The "Brighter Future" project, coordinated by the UAB in collaboration with other European universities and entities, presents its final results after three years of research at a conference taking place on 9 and 10 February at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. The project has put together teaching material and resources to aid teachers in the schooling of children who are adopted, refugees, migrants and/or under the protection of the state.
The results of the project consist in a training module for teachers, made up of a variety of teaching materials, and an online library with information and resources.
"It is fundamental for teachers to have the information necessary to correctly interpret the behaviours and needs of these children," points out UAB researcher and project coordinator Beatriz San Román.
On 9 and 10 February, the Faculty of Education of the University of Santiago de Compostela will play host to the final congress of the Erasmus + project "Brighter Future: Innovative tools for developing full potential after early adversity". Organised in collaboration with the adoption association Manaia-Asociación Galega de Adopción e Acollemento, the conference entitled Transforming Schools will present the results and the materials created by the project, and will also serve to debate and reflect on this topic with international researchers, professionals, families and individuals who at some point in their life were in foster care.
The results of the project, to be presented by project coordinator and UAB lecturer Beatriz San Román, from the AFIN research group, will consist in a training module for teachers, made up of a variety of teaching materials, and an online library with information and resources. .
For three years, the international team working on "Brighter Future", coordinated by the UAB, has focused on identifying the challenges posed when schooling children and adolescents who have suffered childhood adversities and are or were under the protection of the state.
The congress will consist of several conferences and debates with experts from across Europe who were involved in the research. Topics covered will include how to accompany queer children at school, experiences of internationally adopted children, children in foster care, and refugees from Syria attending schools in the Netherlands, among many others. There will also be a round table to debate the education system's responses to infants and adolescents living in foster care, either with families or at residence halls, and those who were adopted.
In addition to experiencing the separation from their main attachment figures, many of these children have also experienced other forms of "early adversity", such as abuse, neglect, foster care or negative prenatal experiences (exposed to alcohol or other drugs). "These experiences can negatively affect the emotional and relational abilities and their cognitive processes", explains Beatriz San Román, lecturer of the UAB research group AFIN. "It is fundamental for teachers to have the information necessary to correctly interpret the behaviours and needs of these children," she points out.
The "Brighter Future" project team is formed by seven entities and universities from four different countries: Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom, and funded by the European Commission. The universities are the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the Univeristy of Verona (Italy) the University of Groningen (the Netherlands), in addition to the Turin City Council (Italy), the Coordinator of Adoption and Foster Care Associations (CORA) (Spain), the PaC UK/Family Action (United Kingdom) and the Pharos Expertise Center on Health Disparities (the Netherlands).
A guide to help cope with early adversity
One of the materials created during the project is a guide book entitled From Protection to Inclusion. During the three years of studym, researchers gathered information through discussion groups and interviews with young people who had been under guardianship of the state, in foster care or adopted, and teachers from primary and secondary school centres located in the four participating countries. The guide book offers 70 pages of useful information and practical tips, some of which are already being used in education centres in Spain.
In the guide book, researchers explain that the response of these children to chaotic and neglective care is often passiveness or fear. When these children enter the school system, the strategies and resources they may have learned to help them survive at home can be misinterpreted as "problematic behaviour". According to the researchers of the project, "When in life you learn that adults cannot be trusted, believing in them and accepting their rules can seem like an unsafe or risky option".
BRIGHTER FUTURE Final Congress
