Questions/Answers

The ‘Open.Heart’ project was developed by the Kinder- und Jugendanwaltschaft (thereafter: KIJA) Salzburg - the Ombudsoffice for children and young people in Salzburg - in 2015 as a response to the unmet needs of unaccompanied asylum seeking children arriving in increasing numbers in Salzburg. Despite being under the age of 18 these young people were - and still are - unable to access the same level of support granted to Austrian born children. They are being treated as asylum seekers first and foremost and therefore receive limited care and support. With the ‘Open.Heart’ project the KIJA aims to enable these young people to access additional support in their daily lives and – being otherwise relatively isolated – to establish new social networks living in Salzburg. The project is based on a mentoring scheme allocating each child or young person a volunteer mentor. These mentors receive training involving six modules covering central issues affecting the young people’s lives, such as the asylum system or experiences of trauma. Once the training has been successfully completed and the project team has found a suitable ‘match’, mentors and mentees meet on a regular basis. During this time the project team offers ongoing support. As asylum seekers these children are furthermore unable to access traditional foster care arrangements. In collaboration with local politicians the KIJA has therefore developed an alternative model of foster care for this particular target group. If mentors are able and willing to offer living space, mentors and mentees can decide to move on to a supported foster care arrangement. Only mentors who have received training by the ‘Open.Heart’ project can act as foster carers. As such they can then access emotional and practical support by SOS Kinderdorf, a project partner of ‘Open.Heart’.

A main objective of the project is to enable the integration and social inclusion of young refugees living in Salzburg. What is crucial for processes of integration is the creation of equal opportunities for different populations. Considering the structural exclusion of young refugees in Austria, the project aims to enable young refugees to access additional support and to establish social relationships in their new surroundings. The project also enables refugee children wishing to live with families to access foster care. Both mentors as well as foster carers provide important social capital for these young people and play a crucial role for their ability to navigate their new surroundings. However, the project team sees integration not as one-dimensional, but as a two-way process. The project thus equally aims to contribute to the learning of mentors regarding issues surrounding migration and asylum, and provides the opportunity for mentors to increase their intercultural knowledge and competencies. The emerging relationships between mentors and mentees hold an important emotional and social value for both parties. Overall the project thus aims to contribute to an inclusive society in which dialogue and relationships between different kinds of people can emerge.

Following the increased movement of refugee populations into Austria in 2015 the KIJA Salzburg was particularly concerned about the wellbeing of children arriving on their own. As asylum seekers and as children these young people face particular vulnerabilities and exclusions in their new surroundings. Public services at the time were overwhelmed with the new situation and struggled to provide adequate care and support. Unaccompanied asylum seeking children to this day are unable to access the same level of care and accommodation provided to their Austrian and EU born peers. They do not receive intensive one-on-one support from social workers and are predominantly accommodated in flat shares established especially for young refugees. Drawing attention to the impact of these policies, the KIJA continues to fight against this two-tier system not recognising young refugees under the age of 18 as ‘children’ with the same rights as Austrian or EU-born children. In addition the KIJA has implemented the ‘Open.Heart’ project as an immediate response to these challenges. The mentoring project enables young people to access additional support in their daily lives and – being otherwise relatively isolated – to establish new social networks living in Salzburg. Moreover, the KIJA has been able to find an alternative solution to offer foster care to unaccompanied asylum seeking children.

One of the targets of the 2030 Agenda is the reduction of inequalities. As indicated above the KIJA Salzburg has drawn attention to significant gaps in the support available to asylum seeking children. This group is unable to access the same level of support as their Austrian or EU born counterparts. Refugee children in Austria are therefore not only vulnerable in terms of having experienced flight, traumatic experiences and long hazardous journeys, but also in terms of experiencing structural exclusion. Being based at the regional level, the KIJA Salzburg tries to counteract some of the harmful national policies aimed at asylum seeking children and young people in Austria. The KIJA Salzburg sees it as a central obligation for public services to either remove obstacles or to find new and innovative ways to act within the restrictive national policy framework. While the KIJA continues to advocate for refugee children’s right, through the ‘Open.Heart’ project it has also developed alternative support mechanisms for young people. In doing so it is possible to contribute to their economic, political and social inclusion. The project is, however, not only targeted at asylum seeking children and young people, but also aims to create a more inclusive society by enabling intercultural exchange, dialogue and learning.

