents do have concerns regarding these topics but when I talked about when we were discussing about the age group 14 to 18 I mentioned for a fact that sometimes children or the youth would prefer to have the sessions delivered not in front of their parents because they would have more freedom or they would feel more comfortable discussing about these issues so we give room it's optional sometimes for the parents to attend so when we get the chance let's say for parents if they are not there and children start asking questions again the trainer facilitator guides the children to think on their own what's right and what's wrong what's accepted and what's not so and in a very subtle manner these sensitive topics are touched upon okay thank you um I I have two more questions that that you know relate to to the topics you address and how you you tackle this um I have a question how do you tackle your people's cultural differences considering these refugee youth come from various backgrounds for example FGM religion and so forth and a second question um do you also inform them about your constraints minimum income and minimum standards uh learning the language takes time we'll also you know perhaps be difficult for them to to catch up with their peers when it comes to education we also deal with these uh constraints and how do you handle these cultural differences okay um handling the cultural differences now um again through the activities that we have in the children's manuals for the different age groups a lot about the culture the UK culture is covered for example and we also discuss about you know Christelle also mentioned that we talk about discrimination and how wrong it is to be discriminating people and again through the activities and through you know we have a character that we use and children identify themselves through this character and talk about a refugee character who was resettled to the UK just like themselves and what he went through so it's about feelings and emotions and how things must be done and what's right and what's wrong so it's all guided and um we know for for a fact that sometimes there will be difficulties adjusting to the new culture but using the youth uh co or the child co we we use it as a plot we use it as a platform for just to prepare the children about what's expecting them there you know to give them a highlight and we know that sometimes it's not an easy ride but we tackle these issues step by step you know we just plant the seeds and expect that eventually those seeds will grow and children will be able to adapt children are resilient at the end of the day so it will be easier sometimes for them to integrate now regarding religion and the different backgrounds we know that the UK is a very diverse country so religion uh all kinds of religions exist over there and there's freedom of belief and there's freedom for people to practice their religions and practice their cultures so that is also highlighted during these sessions I hope I answered the question thank you Christelle and perhaps this also goes back and of course this also goes back to um why we feel it's important to have you know the the pre-departure orientation delivered by cross-cultural facilitators rather than UK trainers because they you know will be better place to to understand and and address these cultural differences now I will combine the last questions there are a few questions that relate more to perhaps you know some of the modalities in which you deliver this youth PDO if we understand correctly the youth are also attending the normal PDO now if they attend the normal PDO sessions for five hours a day and after that they still have you know extra hours um for the youth specific PDO how do they deal with this you know long hours um isn't it um too much for them basically that's the first question and then there is also a question related to siblings if you have siblings from the same family would you have them in the same group or in a different group um and then finally also a question related to um remote delivery of PDO indeed now in these times of COVID-19 it's perhaps not always or not everywhere possible to have you know people in a classroom um can we consider um remote PDO through webinars or other you know virtual formats and are there any you know recommendations that you um would make on that to at least you know make it an interactive learning experience okay um I will start from the long hours of PDO for the youth now as mentioned earlier yes the youth 14 to 18 do attend the 15 hour PDO with their parents because uh all our PDOs are delivered to all all children or everyone above the age of 14 now again as I mentioned earlier because our sessions are very learner centered uh it's quite fun to be in the classroom let's say because there's a lot of interaction and of course we do not have the six hours in one go we have different breaks icebreakers energizers just to you know change the mood in the classroom and the extra hours for the youth when they are delivered um it's incorporated somehow with the adult PDO you know uh it reinforces the messages and also helps with the skills so children it's the children are usually happy to attend those then we're talking out of experience um they're happy to have to receive the extra information or to participate in the extra activities because they are really acquiring a lot of knowledge from there and they are enhancing their skills and their knowledge and their critical thinking and uh so that is why we do not believe that it's it's very long because they're completely separate from each other you know and by giving these little breaks they have enough time to absorb and reinforce the other messages that were also delivered