During the period 2008-2012, RCT will be carrying out an implementation project in cooperation with six municipalities in order to expand the work in Denmark with vulnerable children and adolescents through the network meetings model.

The processual network meetings are used as a tool to prevent crime among vulnerable children in traumatised refugee families. The method seeks to involve all relevant parties around the children through an interdisciplinary approach.

The goal is to strengthen the dialogue between traumatised refugee parents and their network within the public sector as well as between the participating institutions and professionals. In this way, the different parties will be able to obtain a better mutual understanding, and it will become possible to carry out a broad founded preventive effort towards these vulnerable children and adolescents.

The method of the project is based on the work in RCTs family team where network meetings are an integrated part of the rehabilitation process. The knowledge from this work was an inspiration to a pilot project in the Karlebo municipality during 2005-2006: “Towards a Concerted Effort – Networking to Prevent Youth Crime in traumatised refugee families” (Download the report describing the new model here).  As a result, the collaboration between parents and professionals through dialogue and network meetings was strengthened, and this created positive changes in some of the children’s patterns of behavior.

The present project contains, among other things, an education process for selected employees within the participating municipalities in conducting meetings, followed up by supervision in order to support the implementation. Simultaneously, a PhD project ensures an insight in the families’ experience of the meeting with the social and legal authorities (Read more here).

In the project, RCT cooperates with six municipalities: Brøndby, Fredensborg, Fredericia, Hillerød, Skive and Århus municipalities.
The goal is to implement the network meetings as an integrated part of the municipalities’ effort in relation to integration and prevention of crime.

In the long term, RCT expects that procedural network meetings will become a vital part of the national prevention work in connection to youth crime and violence in areas with a high concentration of refugees.

The project is supported economically by the Danish funds “Egmont Fonden” and,“Trygfonden”, the Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs, together with a number of other contributors.