What this phase includes
- Two online focus groups — one with refugees, one with frontline professionals (youth workers, social workers, NGO staff, lawyers, educators, healthcare). Each session runs 60–90 minutes, moderated, with structured questions on barriers, service access, and workable solutions.
- Two short surveys — 15–20 questions each, one for professionals (≥50 responses target) and one for refugees (≥40 responses target).
- Desk research — a quick review of current reports and studies to frame the questions and benchmark findings.
This mixed-methods package was planned from the start to ensure that practice, research and policy stay connected.
Why we’re doing it now
The application set an online research window in September–November 2024. With management and coordination running across the full project period, we are using this spring window to complete listening activities ahead of the Spain seminar and the drafting milestones of the guideline.
Who we will talk to
- Refugees (10–12 people in one online group): diverse in age, gender and country of origin; focus on lived experience with language, paperwork, education, healthcare, employment and daily life.
- Professionals (10–12 people in one online group): those assisting refugee youth directly; focus on what blocks access, what already works, and where coordination fails.
The broader survey targets ensure we pass the ≥90 responses in three months threshold set for the project’s evidence base.
How the conversations will run
Each focus group follows the same structure:
- Introduction & ground rules (confidentiality, respectful turn-taking)
- Core questions on challenges, access to services, discrimination, coping strategies, effective practices, and policy fixes
- Wrap-up with key takeaways and last inputs
Sessions take place on Zoom/Teams/Meet, are facilitated by a moderator, and last 1–1.5 hours.
Ethical safeguards
- Informed consent collected digitally before participation.
- Anonymisation of all contributions in notes and reports; screenshots or recordings are only taken/used with explicit consent and stored securely; when published, findings are aggregated.
- Participants may keep cameras off and can withdraw at any time without explanation.
How we will use the data
Findings from surveys and focus groups will feed the five-point guideline (~40 pages) and the practical mini-kit for organisations. The Spain seminar will then present, test and refine these outputs with practitioners from all three countries.
Quality assurance and evaluation
We will collect short feedback at the end of each survey and each focus group, run daily evaluations during the Spain seminar, and close with a final learning survey. A stakeholder group of ~50 people (policy actors, NGOs, refugee representatives) will review the draft guideline for clarity and feasibility before publication.
Roles and coordination
- CIFIR (France): leads management, monitoring and the data-collection work package; develops evaluation and visibility tools.
- Backslash (Spain): leads the guideline drafting and hosts the Spain seminar that validates the outputs.
- Old School Green (Antalya, Turkey): partner for practical transfer and implementation activities. (Note: in this articles we refer to the Turkish partner under this name and location, articles have been edited after the partner change.)