for during the adult co sessions this is in a nutshell yes thank you and for the siblings would you let me the same room uh for the youth if the if the if there are siblings within the ages of 14 to 18 well they have to be in the same room uh it all depends on the age groups the age you know yes uh if I have two siblings in the age of within the ages of five to nine or 10 to 13 well they have to be in the same room because their parents are also attending the PDO at the same time but while doing the activities and Christelle can assist me over here uh when we try to have yes please do when we have siblings in the age of uh five to 13 we try to work in pair with someone else or we try to have a group work so the two siblings won't be in the same group but they will be attending the in the same classroom but they will be working in different groups okay good thanks and finally perhaps some of the remote PDO indeed maybe to to share with our participants that we as IOM have also been reflecting upon that prompted by you know the COVID-19 pandemic we also have been doing some thinking well um as Talar already explained for us the preference is still to have you know a classroom PDO because of the interaction it can create um if really this is not an option um we do would consider you know remote PDO better than no PDO um at all whether this is then done you know through through internet or through telephone um that depends all on the situation and of course also the the digital literacy skills of the beneficiaries but it's not our preferred option it would be you know a scenario where it is not possible or we would look actually at blended learning models where we could perhaps have smaller groups in the classroom to respect social distancing and at the same time follow up you know with remote PDO or telephonic or online um to reinforce um some of the messages so we exploring that and perhaps you know the COVID-19 is now even you know a motivation for us to innovate let us um put it like that there is one last question I will ask you to address and then we really have to move on to the commit and book um this question relates to um how you deal with attention between the parents and the sensitive information delivered in the youth PDO uh things such as uh sexual education dating sexuality for some regions this is a very sensitive matter so how do you deal with with perhaps possible tension with with the parents on on such um topics okay that's a very good question it's not an easy question um basically uh these topics are already covered for the parents also you know when we're discussing cultures when we're discussing laws rules regulations we have different activities that also highlight these points to the parents and we do not expect everyone just to change overnight but parents also need to let's say um understand that they have to respect uh certain cultures or certain uh let's say uh sexual orientation the sexual education we try to explain we try to of course through activities and everything we try to explain that this is the culture that they are going to and they will have to respect the law or the culture that exists in the country because they are going to be also become a part of that society and if they do not respect it's considered discrimination you know and um and we don't want anyone to be discriminated so these topics are also discussed during the adult PDO and the while the children are also present so when we touch upon these points or these topics while delivering delivering the youth PDO it's already covered somehow uh during the adult PDO so it makes it a little easier to to approach these topics it's never 100% easy because we always have people who actually object or uh let's say refuse to listen or refuse to believe but we do our best to deliver the messages and let them decide on how they will be eventually accept or not we cannot change everyone we're not there to change everyone we see yes thank you so much uh Talang for sharing your experience and there were a lot of questions from the participants um so I'm sure it's a topic that generates a lot of interest so thank you Christelle Talar um you also last notes also to say that of course when we talk about delivery uh methods uh whether you know we would consider remote PDO delivery uh whether there is youth PDO and so forth also depends on on a decision of course um made by the respective member states so um I remember is of course always in discussion with the member states and um uh there will be if I understand well even a meeting today with ASO where the discussion of um PDO delivery in times of COVID-19 is also on the agenda now with this uh I would like to move on to the very last uh session of our webinar uh where we're going to tell you a bit more about the manual the trainer's handbook uh we produced training refugee youth um this handbook is based precisely on experiences such as the one of IOM U.K. and our colleague Anna Giustiniani who's the project manager of the committee project will now tell you a bit more about this handbook Anna please you have the floor thank you Gertra and thank you very much for to all participants for the very interesting points raised so far uh so we are approaching the end of today's webinar and we wanted to present to you uh one of the deliverables of the committee project uh you see here the front page um I know um my colleague Rabab has already shared the link to uh download this so um we're really hoping that you will be able to go through this document very soon so today we wanted to share with you the process that brought us here um next slide thank you Rabab so we basically started from assessing the needs of the target group and how did we do this we reached