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Ongoing Projects

Reintegrating Returnee Spouses and Children

ICCT has, since 2021, been contributing to US Department of Homeland Security-funded project "Best Practices for Reintegration Programs for Returning Spouses and Children". The project goals are to: (1) comprehensively evaluate the existing knowledge and practice of the reintegration of spouses and children associated with FTFs; and (2) promote evidence-based models for the reintegration of returning spouses and children through the development and dissemination of effective protocols, tools, and training curricula for practitioners. 

After developing a practitioner framework of guiding principles for reintegration programming and delivering it to the Department of Homeland Security, fieldwork will be undertaken to strengthen guidelines and test their applicability. The Netherlands, Iraq, and Nebraska will be research sites at which the team will conduct semi-structured in-person interviews to gather information on capable protocols.  A training curriculum for one-day and two-day practitioner workshops will be developed. The project’s investigative streams, development streams, and deliverables will each be used to advance key priorities articulated in the DHS Strategic Framework for Countering Terrorism And Targeted Violence (2019), the DHS Science and Technology Strategic Plan (2021), and the DHS Strategic Plan (2020-2024).

 

Highlights

About the project

Extra body

The project will deliver two major annual reports, written jointly by project convenors at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE) at the University of Nebraska and The Programme on Extremism (PoE) at George Washington University. There will also be four biannual panels or events to highlight key findings from the active investigation streams. ICCT will contribute critical expertise in the legal and human rights principles relevant to the practice of reintegration, as well as provide connections to a range of reintegration initiatives in the Netherlands.

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