Enhancing capacities in EU Member States and third countries to promote durable solutions for unaccompanied minors (through identification of good practices in family tracing and assessments as well as the provision of an enhanced reintegration approach)

Duration: January 2013 – September 2014

The project’s aim was to contribute to strengthening and building synergies within family tracing procedures and methodologies in the EU Member States and enhancing the sustainable reintegration and family support for unaccompanied minors choosing to return voluntarily to their countries of origin. The project was implemented in five countries of destination: Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, as well as in five countries of origin: Afghanistan, Albania, Iraq, Kosovo* and Pakistan.

The project consisted of two phases:

• The first phase, during which good practices and existing methodologies in the field of family tracing and assessments were gathered and innovative methods for family tracing and assessments in five EU Member States and in five countries of origin were explored.
• The second phase, which envisaged the implementation of family tracings and assessments combined with an enhanced reintegration approach in order to assist receiving families as well as to provide reintegration opportunities for the UAMs if voluntary return was deemed to be in the best interest of the child and as such the preferred option. Personal reintegration plans, tailored to the specific needs of the UAMs, were drafted, drawing on the recommendations from the “Life project approach” of the Council of Europe.

The project was co-financed by the European Return Fund, Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Belgian Federal Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers and the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations.

*References to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).