Call for Participants: RAN Rehabilitation WG meeting on How to work with middle-aged target groups without socio-economic needs? What can rehabilitation offer them?

This event will be held in English and will take place via WebEx.

We are presently looking for suitable participants for a RAN Rehabilitation Working Group meeting on the topic of “How to work with middle-aged target groups without socio-economic needs? What can rehabilitation offer them?”.

The event will take place on 18 November, 09:30 – 12:30 CET, and on 19 November, 09:30 – 12:30 CET.

Background and aim of this event

Because members of extremist groups are usually young adults, participants of rehabilitation programmes have until now tended to be young adults as well. Often, they face a need to settle (to start a family, to make a home, to get a stable job) after the “wild years” in a radical or extremist environment. Although individuals in this situation are perhaps not ready for deradicalisation, they are ready for change which can be used as a starting point for reintegration, and potentially disengagement.

Usually, significant parts of rehabilitation work are centred around factors of social and functional (re)integration. Support in these areas through rehabilitation work often leverages external motivation for these clients to enter rehabilitation programmes in the first place, when intrinsic motivation for change has not been established (yet).

Today, with a differentiation in target group characteristics, a differentiation in rehabilitation strategies may be necessary. Therefore, this meeting will focus on the following key questions:

• Taking stock: What does current rehabilitation work offer participants? To what extent is this attractive and relevant for an older target group?
• What can exit and deradicalisation work based on psychological development to adulthood and working inter alia on improving socio-economic circumstances learn from probation work with older target groups?
• Which motivating levers could work for socio-economically stable individuals?

Practitioners we are looking for are:

Experienced practitioners from probation, deradicalisation, exit, disengagement work across all extremist phenomena.

Registration

In order to find the best suited participants, we would like to ask you to briefly respond to the following questions:

• Are you an experienced practitioner in the field of rehabilitation work?
• Do you hold direct experience in working with individuals who are above the age of 35?
  • If yes, please elaborate briefly.
• Do you hold direct experience in working with socially and functionally stable individuals?
  • If yes, please elaborate briefly.
• What is your specific area of expertise and field of work?
• Do you recognise the challenge of needing to find new ways to work with older and more stable target groups?
  • If so, what is the biggest challenge in this regard that you have encountered so far?

Deadline

If you are interested in participating, kindly send your answers to the above questions to maximilian [dot] rufviolence-prevention-network [dot] de (Maximilian Ruf) by 01 November 2021.

We will invite participants based on this information. As we only have a limited number of places available for this meeting, we unfortunately cannot guarantee participation.

Please note, the meeting will be held online and in English. 

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact maximilian [dot] rufviolence-prevention-network [dot] de (Maximilian Ruf).