As the regional government’s body for child and youth advocacy the KIJA is particularly concerned about the lack of support available to asylum seeking children. Despite being under the age of 18 they are supported by funds allocated to asylum seekers rather than by funds allocated to child and youth welfare. A lengthy asylum process means that children usually ‘age out’ before being granted status and thus being able to access support and care afforded to Austrian and EU born children. Unaccompanied asylum seeking children cannot hark back on intensive one-to-one support of social workers and are predominantly accommodated in accommodation specifically for young asylum seekers. In addition traditional foster care is not available to these young people. This is where the ‘Open.Heart’ project comes in. It provides young people with the support of mentors, thus enabling access to important social networks and social capital. This can to some extent balance - although of course not entirely substitute - the lack of institutional support. The development of an alternative model of foster care similarly aims at creating further support systems. The project is based on the active participation of civil society, which is seen as closely interlinked with public services.

Broadly speaking the ‘Open.Heart’ project targets two groups - on the one hand young asylum seekers arriving in Salzburg, on the other more long-term residents of the region acting as volunteer mentors. For the young people, who overall experience isolation and receive little support living in Salzburg, the project enables the emergence of new social networks and represents an important source of social capital. By working with young people until the age of 21 the ‘Open.Heart’ project also addresses the problem of young people losing the already limited care and support they get as ‘children’ when turning 18. In this difficult transition time mentors can provide a sense of continuity and stability. Moreover, with its connection to foster care arrangements, the project aims to enable children wishing to live with families to access foster care. However, these emerging relationships are equally important for mentors. Both mentors as well as young people can learn and grow through and with each other in a supported environment. Through being part of the project mentors can learn about the young people’s cultures, their particular experiences of flight and migration and can increase their own intercultural competencies. The relationships furthermore hold an important emotional value for both mentors and mentees.

Over the recent years immigration policies in Austria have become increasingly restrictive. Refugees are being more and more excluded from mainstream services. Whilst continuing to advocate for refugee children’s right, the KIJA has developed a unique approach in Salzburg by relying on the strength of individual relationships in creating a more inclusive society. As research has shown, personal relationships are key to integration and refugees’ ability to resettle and furthermore contribute to the reduction of prejudices. The relationships established in the context of the project are thereby – and this is central – professionally supported, providing training and offering ongoing emotional and practical support. A particularly innovative feature of the project is furthermore its implementation of an alternative model of foster care. Not being acknowledged as ‘children’ with the same rights as their Austrian counterparts, refugee children until recently were unable to access foster care. With a new model based on funds allocated to asylum seekers these young people can now live with locals, which is a crucial step to enabling their integration into Austrian society. It is also unusual in allowing mentors and mentees to get to know each other before making an informed decision whether a foster arrangement would suit both parties.

When first being developed the ‘Open.Heart’ project could draw on the wealth of experience the KIJA already had with a similar mentoring project aimed at Austrian born and migrant children – namely the ‘Mutmachen’ (‘Encouragement’) project. This project has existed for more than eleven years and has rendered visible the importance of positive individual relationships with adults for children and young people. As part of the ‘Mutmachen’ project a young person is paired with a mentor who receives training regarding central issues shaping the young person’s life. It is explicitly not a ‘buddy-project’ since it expects the mentor to be able to hark back on life experience that enables him or her to actively support the young person with their daily needs. Mentors can be individual people, as well as groups of people – such as families or friends. Through Mutmachen mentors can access ongoing support and training, which has also proven essential for the ‘Open.Heart’ project. Unlike ‘Mutmachen’, however, ‘Open.Heart’ is geared particularly to the needs and experiences of young refugees. The training provided to ‘Open.Heart’ mentors covers issues such flight and trauma, intercultural competencies or the asylum system and support available to asylum seekers in Austria.

