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Counselling lab

The Counselling Lab aims to support member states in developing and operationalising return counselling mechanisms. While there are existing resources on basic return counselling (e.g., CADRE, current Frontex training on counselling), member states have asked the RRF to focus on specific settings or target groups, which remains underserved in terms of readily accessible guidelines and training tools.

The Counselling Lab will be conducted through a combination of online exchanges, onsite workshops, and virtual validation sessions with selected experts from across Europe. The topics to be covered include:

– Return counselling in open (pre-return) centers.

– Return counselling in detention centers (administrative/immigration detention).

– Return counselling for families with children.

– Empowering women returnees during counselling sessions.

Up to two additional topics may be identified as the activities progress. Cross-cutting issues like psychosocial support and micro-counselling will be integrated into all relevant themes.

Achievements
  • Formation of Expert Groups from member states, who, alongside other key stakeholders like civil society organizations, will regularly meet and actively contribute to developing content for each theme
  • Creation of a toolkit with guidelines and recommendations that will form the basis of a training module on the themes mentioned above, with the input from the Expert Groups.