Peer Integration and Enhancement Resource (responsible expert: University of Sussex, UK; implementing partners: University of Sussex, UK; University of Tampere, Finland)

The PIER intervention works with a Manual and an Implementation protocol.

Watch our short video here explaining the PIER intervention

The intervention builds on research undertaken by Watters and colleagues (2009) in schools in the UK that observed an integrationist attitude as positively associated with two psychosocial outcomes: self-esteem and peer acceptance. The findings provided strong support for Berry’s (1997) prediction that an acculturation attitude that combines both culture maintenance and intergroup contact will have the most favourable prognosis for well-being.

However, the research found that an integrationist outlook at one time point predicted a greater number of negative emotional symptoms suggesting that endorsing integration was something of a two-edged sword: it increased self-esteem and acceptance by peers, but also led to manifesting more negative emotional symptoms. The research indicated that the quest to be integrated, involving engagement alongside cultural maintenance may have consequences in terms of discriminatory behaviours.

In a study of educational achievement in Belgian secondary schools, it was found that an integrationist orientation was linked to academic success only for students who experienced relatively low levels of discrimination; for those reporting higher levels of discrimination, academic achievement was noticeably lower (Baysu, Phalet & Brown, 2011).

A helpful orientation towards examining intergroup interactions in this context is to focus on the generation of social capital, specifically the ways in which both bonding and bridging social capital is developed in schools. Previous research has demonstrated the close relationship between bridging social capital and an integrationist approach (Watters et al., 2009). This intervention provides an opportunity to examine strategies aimed at developing positive peer interactions and social support in the context of multi-ethnic schools.

PIER has been initially based in a school that has introduced refugee children in recent years and has been active in trying to support an integrative approach. The school offers specific initiatives aimed towards enhancing students integration including classes aimed at appreciating cultural diversity and focussed on the `World on the Move’ that aims to enhance understanding of migratory processes.

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Resources

PIER_Manual. Watters, C., Soye, E., & Meier, I. (2021). Peer Integration and Enhancement Resource (PIER) Manual. UK: University of Sussex.

PIER_Student Materials

PIER Implementation Protocol. Soye, E., Watters., C. & Punamäki, R.L. (2021). RefugeesWellSchool implementation protocol: Peer Integration and Enhancement Resource (PIER). Sussex, Gent: University of Sussex, Ghent University.

Peltonen, K., Aalto, S., Vänskä, M., Lepistö, R., Punamäki, R.-L., Soye, E., Watters, C., de Wal Pastoor, L., Derluyn, I., & Kankaanpää, R. (2022). Effectiveness of Promotive and Preventive Psychosocial Interventions on Improving the Mental Health of Finnish-Born and Immigrant Adolescents. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(6), 3686. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19063686

Teaching Recovery Techniques (responsible expert: University of Tampere, Finland; implementing partners: University of Tampere, Finland; University of Uppsala, Sweden)

The TRT intervention works with a Manual and an Implementation protocol.

Watch our short video here explaining the TRT + INSETT intervention

Each session lasts between 90 to 120 min and includes skills training, rehearsal and homework. Two group leaders who receives training in TRT deliver the sessions.

The second and third session focuses on intrusion. The group discuss war-related news and discuss common reactions to trauma and to practice visualizing “safe place”. The second session is about normalizing common experiences in war. Then, in the third session, the group discusses intrusively thoughts and learn about imaginary techniques.

The fourth session is about arousal. The group practices relaxation techniques and coping self-statement.

The fifth and sixth sessions are about exposure, and traumatic reminders are discussed. In session five, the group practices how to plan a real-life grades exposure. In session six, the group learn how they can expose themselves to trauma memories by talking, writing and drawing and use the coping strategies they learn in the previous sessions. The group also discusses the importance of doing enjoyable things.

The last session is a follow-up session and aims to discuss in a more relaxed way without discussing further the content of the intervention. The two sessions for the caregivers are held without children. The first session for the caregivers is held before the session for the children starts, and the second session is held between the second and fourth session for the children.

In 2017, Chap group at Uppsala University conducted an exploratory trial on TRT including 10 groups (N=55) of 13-18-year-old, mainly male, unaccompanied refugee minors (URM). Pre- and post-measures were available for 46 participants (84%). Although more than half (62%) of the participants reported negative life events during the study, both PTSD and depression symptoms decreased significantly after the intervention; 22% recovered from their PTSD symptoms, while 33% recovered from depressive symptoms (Sarkadi et al., 2017).

Overall, our results indicated that TRT, a light-touch intervention delivered in the community, is a promising indicated preventive program for URM with PTSD symptoms. Tampere University have several years’ of experience with TRT in Palestine and have published a number of studies on its efficacy (e.g., Qouta, et al., 2012).

 

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Resources

In-Service Teacher Training with Teaching Recovery Techniques Implementation Protocol. Punamäki, R.L., Durbeej, N., Peltonen, K., Pastoor, L. D. W., & Osman, F. (2022). RefugeesWellSchool implementation protocol: In-Service Teacher Training + Teaching Recovery Techniques. Tampere, Gent: University of Tampere, Ghent University.

