Imagine being a child forced to flee your home because of war. You may have seen your parents stressed, upset and scared, there may not have been an easy way to leave, you may have had to walk for many days, taken dangerous or uncertain journeys and been hungry for long periods. Once you arrive somewhere, you and your family will probably be feeling the effects of poverty, on reduced welfare benefits, living in temporary accommodation, possibly with frequent moves, be isolated, confused, subject to racism and harassment. The health effects of such a journey will be taking their toll and you will be missing home and everything which is familiar.
There is very little research available on the migration experiences of these children, especially those under five years old. Donna Gaywood, who has undertaken research on refugee children in early years settings, found they were disconnected from other members of their classes, unable to make friends, or get involved with activities. She calls this an ‘invisible marginalisation’ of the refugee experience whereby children are isolated and ‘invisible to the practitioner’ as well as other children in their setting. ‘I’ve seen refugee children literally interacting with no one, and no one really notices’, she says.
‘Communication with refugee children was much more perfunctory, and there was much less of it, whereas with host children, [practitioners] were much more warm and effusive’.
Getting started
In response, Gaywood and four other members of a special interest group produced a 50-page toolkit, which aims, according to the group, to ‘support early years educators by introducing ideas and concepts about refugee and migration experiences in a trauma informed way’. It also features play-based activities for children between the ages of 18 months to 7 years old. Josephine Gabi, Senior Lecturer in Early Years and Childhood Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University and another member of the group, says the toolkit provides strategies for early years practitioners to ‘foster a deeper understanding of the refugee experience and offer possibilities for all children to develop a sense of identity and belongingness’.
The special interest group was formed by the European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA), and was supported by the Froebel Trust as well as the Centre for Research in Early Childhood (CREC). The toolkit was inspired by the work of Good Chance, a travelling arts company which created giant refugee puppet Little Amal, which was carried 8,000 km over five months from Syria to Manchester in 2021. Good Chance had a toolkit which was aimed at refugee children of primary and secondary school age, and the EECERA’s special group recognised a need for a similar tool for early years settings.
The toolkit was tested in five different countries: Australia, Greece, Turkey, the UK and Poland (see case study), with activities organised into themes from Amal’s walk including home, migration, fear, climate, adventure, welcome and empathy and compassion.
Questioning yourself
In order to fully engage with the toolkit, the creators encourage practitioners to practice ‘self-reflexivity’. Gabi says this is demonstrated by ‘educators constantly questioning why they see things in a certain way and examining what may be influencing this. We should not shy away from the reality that we all come from a particular “social location” and should instead acknowledge our positionalities and reflect on how these may be impacting the children in our settings.’
The toolkit states that ‘it is often the unspoken feelings that can be most damaging’ and asks educators not to use stereotypes or negative labelling when talking about refugees. Gaywood said that ‘microaggressions’ and ‘micro-invalidations’ create an ‘invisible layer of blame’ towards refugees for the situation that they find themselves in. In her research, Gaywood says ‘while most educators are kind, ethical and generously minded, refugee children still face significant challenges as narratives about marginalised people groups tend to surreptitiously seep into individuals’ understanding’.
To address this, Gaywood and Gabi recommend watching their webinar before using the toolkit in order optimise the impact of the activities included in the pack.
Warm welcome?
Record numbers of young children in the UK speak English as an additional language (this figure is 29 per cent in state funded nurseries). While developing language in the early years is essential to a child’s education, engagement and connection must come first, says Gabi.
According to Gabi and Gaywood, children are better at making refugee children feel welcome than adults. However, they caution against an assumption of ‘racial innocence’. Gabi says it isn’t true that ‘children don’t see difference’ and that their play practices don’t discriminate. She says ‘there is a myth that host children would just be naturally welcoming of refugee children and that’s not the case’.
In their research, the creators of the toolkit witnessed children not only being aware of differences but acting on this difference by demonstrating ‘micro-responses’. This would look like children playing exclusively with other children who spoke their language or excluding a child because they looked different to themselves.
It is for this reason that ‘for refugee children to feel like they belong, the process of welcoming isn’t just about educators’, and instead ‘it’s also about developing practices that enable children to be able to also welcome children’ through play-based activities which facilitate connection and friendship, says Gaywood.
Practical responses
The play-based activities included in the toolkit are informed by Froebelian philosophy which promotes a holistic focus on child development, split between social, academic, emotional, physical and spiritual improvement.
The toolkit mirrors these areas of focus by offering activities such as role play, sensory walks and sculpting and the creators say as well as being a wide range of activities, there is a focus on different forms of communication.
One of the toolkit themes is ‘home’, but the home the creators of the toolkit are keen to celebrate is the one that children find themselves in now. Gaywood has found that people are often very ‘nosy’ about the experience of refugee children, and want to know details about the plight and loss suffered by children and their families, reducing children to the plight they have suffered.
Gaywood adds, ‘I'm not a therapist. And people who work in early years are not therapists. I never talk about why a child is the way they are if a child has experienced trauma. But what I know is if I have a child here now who is feeling really sad, and really scared, that I, as an educator, can make them comfortable.'
BOX OUT: First Nursery School, Syros, Greece
Syros is a Greek island in the Cyclades, in the Aegean Sea. At First Nursery School, Syros, practitioners trialled the toolkit with 28 children, aged between 4 and 6. Educators at the nursery, Anna Fermeli, Sofia Skourgia, said despite some initial hesitation, staff connected to the pedagogical elements of the toolkit and it has helped practitioners to feel more confident about their practice.
The toolkit was used as part of an existing project, ‘a home for everyone’ where children were encouraged to consider the types of homes that each of their ‘class heroes’ needed, for example, ‘the children built houses for a dragon, a pirate, spiderman and a bird according to what they needed’, said Skourgia. This encouraged children to reflect on their own homes and discuss the vast differences between these homes, despite fact that the children live very close to each other on the island.
This also encouraged parents to get involved with the toolkit activities, including a child’s father who is a photographer. Anna said a raven puppet was one of the animals the children made a home for. The children considered looking at the city through the eyes of the raven, and the photographer took pictures of the raven from different vantage points. From this, the children drew the city from the puppet’s different viewpoints.
This led to the children discussing ‘what happens when somebody is different’ and reflecting on where they are standing when they make a judgement in the same way that they were guessing where the raven puppet was when looking down on the city.
Both activities led to discussions about the importance of celebrating differences between people and also reflecting on the importance of home and belonging.
Fermeli says ‘I think it’s really helpful for a teacher who hasn’t worked on these themes to get some inspiration and to build their teaching from a flexible starting point.’
Currently the setting does not have any refugee children, but keen to ensure that all children, from all backgrounds feel welcomed into the setting. Since war broke out in Ukraine, Skourgia said that ‘staff are very anxious about the situation’ and wanted to ensure that the setting was prepared for refugees who may arrive.
- Access the toolkit here