Currently the ‘Open.Heart’ project team consists of three staff members. The team leader is employed by the KIJA Salzburg and allocates between 15 to 20 hours per week to working on the project. In addition two staff members support the project leader on a part-time basis. Since continuity and strong relationships are vital for the success of the project, all team members have been part of the project from its very beginning. In addition a number of external actors play a crucial role in the running of the project, for example a psychotherapist offering supervision to mentors. The financing of the project is currently covered by different pots of funding. The KIJA itself contributes about 51,000 Euros per year to the project. Furthermore the Salzburg based Hil Foundation provided 30,000 Euros in order to get the project up and running, covering the period from January 2016 to March 2017. A further contribution to the project was made by the Dreyer Charity Fund, which has given about 8,000 Euro to the project. Lastly, the project has received the Bank Austria Sozialpreis 2016, an award of 6,000 Euros given by the Bank Austria to particularly outstanding social projects.

Yes

On a national level the KIJA works closely with its equivalences in other parts of the country. In 2016 a networking meeting was organised by the KIJA Salzburg between representatives of the organisation in all other regions of Austria and other refugee mentoring projects. Here the project team could share their knowledge and learning from the project. It is currently the only KIJA in Austria providing this kind of service and could thus influence and inspire institutions in other regions of Austria. These networking meetings are now scheduled once a year, each time being hosted by a different regional agency. In addition the new model of foster care available to refugee children was a unique project of the regional government. It has since also influenced other areas of Austria and will hopefully continue to do so. On a regional scale the project team currently tries to extend the project to more rural and remote areas of Salzburg. This, however, depends on future funding available to the project. Lastly, one of the mentors of the project has taken inspiration from the ‘Open.Heart’ project in order to develop a buddy scheme for refugees seeking employment (see fairmatching.com).

The ‘Open.Heart’ project’s aim is to enable relationships between young refugees and more long-term residents of Salzburg. Sustainable relationships thereby lie at the heart of the project – mentors and mentees are expected to meet regularly over a substantial period of time. As the previous mentoring project (‘Mutmachen’) of the KIJA has shown, relationships often last many years - some have even spanned over the life-time of the project. By being connected with the foster family project of SOS Kinderdorf, the project encourages relationships to develop even further and to enable young people to live with families. Here mentors who are able to provide a living space can get to know young people and both can at a later stage decide to live together. Current foster arrangements emerging from the ‘Open.Heart’ project show the strength and high emotional value of relationships emerging in this context. Moreover, relationships between mentors and mentees are not limited to participants of the project. To begin with, new mentors are often recruited through previous volunteers who have spread the word. In addition both mentors and mentees are able to meet and interact with the social networks of the other person; friends and family of mentors are thus for example also able to interact with and learn through meeting a young person from a different cultural, ethnic and religious background. The project thus reaches beyond the immediate relationship between mentors and mentees. In terms of the financial sustainability of the project, the KIJA can provide for the role of the team leader and central running costs of the project. Further funding has been continuously secured from additional sources.

Overall, all of the factors discussed above relate to time. Relationships emerging through the project are intended to be long-term and can span over several years, possibly even a lifetime. When first being interviewed by the project staff, future mentors are asked about their availability and time resources. Mentors have to be able to commit to meeting a young person at least once a week over a minimum of one year. The relationships are thus designed to be long-term and lasting from the very beginning. As indicated above, these individual relationships also have a ripple effect. They do not only affect those directly involved, but have a large effect on society. Mentors share their experiences with their own social networks and enable young people to also become part of these networks. As such the project long-term tries to contribute to a more inclusive and just society. Lastly, in terms of financial sustainability the position of the project leader is secured by the KIJA itself, the existence of the project is therefore assured. Currently the regional child and youth welfare agency is furthermore looking into whether to turn the project into a statutory service.

Yes

The project has so far been evaluated twice. A team of researchers based at the University of Salzburg has accompanied the project during its initial phase. The team consisted of a lead researcher, a professor of Social Work, and four student researchers. This research project involved participant observation of training provided to mentors, semi-structured interviews with mentors, as well as focus groups with young people. Mentors were thereby questioned both before beginning to act as mentors as well as several months into their mentoring relationship. More recently the KIJA Salzburg has carried out an internal evaluation. Mentees were invited for focus groups to discuss their experiences. In addition questionnaires were sent out to mentors, as well as accommodation staff working with young refugees. Overall 24 mentors, 15 young people and five accommodation workers took part in this internal evaluation.

