Our Publications

The Handbook for Setting Up a Community of Practice is now available. It was developed within the Erasmus+ project Caring to Include and gives civil society organisations supporting refugees across Europe a clear, practical roadmap, guiding them through all phases of establishing and sustaining a Community of Practice (CoP).

The handbook explains how to define a shared purpose, create inclusive structures, facilitate peer learning, and ensure long-term sustainability.

This guide is based on real experience within the Caring to Include CoP. It emphasises collaboration, mental well-being, trauma-informed approaches, in addition to the importance of creating supportive spaces for staff and volunteers working under high pressure. It also includes ready-to-use examples such as a framework, inclusion plan, and sustainability plan that organisations can adapt to their own context.

The publication aims to help organisations across Europe strengthen peer learning, deepen solidarity, and build resilient support systems for refugees.

Download the handbook here.

We are proud to announce the publication of the first Caring to Include toolkit, developed to strengthen the well-being of staff and volunteers who support refugees and people seeking protection. This toolkit marks an important milestone in the project and provides practical guidance, tools, and strategies to promote resilience, team cohesion, and sustainable well-being in organisations working in the refugee-support sector.

The new toolkit is the result of a truly co-creative process carried out with project partners across seven countries. Drawing on extensive research, interviews, facilitated discussions, and a mapping of best practices, the partnership collaboratively identified priority needs and gaps and developed resources tailored to the realities of frontline organisations.

The first Caring to Include toolkit consists of three components:

· A manual for the training “Work and Wellbeing – How Can I Take Good Care of Myself?”

· Team-Building, Diversity & Resilience Manual

· Templates for Developing a Well-being Strategy and Policies

These tools are designed for practical use and will be piloted in 2026 in collaboration with partner organisations.

The publication of this first toolkit marks the beginning of a series: in early 2026, partners will meet to define priorities for the second toolkit, which will focus on trauma-informed approaches.

The Caring to Include project is implemented by seven refugee-assisting organisations in Europe, funded by Erasmus+.

The project is part of our ongoing commitment to strengthening the well-being and resilience of those who work tirelessly to support others.

This publication forms part of Caring to Include, a three-year Erasmus+ project (2024–2027) implemented by seven refugee-assisting organisations across Europe: the Cyprus Refugee Council, Dutch Council for Refugees, Centre for Peace Studies, Greek Council for Refugees, Aditus Foundation, Hungarian Helsinki Committee and Estonian Refugee Council. The project aims to strengthen trauma-informed and culturally sensitive support for refugees and migrants, and to improve the well-being of NGO staff and volunteers working with these populations. It also aims to create a sustainable Community of Practice (CoP) for NGOs across Europe to share knowledge and expertise on trauma-informed support and staff care.

As part of the project, each partner conducted two needs assessments, one focusing on the needs of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers and another on the needs of staff and volunteers. Each organisation also carried out a mapping of best practices. In addition, Cyprus Refugee Council developed a national mapping. Based on these assessments and mappings, an overview for each country was created, followed by the drafting of the European Comparative Report: Challenges, Best Practices and Priorities.

The report presents findings from research carried out in the respective countries of the aforementioned NGOs. It is based on contributions from 82 refugees, 105 staff members and volunteers, and 53 external experts and associated partners, including people with lived experience as refugees. The results highlight widespread burnout among staff, linked to high workloads, trauma exposure, organisational dynamics and hostile political contexts. The report also shows that although many organisations apply certain trauma-informed principles, these are rarely implemented in a systematic way.

The report identifies several priorities for improving support within organisations. These include the development of organisational well-being strategies, including access to training for staff, along with improved managerial supervision and professional mental health support. The findings also highlight the importance of structural peer-to-peer support and access to external experts, integration of trauma-informed principles into guidelines and service delivery, strengthened capacity to recognise and respond to trauma, and involvement of people with lived experience in decision-making processes.

These findings will feed into two forthcoming toolkits: one focusing on the well-being of NGO staff and volunteers working with refugees, and one focusing on trauma-informed and culturally sensitive support for refugees and migrants.

The full Comparative Report is available for download here.

Refugee integration in the Republic of Cyprus remains limited, with no official strategy and a lack of comprehensive data, making it difficult for stakeholders to understand the situation fully. This is especially true for young refugees—those born in Cyprus or who arrived at a young age—who are now entering adulthood. Often overlooked in research and policy, these individuals are typically indirect recipients of services aimed at their families.

A study by the Cyprus Refugee Council, supported by the Dutch Council for Refugees, seeks to amplify their voices and shed light on their experiences, needs, and aspirations. The findings aim to inform a more inclusive integration strategy targeting young refugees, guiding efforts by policymakers, practitioners, and community services.

Find the study summary here: Informing an inclusive strategy for the integration of young refugees in Cyprus_CyRC2025.
For the full version, please get in touch with our organisation.

The European Network on Statelessness in partnership with its members has developed a new online tool called the Statelessness Index to assess how countries in Europe protect stateless people and what they are doing to prevent and reduce statelessness.

The Statelessness Index is the first tool to provide comprehensive and accessible comparative analysis of European countries’ efforts to address statelessness. It has been developed as a tool for sharing good practice as well as raising awareness or focusing advocacy on areas that need improvement. The Index draws on extensive country by country analysis of law, policy and practice, which has been benchmarked against international norms and good practice and then assessed using five categories, ranging from the most positive to the most negative.

The country profile on Cyprus has been written by the Cyprus Refugee Council in partnership with the European Network on Statelessness and provides a comprehensive analysis on statelessness in the country. The online tool provides the possibility to compare how Cyprus performs in comparison with other European countries.

Please follow the link to find the report – https://index.statelessness.eu/country/cyprus

This report was produced by Manos Mathioudakis, Senior Social Advisor, and Integration Officer, and Annagrace Messa, Integration Advisor, at Cyprus Refugee Council. The information presented in this report was collected between 2019-2021, through the cooperation of the HelpRefugeesWork team with asylum seekers and beneficiaries of international protection, regarding employability issues.

View the Report

View the Report

This report was written within the frame of the EPIM funded project “Promoting and Establishing Alternatives to Immigration Detention in Cyprus”.

This report aims to map the current situation and to undertake a review of the alternatives that have been implemented in the EU and secondly, to become a useful tool for the identification of alternative measures that can be used in Cyprus. This report was published in November 2016.

Please follow the link to find the full report in Greek:  https://goo.gl/J5LLjw and the summary report in English: https://goo.gl/gudbxH