Teaching Recovery Techniques Manual. Smith, P., Dyregrov, A., Yule, W., Perrin, S., Gupta. L. & Gjestad, R. (1999). A manual for Teaching Survival Techniques to child survivors of wars and major disasters. Bergen, Norway: Foundation for Children and War. (see www.childrenandwar.org)

Durbeej, N., McDiarmid, S., Sarkadi, A., Feldman, I., Punamäki, R. L., Kankaanpää, R., Andersen, A., Hilden, P. K., Verelst, A., Derluyn, I., & Osman, F. (2021). Evaluation of a school-based intervention to promote mental health of refugee youth in Sweden (The RefugeesWellSchool Trial): study protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial. Trials, 22(1), 1-13.

Kankaanpää, R., Aalto, S., Vänskä, M., Lepistö, R., Punamäki, R-L., Soye, E., Watters, C., Andersen, A., Hilden, P. K., Derluyn, I., Verelst, A., & Peltonen, K. (2022). Effectiveness of psychosocial school interventions in Finnish schools for refugee and immigrant children, “Refugees Well School” in Finland (RWS-FI): a protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial. Trials, 23(79), 1-14.

Classroom Drama Therapy Program (responsible expert: KULeuven, Belgium; implementing partners: KULeuven, Belgium; University of Copenhagen, Denmark; University of Sussex, UK)

The Classroom Drama intervention works with a Manual and an Implementation protocol.

Watch our short video here explaining the Classroom Drama Therapy intervention

The intervention is based on Boal’s forum and Fox’ playback theater (Fox, 2000), and was developed at McGill Transcultural Psychiatry and Concordia University Creative Arts.

Playback theatre consists of a specific modality of improvisational practice aiming at personal and social transformation through sharing lived experiences within a ritual space. Revolving around a commitment to social justice, playback theatre provides possibilities to address migration-related themes (e.g., exile, exclusion, inequality), revolving around the actively re-shaping of social structures in theatre practice and enabling dynamic relational positions to emerge within a participant group.

The program consists of a nine-week sequence of 75-minute sessions, set up with the regular class group. Coordinated by a play director, a team trained actors and musicians (with experience in applied theatre in vulnerable communities) develop a theatrical representation of stories shared by participant-adolescents. In response to this replay, students participate in a joint reconstruction of the story, enabling the dynamic shifting of meanings and the empowering experience of modifying situations and moving from positions of passivity to agency and co-construction.

Throughout the 10-week program, student involvement and topic complexity gradually increase. Studies have indicated that participation in the drama workshop intervention program was associated with a decrease in psychosocial impairment in first-generation migrant and refugee adolescents (Rousseau et al., 2007, 2014).

 

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Resources

Classroom Drama Manual (EN). Plurality Theater team ÉRIT (2010). Plurality Theatre: Training Manual, Creative Expression Workshops. Montreal: Team for transcultural research and intervention.

Classroom Drama Implementation Protocol. Spaas, C., de Smet, S., Primdahl, N.L., Skovdal, M., Soye, E., Watters, C., & De Haene, L. (2021). RefugeesWellSchool implementation protocol: Classroom drama intervention. Leuven, Gent: KU Leuven, Ghent University.

Welcome To School (responsible expert: University of Copenhagen, Denmark; implementing partners: University of Copenhagen, Denmark; KULeuven, Belgium; NKVTS, Norway)

The WTS intervention works with a Manual and an Implementation protocol.

Watch our short video here explaining the Welcome To School intervention

The initiative consists of 14 sessions that bring refugee and migrant adolescents of a class group together in small discussion groups under the guidance of their teacher. The units seek to build bridges between the past, the present and the future, and cover a range of themes, such as people of importance, friendships, being in love and dating, leisure time, discrimination and visions for the future.

Throughout the programme, adolescents are encouraged to share experiences, thoughts and difficulties, and to collectively identify ways of dealing with certain stressors or problems. Emphasizing non-verbal techniques, such as drawing and drama, the adolescents will discover mutual difficulties and identify opportunities to co-construct solutions and ways forward – fortifying the social support networks of these young newcomers.

We draw on lessons learnt from this initiative across three European countries (Belgium, Norway and Denmark) to carefully revise and adapt the manuals and session plans.

 

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Resources

WTS Manual. Tuk, B., & de Neef, M. (2020). Welcome to School: Facilitating school-based social support for adolescent newcomers. Teacher manual. Utrecht: Pharos.

Available in English, Danish, Dutch (BE), Dutch (NL), and Norwegian.

WTS Student book. Tuk, B., & de Neef, M. (2020). Welcome to School: Facilitationg school-based social support for adolescent newcomers. Newcomer workbook. Utrecht: Pharos.

Available in English, Danish, Dutch (BE), Dutch (NL), and Norwegian.

