During the surge in the arrival of refugees and migrants in Europe in 2015, more than 90,000 unaccompanied migrant children (UMCs) claimed asylum in Europe.
The majority of them were and still are placed in large scale residential care facilities despite the recommendation of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) to provide reception and accommodation of UMCs in foster care, since fewer children go missing from foster care in comparison to reception centres and institutions. Indeed at the beginning of 2016 Europol declared that 10,000 children were missing.
At the same time youth protection professionals and other professionals working with UMCs lack experience in dealing with this particular group of children and a large majority of them also lack training in preventing or responding to the disappearances of unaccompanied children.
The project FAB aims to improve the quality of and expand the access to family-based care (FBC) for UMCs.
To achieve the objectives, the following activities will be implemented:
15 January 2018 - 14 September 2019
After the mapping and analysis of the training situation for foster families and for staff of relevant institutions, the following reports have been produced (and will be available shortly):
Contact points in Austria for prosepective foster parents
A different kind of family addition: A story of foster care (in German)
Ondine Delavelle, Focal Point for Migrant Children
Tel.: +43 1 585 33 22 / 14
E-Mail: odelavelle@iom.int