Over the past three days, a European Union Agency for Asylum – EUAA exchange visit took place at CGVS/CGRA Official. Protection officers, team leaders and legal experts in the handling of asylum applications of children (from Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, Slovakia, Sweden) came together to exchange views and gain insights into each others procedures and special topics such as the best interests of the child, child marriages, support for protection officers etc.
Our minors coordinator Anja De Wilde, trainer ‘interviewing children’ Florian Vande Walle and trainer ‘evidence assessment’ Dorien Wijnendaele acted as hosts of this event.
Our colleagues gathered some particularly interesting information on how to organize peer reviews on the quality of personal interviews with children. Also, how to formulate decisions in a child-friendly manner by, for example, attaching the legal grounds and building blocks to the decisions. In this way the reasons for a decision are explained in a simple and child-friendly way, with full focus on the child’s story.