In Europe, the majority of unaccompanied minors (UAMs) are placed in institutional reception provisions. However, practices exist to make use of reception provisions within families. This is seen as a promising approach. Until shortly, the knowledge of these practices and approaches in different countries was incidental and scattered.
From September 2013 to March 2015, Nidos (the Netherlands) in cooperation with Counter Human Trafficking Bureau (CHTB, UK) and SALAR (Sweden) ran a project with co-funding by the European Commission, aiming to develop knowledge on the reception provisions within families for UAMs. The goal of the project was to map the current practice and promote the reception of UAMs in families.
Goals
Not all European Union countries do currently have reception provisions within families in place, and those countries that do have provisions, sometimes face capacity problems, especially with hosting adolescents. With this in mind, the project promoted the reception of UAMs within families by:
- Increasing knowledge available throughout the EU;
- Connecting relevant stakeholders;
- Promoting good and promising practices;
- Offering country-by-country strategies on increasing family reception for UAM’s.
In order to make a full inventory of family reception for UAMs in each EU member state, the project group made study visits to a large number of countries and did desk research.
Country profiles
The country profiles in the right sidebar give a brief overview on reception of UAMs within families per country. A more detailed description (also on reception in general) is to be found in the final report.
Conference
The conference “Reception of Unaccompanied Minors in Families”, held on 22 and 23 January 2015 in Amsterdam, provided an opportunity to hear about the country-by-country reception arrangements for and an overview of the strategies on increasing family reception for unaccompanied minors. Read more on the Conference page
Contact
Liedewij de Ruijter de Wildt
Project manager RLF
l.deruijterdewildt@nidos.nl