Funded by: Robert Bosch Stiftung

Project manager: Prof. Dr. Lysann Zander

Further project team member: Jannika Haase

Student assistants: Helena Ballüer, Ramin Alizadeh, Miriam Silbermann

Duration: 2022 – 2023

Description of the project: 

From 2016 to 2018, the Robert Bosch Stiftung funded a research project in which we developed and scientifically evaluated an intervention ("WIRwerden") for refugee children and adolescents in schools. In the program, children and adolescents who had fled as well as children and adolescents who had grown up in Germany got to know each other in tandems and small groups and exchanged ideas on various topics (e.g. values, ideas about the future) over a period of nine weeks. They were guided by specially trained coaches (students of teaching, psychology and educational science). The effectiveness of the intervention was proven in an accompanying scientific study: Not only immigrant children but also children who had grown up in Germany benefited from participation, for example, by perceiving themselves as more academically and socially competent. Against the background of the currently worsening situation in the Ukraine war and the growing number of refugee children and adolescents from Ukraine, we aim at (1) immediately adapting the developed program for the current target group and implementing it in schools in the short term (immediate program), and (2) developing a flexibly usable, professionally digitized short version of the previous program, which can be used by students of teaching, teacher trainees and teachers within and outside of the school classroom.