On 2 December 2019, the Council of Europe HELP course on refugee and migrant children was launched for the first time in Turkey together with the Istanbul Bar Association. This course is building on the HELP/UNHCR online course on “Asylum and the European Convention on Human Rights”, which had been previously launched in Turkey for lawyers and staff members of the Directorate General of Migration Management under the Ministry of Interior. Both courses are planned to be relaunched in the course of next year.

On 30-31 October 2019 in Naples, Italy, some 70 Italian judges, prosecutors and lawyers attended the launch of Council of Europe HELP course on Refugee and migrant children, organised in cooperation with the Italian School of Magistrates and the National Bar Council.

The HELP course on refugee and migrant children aims at helping judges and lawyers facing new challenges in their daily work and it covers existing European and International standards. The course has been adapted to the countries legal system and national context. The course has been developed and launched in collaboration with the Office of the Special Representative of the Council of Europe Secretary General on Migration and Refugees and it is one of the measures implementing the Council of Europe Action Plan on protecting Refugee and Migrant Children in Europe (2017-2019).

The course consists of the following training modules: rights of refugee and migrant children, child-friendly procedures, access to social services, family reunification, age assessment and guardianship, and alternatives to detention. It has already been launched in the United Kingdom, Spain, Greece and France.