PARENTable – communicating with parents of newly migrated children Erasmus Project

Project Title

PARENTable – communicating with parents of newly migrated children

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Integration of refugees; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

The project “PARENTable – communicating with parents of newly migrated children” is a transnational project together with (mediating) educators and parents in order to implement new communication formats and trainings that increase mutual understanding and build communication bridges between school facilities and families.

The aim of the project is (1) to gain and share knowledge about best-practice communication in Germany, Sweden, Italy and Turkey where educators and parents can exchange their views and (2) to develop an inclusive training concept for both educators and parents in order to better support newly migrated children between new school contexts and families. Parents can thus gain a deeper understanding of the challenges their children face and at the same time, they can also make their perspectives and needs heard at school.

The concept of PARENTable is to support newly migrated children in a holistic approach considering their parents as one of the most important pillars for their successful course of education. The results of the Europe wide conducted interviews will be edited and published as handbook. The training concept will be distributed as a manual as well as further developed into an e-learning course. The target groups of this project are educators and parents of newly migrated children aged 9-15 in Europe which will be gathered in this project.

PARENTable will provide concrete guidance material (handbook) based on interviews and hold transnational trainings in five different settings in Germany, Sweden, Italy and Turkey. The handbook will contain in-depth perspectives of parents and educators before, during and after trainings by conducting focus groups interviews. The transnational training activities will be composed equally with 7 parents and 7 educators and will consist of modules such as identities/self-esteem, supportive parenting, multilingualism, communication methods between school/parents and transnational families. These modules will be developed, re-evaluated and optimized by the transnational partner consortium in close accordance to this target groups during the project duration.

In order to have a wide impact, we attempt to work with educators that play a mediating role between newly migrated parents and schools and are critical for building communication bridges. Educators targeted during PARENTable will be mother-tongue tutors, mother-tongue cultural mediators that accompany newly arrived minor pupils, school counselors as well as teacher students that assist in intercultural school settings. Our developed training and guidance material later will be promoted for teachers’ education all over Europe.
Regarding parents of newly migrated children, we will gather parents who have an impact in their communities, but also who feel insecure and in need of assistance when it comes to supporting their children in new school contexts.

National and local integration politics are often focused on the immediate incorporation of newly arrived children into national schooling systems. However, educators and other actors within the school system mostly lack information about children’s family situation and their personal and educational histories. Besides, it is difficult to reach out to parents who don’t speak the local language and lack trust in school authorities.
Parents on the other hand don’t have access to knowledge about e.g. multilingualism and children’s identity formations in new settings. They might also be under immense psychological stress which prevents them from playing a positive role in supporting their children. Being themselves in unstable positions, they often put too much pressure on their children when it comes to school results. And finally, parents might feel discrimination and stereotypes from wider school contexts that prevents them from making their positions heard.

PARENTable wants to tackle these issues by offering a platform of communicating and educating both educators and parents with a transnationally developed training that is closely adopted to the needs and experiences of families and educators all over Europe alike.

Project Website

https://www.parent-able.com/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 352474 Eur

Project Coordinator

PADAGOGISCHE HOCHSCHULE SCHWABISCH GMUND & Country: DE

Project Partners

• MUGLA SITKI KOCMAN UNIVERSITY
• UNIVERSITA DELLA CALABRIA
• HOGSKOLAN I GAVLE
• Back on Track e.V.