At VLC we often say that we serve some of the most vulnerable children in Warwickshire, whilst this is true for many of our students; we are becoming increasingly aware of the need to support refugee children and those seeking asylum in the UK. Many of these children will have experienced significant trauma, and therefore require additional therapeutic and trauma informed support in helping them to settle into education and to engage in society. Due to the nature of the way that refugees and asylum seekers arrive in the UK and Warwickshire there is often little time to quickly arrange school placements. Moreover, these young people and children have often experienced unimaginable trauma before and whilst relocating and therefore have needs beyond that of a mainstream school.
Before arriving in Warwickshire, the children will have had a range of schooling experience depending on the age, gender and socio-economic status of the child and the availability of schooling in their home country and elsewhere in the UK.
For children and young people, high quality care and provision is key in helping them to overcome psychological stress and trauma. Finding a sense of belonging, being able to make progress and achieve at school are fundamental to children’s ongoing wellbeing. School, or education, must be a safe environment in order for the child to be able to learn.
The vision behind Harbour is to provide a welcome to children and young people coming to the UK. Using our experience of alternative, trauma-informed high-quality education, Harbour seeks to support migrant children, young refugees and asylum seekers in three areas:
Through supporting schools with targeted trauma informed EAL intervention sessions. These sessions will also seek to support the Communication and Interaction needs and Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs of students, through play based therapeutic emotional literacy activities
To work alongside the LA in providing workshop based projects within temporary accommodation for children waiting to be placed in schools
To support and train existing schools in trauma informed, PACE approaches to help better meet the needs of migrant children.