RespAct Handbook Welcome Culture by Camp Group gGmbH, www.respact.org (best free ebook reader for android .TXT) 📕

Sporting activities are planned according to any pre-existing illnesses or injuries amongst participants

tasks are adapted to include all participants regardless of physical or mental limitations

Participants may react emotionally to topics discussed in the project (for example, in the case of the loss of close relatives, family addiction, experience of violence). Within the framework of the project format, please take an active role in discussions and activities, particularly if participants could feel trapped or if they react in unexpectedly emotional ways to tasks

It is very important to reinforce the rules: “no laughing at one another” and “no one is forced to share anything they don’t want to”.

Children and young people from families with histories of domestic violence often react very sensitively to being touched. Since body contact can hardly be avoided in many of the sports and exercises here, you should pay particular attention to asking permission before touching.

In instances where there is a reasonable suspicion that a child’s immediate welfare is at risk, it is imperative that local national guidelines are followed, and the appropriate authorities are invormed.

People who have experienced situations of extreme stress, for example forced migration, may be suffering from trauma. Even though it seems that a child should recognize that they are safe in a classroom, new school, new town or country, the child’s body and parts of the brain are still in fight, flight, or freeze mode.

When you spot these symptoms or signs, you should immediately inform the school counsellor or other mental health professionals or school leadership team of your observations. Otherwise, the role of the project leader should be to support young people suffering from trauma, for example by being a listening ear if requested.

Sports and physical activity are important to help a child heal from their traumatic experiences. As a coach or a trainer, it is important to take trauma-informed approaches while working with these children, i. e.

Create an emotionally and physically safe space

Supportive Structure

Structure can be seen through program rules, a predictable schedule of activities, and a reasonable coach to participant ratio, and maintaining a secure and safe environment.

This can help the youth to feel safe, secure, and gives them a sense of control.

Cultural Background

It is important for the coaches or trainers to understand where the children have come from and what they go home to.

It will support integration if teachers and trainers have similar linguistic or cultural backgrounds as participants

By understanding the child’s cultural background and adding cultural practices to the sport, it helps create familiarity and helps the coach to understand how the child is handling their grief/trauma.

Building Relationships and Trust

Coaches or trainers need to create supportive relationships with the children.

This is important and building trust with the children and gives them a safe environment to be themselves.

In order to accommodate for the broad spectrum of language abilities in the group of newly-arrived migrant children and youth, we have developed various differentiation options into the module descriptions. As a result, you can tailor your RespAct project individually to your target group. In each of the three Project Weeks, there is an orientation guide to explain which modules work for different groups.

The various modules can be combined, shortened or omitted, as long as it is appropriate for your target group and fits into your schedule. Ideally, classes of non-refugee participants are integrated as much as possible in the project week. As a minimum, they should be engaged and involved in units that focus on the school community and improving the school for everyone.

The RespAct Project begins with a welcome session and an introduction to the topics. If you are additional people from outside the learning environment in your project, you can take this session as an opportunity to introduce them to your group.

Depending on your group, now is a good opportunity to play a warm up game or an ice breaker.

Introduction to RespAct: Show the RespAct Film and discuss it with the participants; What is RespAct? What is a neighbourhood? Are there any difficult words?

Briefly outline the plan for the week’s activities.

Remind participants about the presentation at the end of the project and that they need to bring their letters of consent.

Collect any signed consent forms at this time.

At the close of the session, the group rules should be established or repeated.

Warm up games

For this, choose from a range of game proposals from the modules outlined in this handbook.

Movement modules
Sport and exercise are an integral part of the program every day and account for about a third of time you will spend on the RespAct Project. You can choose from different movement modules such as boxing, skipping and competition games.

Closing Session and Feedback Round

At the end of each project day, a summary is prepared to give an overview of the results of the day and to clarify what the next steps will be. This can also be connected to a game.

On the last day of the project, the participants will make their contributions to the final presentation. In doing so they strengthen their skills in presentation situations. Something that guests typically find particularly impressive is a short presentation of their movement or sport. A RespAct final photo is taken.