To browse Academia. Skip to main content. Log In Sign Up. All Departments 11 Papers 7 Researchers. In hosting countries, refugee integration has been treated as the main goal of the refugee policy and the expected outcome for refugee settlement. It matters to both refugee groups and established population. Currently, the surging Currently, the surging refugee issues have caused European countries enormous pressure. However, during the process, the government management deficiencies have been exposed by the mismanagement of refugee settlement and integration actions.
Social work, a profession that always works with refugee group at the frontline, clearly has much to offer in refugee settlement and integration service. This study takes France as the target country, researches by means of field observation and interview with refugees, local hosting families and relevant social work practitioners, and attempts to assess the effect of family hosting on refugee integration. According to the analysis of integration influences from family hosting, combined with the local social work practice, this study also comes up with suggestions for the future social work practice on improving refugee settlement and integration in hosting society, especially in Europe.
In addition to existing institutional barriers in European societies, refugee settlement and integration also faces numerous social challenges, such as discrimination and stigmatisation towards refugee groups.
Family hosting is a bold Family hosting is a bold refugee accommodation solution promoted by social workers across the European continent, which draws attention to the complexities of refugee support. This study examines family hosting in France to assess its influences on refugee integration in the host society. Through in-depth interviews with 34 multi-stakeholders 20 refugees, 10 hosting family members and 4 social workers from different family hosting projects, family hosting has been proven to bring comprehensive influences to refugee integration, such as accumulation of social connection and cultivation of the sense of belonging.
In addition, for those refugees who are ready to be hosted, the research shows that different hosting schedules, either long-term or short-term, impact on how each case functions, with pros and cons. In early , when COVID was tearing through China, it was hard to imagine that it would develop into a global pandemic so rapidly and reach New Zealand, a country geographically isolated from most of the world.