out the PDO trainers to gather their inputs on the needs and challenges that refugees young refugees were expressing during the PDO sessions so at pre-departure stage and we tried to match them with the needs and concerns they expressed once resettling Europe we did this in particular through monitoring exercises that we have been conducting in in Europe in Italy and in Portugal especially in the last few years where we go and visit resettler refugees to understand what their experience was what they found the PDO the pre-departure orientation sessions were useful for and we collect their needs and concerns what we did next was to discuss at the regional event last year now one year passed from the regional event in Lisbon uh together with IOM experts national stakeholders we discussed the relevant contents to be included in the in the manual we of course looked at the curricula developed by more experienced countries as Bindu explained also this was the process they underwent also for developing the UK curriculum we looked specifically Australia Canada and the UK which has just been presented by our colleagues so this leads us to the next slide this handbook was not meant to be related to any specific country but was rather intended to include relevant contents for the target group you will see this when when looking at the at the manual contents that were able to address the concerns and needs that we had assessed as I explained before we built this tool by following the IOM's approach that is to say a learner-centered approach a participatory one and one that conducive to an interactive space as our colleagues from Lebanon has mentioned multiple times a tool that was easily adaptable and replicable to different contexts next slide please as you will hopefully see the handbook is made of nine different sections each devoted to specific issues without of sharing we do those that emerge clearly at both hands of the resettlement continuum free and post departure and we are happy to see that this issues was also we're also the ones just raised by your questions so we look at socializing how to build friendship and relations we try to look at the fears and concerns that young refugees have expressed and how to best accompany them as colleagues have explained in this in this process of adaptation we look at discrimination we look at peer pressure the pressure that young refugees can be subject to both from their peers and from their families this links to the next topic which is the family dynamics and cultural identity the difficulties that both parents and children go through when experiencing changes in family dynamics from their country of origin to their countries of first asylum and and then to the country of the resettlement issues like freedom of religion and expression issues like consent as was mentioned multiple times by our colleagues so to conclude next slide please we wanted to share with you some suggestions on how to possibly further use this tool as mentioned this can be easily adapted to any national context it is addressed to young refugees but content is relevant also for their parents as we've just seen for the case of the UK cultural orientation for this end book to be transferred into national pedio curriculum stakeholders in the countries of resettlement should work with trainers to adapt it and should collect inputs by refugees themselves we like in fact to conclude with this recommendation as one of the underlying principle of our work in this in this field in which we actively involve involved refugees in the development of the information material as well as in the information sessions and dressing them as they are in fact at the center of the whole process so I would like to finish with this remark and invite you all to visit the link that we have shared with you and we hope that this this is only the presentation of this of this guideline of this set of guidelines but we really hope that we will have the chance to discuss perhaps in a few months its actual implementation thank you yes thank you very much Anna indeed for sharing a bit more information about this new commit handbook on training refugee youth indeed we would like to encourage all of you to check it out so Rabab shared in the chat already the link to our website where you can find the handbook it's also been shared on our twitter account please feel free to retweet and share this handbook even more widely amongst your networks and of course as Anna said it's something that can be adapted to to many different national context perhaps can also you know be useful at the post arrival stage as we're trying to reinforce certain messages that we're giving pre departure also at the post arrival could be relevant as well in context of a relocation of under complete liners so basically it's something we like to share with you encourage you to use and definitely we would also be grateful for any feedback you have if you do use the handbook please let us know what you think any feedback is appreciated so with this I think we are coming to the end of our webinar I would like to thank all the speakers Laurence, Bindu, Christel, Talar, Anna for your contributions it was excellent also I would like to thank all the participants for the many questions you've asked I think this really shows it is definitely a topic we're all looking to explore further and finally to say that we'll of course share with all of you the recording of the webinar so you can watch it again we can also share the presentation of course and we would be happy to meet you again in our next Commit webinar for which you will receive an invitation in your course so with this I wish you an excellent afternoon and we hope to stay in touch bye bye