Both evaluations have shown that relationships emerging through ‘Open.Heart’ play a crucial emotional role in the lives of both young people and adults. For young people having lost or left behind their families, having a mentoring relationship can provide an important sense of belonging, which is for example highlighted by the research team at the University of Salzburg. Furthermore both evaluations show that relationships with mentors represent crucial social capital for young people. They can provide young people with support in everyday life - for example when trying to find a job or a new flat. In addition mentoring relationships are also highly important to mentors. They can for example help mentors to deal with the sense of powerlessness they experience in the light of an increasingly hostile environment towards immigrants. Through being mentors they feel that they can contribute to a more just and welcoming society. Lastly, a central finding of the project’s evaluations regards the significance of the institutional setting for these personal relationships. Mentors stress the benefits of being able to hark back on institutional support and to receive training before starting on the new journey with their mentees.

In terms of quantitative measurements an important indicator of the success of the project is the length of relationships established. As the scholar Jean Rhodes suggests, continuity and duration are central to mentoring relationships. Of the mentor/mentee relationships established so far, the large majority are still ongoing. A mentor of the ‘Open.Heart’ project interviewed about his relationship with the mentee for example commented that ‘friendship does not have an expiration date’. It is difficult to provide quantitative measurements of highly personal and individual relationships. The internal evaluation for example gives an overview of central numbers – how many mentors have been trained, how many relationships emerged, countries of origin of mentees. It furthermore explored the frequency of contact, the kind of contact, the importance and value of the training given. The external evaluation focused on the training and notions of mentors and mentees, and the emotional and social impact of these relationships on mentors and mentees.

The ‘Open.Heart’ project is embedded in a network consisting of a number of different organisations and individuals. To begin with, it has a very good working relationship with the general public administration of Salzburg. The project team has also worked closely with local politicians responsible for areas of social issues and integration (namely the councillors Martina Berthold and Heinrich Schellhorn). Together with these local councillors it was possible to develop and implement an alternative model of foster care. Since 1 March 2016 asylum seeking children are able to live with foster carers, a scheme that is financed through funds allocated to asylum seekers in Salzburg. Particularly important partners for the project are furthermore accommodation providers for refugee children. The project team works closely with support workers within these institutions, who refer young people to the project. Knowing the young people well, they are able to provide important additional information to the project team in regards to the needs and requirements of the mentees. Staff members also provide important feedback on ongoing mentoring relationships to the project members of ‘Open.Heart’. Due to its connection with the fostering project, the project team has a particularly close working partnership with SOS Kinderdorf. The team furthermore regularly connects with the regional children and youth welfare department, which has formal custody for unaccompanied asylum seeking children. Lastly, the project team works closely with other network and institutions in the field of migration and integration. Staff members for example attend regular networking meetings of a local integration network of the Catholic church, as well liaising with major organisations working with refugees living in Salzburg, such as the Caritas or the Diakonie.

Initially when being developed and implemented the team envisaged ‘Open.Heart’ as a means to offer additional support to young refugees and to thus enable their social inclusion and integration in Salzburg. However, as soon as the first mentoring relationships came into being, the team members realised that mentors equally benefited from these relationships. They themselves would often be surprised at how much they had gained through this relationship, which they had entered at first with the aim to ‘help’ someone. This is likely to be the most important lesson learned through the project. In addition through the project it became clear that integration needs more than German classes or 'value lessons'. What is key to mutual understanding and relationships is the coming together of people and the possibility for an open exchange. Culture is, the project has again shown, never static, but always negotiated and becoming. In terms of improving the services, the external evaluation has reminded the team to be careful about how to frame mentoring relationships in order to avoid the dichotomy of ‘the helper’ and ‘the helped’. There is also constant learning in terms of what kind of ongoing workshops to offer to mentors and mentees.