Dakar – Returnees may feel shame, guilt, negative self-perception, a sense of failure, loss, and other negative psychological effects due to challenges in being accepted or re-establishing connections with loved ones. From 19 to 21 September 2023, the Country Office of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Senegal conducted a training workshop for protection workers working on the front line with returnees. The aim of this workshop was to familiarize them with the use of the “K-par-cas 2” tool and psycho-education as part of the provision of mental health and psychosocial support services for returnees.

During three days, more than twenty front line workers involved in migrant support, including the Reception, Orientation and Monitoring Offices (BAOS) for Senegalese Abroad (Bureaux d’Accueil, Orientation et Suivi (BAOS) des Sénégalais de l’extérieur), Academic Centres for Educational and Vocational Guidance (Centres Académiques de l’Orientation Scolaire et Professionnelle -CAOSP), Senegalese Red Cross, as well as civil society actors were trained.

After welcoming “the fruitful partnership with IOM and financial support of the European Union, as well as sharing of experience between field workers from most of the country’s regions”, Abdou Karim Cissé, technical adviser to the General Directorate of Support for Senegalese Abroad (Direction Générale de l’Appui aux Sénégalais de l’Extérieur -DGASE) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Senegalese Abroad (MAESE), encouraged the participants in their role as advocates of mental health for returning migrant sustainable reintegration. Mental health disorders and psychosocial distress can be major sources of disability and exclusion, preventing many people from contributing fully to their communities and the economy. “Psychosocial support can be useful to beneficiaries, even if they do not have clinical needs, as benefiting from positive coping mechanisms, networks and a healthy social life is crucial to reintegration sustainability,” says Dr Ousmanou Diallo Ntieche, IOM Field Officer.

The purpose of the “K-par-cas 2” tool is to encourage people to talk about themselves and their migration experience in a friendly environment, enable them to put their ideas in order, identify both difficult and positive moments experienced during their migration journey (including those experienced during the return home process, if this has already taken place), and enable them to take stock of their experience. These tools are in line with IOM’s integrated approach to reintegration, which considers reintegration to be sustainable when returnees have achieved a level of economic independence, social stability and psychosocial well-being that enables them to make future migration decisions out of choice rather than necessity. “The reception of returnees on arrival at the airport and then in the reception centres is important and directly linked to the psychosocial aspect. It is difficult to plan economic and social reintegration without taking psychosocial support into account. The BAOS are at the forefront of mechanisms put in place by the Senegalese Government for the care and reception of returnees. The EU therefore welcomes this training for field specialists,” says Faly Keita, Programme Officer at the European Union Delegation in Senegal.

At the end of the workshop, Mame Coumba Guèye, consultant psychologist at the National Centre for Educational and Vocational Guidance, under the Ministry of Education (CNOSP), welcomed “this tool, which is of great interest to us as psychosocial support professionals, because it completes the whole system that the CNOSP is putting in place to assist all communities, including returnees. We are going to make the “K-par-cas 2” tool our own, as it is specifically designed for returnees, and it will facilitate our work in the field.”

The “K-par-cas 2” tool was developed in 2021 as a result of collaboration between The Ink Link and IOM, with financial support from the European Union, first as part of the EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration in the Sahel and Lake Chad Region, and then as part of the Migrant Protection, Return and Reintegration (MPRR) Programme.

***

For more information, please contact through email:

Ousmane Diallo NTIECHE: Field Officer, nodiallo@iom.int

Aminata DIAWARA: Protection Assistant, amidiawara@iom.int

Daouda SAGNA, National MHPSS Officer, dsagna@iom.int