3.9. Refugees, Migrants and Roma

CHILD-UP aims to provide schools, social services, reception centres, education and mediation agencies, and policy makers with knowledge about dialogic methods that can support professionals working with migrant children. The project combines innovation with well-proven traditions, enhancing the understanding of how to contribute to participative learning, integration, high-quality education, and protection.

The 'Guide for Roma school mediators/assistants', prepared by the Council of Europe, is aimed primarily at all categories of staff from the Roma community working to improve schooling conditions for Roma children. It is intended to provide staff with wide ranging tools and practical guidelines that can be adapted to different contexts. The guide considers the profiles of school mediators and assistants and their role in facilitating relations between the school and the Roma community(ies), between teachers and other school staff and parents of Roma children. The guides content is therefore designed to help improve the work of Roma school mediators and assistants and reduce the impact of any undesirable effects by providing structured day-to-day activity and highlighting aspects of mediation that are often not used in practice.

The ICAM (Including Children Affected by Migration) programme is an Erasmus+ programme designed to ensure that children who have been affected by migration can access education. The programme helps schools to create a safe and secure environment for children affected by migration to enable them to take full advantage of their education.

This monograph analyses and describes successful educational actions with a specific focus on vulnerable groups. Concrete data that shows success in school performance is provided, as well as on children, teachers and families accounts of the impact of this success. Alongside, there is an analysis of the relationship between these childrens educational performance with their inclusion or exclusion from different areas of society. This monograph provides actions for success identified through the INCLUD-ED project, thus providing both, contrasted data and solid theoretical background and development. Some examples of these actions are interactive groups, extension of the learning time, homework clubs, tutored libraries, family and community educative participation, family education, or dialogic literary gatherings. All these actions have been defined as successful educational actions, which mean that they lead to both efficiency and equity. Finally, recommendations for policy and practice are included and discussed.

Interactive Groups is one of the Successful Educational Actions (SEAs) identified in the research project INCLUD-ED. INCLUD-ED analysed educational strategies that contribute to overcoming inequalities and promote social cohesion, and those generating social exclusion, particularly focusing on vulnerable and marginalised groups. Interactive Groups are used to improve the education of children and youth in different contexts. They consist of grouping students in a class into small heterogeneous groups, each of them supported by an adult. Each of these groups is organised around four or five students, in a heterogeneous way regarding ability level, gender, culture, language and ethnicity. This example provides an understanding of IG and the results of their practice.

Dialogic Literary Gatherings (DLG) is one of the Successful Educational Actions (SEAs) identified in the research project INCLUD-ED. DLG are used to improve education of children and youth in different contexts around the world. DLG is a dialogic reading activity based on two principles: reading a classical literature book (as Romeo and Juliet, the Odyssey, Don Quixote) and then sharing meanings, interpretations and reflections with the dialogic learning methodology. It can involve children and their family members. This example provides an understanding of DLG and the results of their practice.

The InScool methodology is designed to flexibly guide schools through the start of a journey towards inclusion, improving personal and academic outcomes for all children and young people by focusing on their access to – and participation in – quality, relevant education.

LIT3 aims to promote family literacy (reading and health literacy) in Roma communities as a tool for raising the attainment level of Roma children in general education. To this end the project is developing and field testing a coherent family literacy programme targeting 3 generations; developing an evidence-based European policy for family literacy and engaging key stakeholders in developing local strategies for implementing family literacy policy and programmes. Samples of curricula and learning materials are available.

LERI is a qualitative action research project under FRA’s multi-annual Roma Programme. It was developed in response to the European Commission’s Communication on an EU Framework for National Roma integration strategies up to 2020. LERI brings together local authorities and residents, in particular Roma, to investigate how they can best be involved in Roma integration actions, and identify which aspects of these actions work, which do not, and why. The aim of the project is to facilitate the engagement of all local stakeholders, including Roma, in joint efforts to enable Roma inclusion. The experience gained and the lessons learned during the process will help improve the design, implementation and monitoring of Roma integration policies and actions at the local level.