WTS Implementation Protocol. Primdahl, N.L., Spaas, C., Andersen, A. J., Hilden, P.K., Jervelund, S. S., De Haene, L., & Skovdal., M. (2021). RefugeesWellSchool implementation protocol: Welcome to School. Copenhagen, Gent: University of Copenhagen, Ghent University.

In-Service Teacher Training (INSETT) (responsible expert: NKVTS, Norway; implementing partners: NKVTS, Norway; Uppsala University, Sweden)

The INSETT intervention works with a Manual and an Implementation protocol.

Watch our short video here explaining the INSETT intervention

The intervention, which is being developed by Lutine de Wal Pastoor (NKVTS), intends to strengthen teachers’ competence and self-efficacy in three areas:

• Promoting refugee/migrant students’ mental health and psychosocial wellbeing;
• Encouraging positive interethnic relationships and strengthening school belonging;
• Fostering supportive interrelationships with parents, caregivers and/or guardians to promote school involvement.

In other words, INSETT seeks to make teachers and schools (more) ‘refugee competent’ (Pastoor, 2015).

The INSETT intervention runs over a period of 10-12 weeks. It consists of three interrelated course modules, i.e., two collective learning modules (whole-day seminars) and – in between – an individual module (the Augeo online course).

As a thematic framework, INSETT uses the Dutch Augeo Foundation’s online teacher training course “Providing support to refugee young people”. This online course consists of 8 sections, ‘lectures’ that can be followed flexibly and separately (4-5 hours of study in total). Each lecture deals with a special theme, including theory, case histories, exercises and recommendations for further reading.

Certain themes of the online course are elaborated upon in the two full-day seminars for the participating teachers. A joint introductory seminar starts off the INSETT intervention and explains its goals, content, design and methods, as well as its implementation in relation to the particular national and institutional context. Furthermore, main migration terms are discussed, as well as how the refugee/migration experience may have an impact on students’ school functioning and wellbeing.

After having completed the Augeo online course, a final follow-up seminar allows the participants to share their experiences and to elaborate more on certain topics of interest. Relevant topics here are, amongst others, trauma and stress, the therapeutic ‘window of tolerance’ (Ogden et al., 2006; Siegel, 1999), self-regulation and other coping techniques (Schultz, 2013). Another central topic is identity and belonging, especially the importance of developing a sense of school belonging which increases students’ well-being as well as the likeliness to succeed in school (Kia-Keating & Ellis, 2007).

The online Augeo course module included in INSETT can be accessed in Finnish, Norwegian or Swedish at the Augeo Academy online platform.

 

You want to know more? Click here or have a look at the resources!

 

Resources

In-Service Teacher Training Manual. Pastoor, L. d.W. (2019). RefugeesWellSchool Intervention Manual: In-Service Teacher Training (INSETT) – Psychosocial support to young refugees. Working Paper, 20.02.2019. Oslo: Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies.

In-Service Teacher Training Implementation Protocol. Hilden, P. K., Osman, F., Pastoor, L. d. W., Punamäki, R. L., & Andersen, A. J. (2022). RefugeesWellSchool implementation protocol: In-Service Teacher Training. Oslo, Gent: Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies, Ghent University.

Augeo online courses:

Finnish: https://www.augeo.nl/en/refugee-youth/finnish/

Swedish: https://www.augeo.nl/en/refugee-youth/swedish/

Norwegian: Læringsstøtte til ungdommer med flyktningbakgrun (augeo.nl)

‘Material on ‘Cultural competence – Theory and cases’ Osman, F. (2019): Cultural competence. Theory and cases. PowerPoint lecture presentation in the INSETT training introductory seminar. Uppsala University, Department of Public Health and Caring Science.

Material on_’Trauma_impact on learning and creating stability’. Punamäki, R.-L. (2019). Trauma impact on learning and creating stability. PowerPoint lecture presentation in the INSETT training introductory course.

Durbeej, N., McDiarmid, S., Sarkadi, A., Feldman, I., Punamäki, R. L., Kankaanpää, R., Andersen, A., Hilden, P. K., Verelst, A., Derluyn, I., & Osman, F. (2021). Evaluation of a school-based intervention to promote mental health of refugee youth in Sweden (The RefugeesWellSchool Trial): study protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial. Trials, 22(1), 1-13.

Kankaanpää, R., Aalto, S., Vänskä, M., Lepistö, R., Punamäki, R-L., Soye, E., Watters, C., Andersen, A., Hilden, P. K., Derluyn, I., Verelst, A., & Peltonen, K. (2022). Effectiveness of psychosocial school interventions in Finnish schools for refugee and immigrant children, “Refugees Well School” in Finland (RWS-FI): a protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial. Trials, 23(79), 1-14.

Peltonen, K., Aalto, S., Vänskä, M., Lepistö, R., Punamäki, R.-L., Soye, E., Watters, C., de Wal Pastoor, L., Derluyn, I., &  Kankaanpää, R. (2022). Effectiveness of Promotive and Preventive Psychosocial Interventions on Improving the Mental Health of Finnish-Born and Immigrant Adolescents. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(6), 3686. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19063686