Call for participants: RAN in the Western Balkans Training: “Communicating with radicalised individuals”, 18-19 April 2024, Skopje, North-Macedonia

Context

Working with radicalised individuals requires communication in order to gain trust and to work on ideological and/or behavioural change. Achieving this can be a challenging and time-consuming process. Their firm black and white world view makes it difficult to hold exchanges.

• A first barrier is the idea of the us-them division. Mostly practitioners will initially not be considered worth talking to as they are not one of them, and –even worse– they can be seen as opponents.
• A second obstacle is that individuals are often hiding their personality behind a shield of ideology, of how the extremist group is expecting them to (re)act. This behaviour can be part of an unconscious adaption to how interaction takes place in a radicalised group and can also be used in a more conscious way to keep people at a distance.
• A third aspect is the strong convictions radicalised individuals have, which do not leave much room for discussion, only leaving few openings to have a meaningful conversation.

During the training, participants will learn how to know you are in contact with a radicalised individual, what the radical mindset is and what consequences this has for communication, conversation techniques, and how to ensure safety for the practitioners and radicalised individuals. Participants will gain the following knowledge, skills and competences through five different modules:

• Knowledge: insights in the radical mindset and principles of conversation techniques that can be used.
• Skills: how to ask questions in an effective way and how to respond to verbal and non-verbal communication.
• Competences: better prepare, hold and follow up on a conversation with a radicalised individual, being aware of the effects of own behaviour.

Target group

The target group of this training is social workers and youth workers working with radicalised individuals or those vulnerable to radicalisation. There is place for 15 participants with equal participation from the different Western Balkan states. Simultaneous interpretation can be provided based on the needs of participants.

Application

We kindly ask that you fill out this questionnaire before Tuesday 2 April. We will select participants based on their answers.

This call is also available in: Albanian | Macedonian | Serbian