Early Years Professional Development Centre

This module explores what it means to be a refugee in our modern context. It describes the evolution of our modern legal framework for supporting refugees and explores how our understanding of refugees as  specific types of migrants has evolved over time and may change in future.

This module will be of interest to anyone with a concern for refugees who wants to understand more about who they are and the challenges they pose in today's world. More specifically, this module will benefit anyone with interests in three primary areas addressed in the modules based on Welcoming Newcomer Children: settlement, culture and diversity.

This module is appropriate for people with a range of interests and experience, including people who

• Would like more information about refugees or who have knowledge and wish to learn more.
• Would like to think further about what it means to be a refugee and consider how our ideas about refugees have changed over time. 
• Have little or no previous experience with newcomer children and families, specifically, refugees.
• Have met and interacted with many newcomers.
• Are newcomers themselves.
• Are educators in settings such as centre-based child care, home child care, elementary schools
• Are settlement workers or counsellors who work in settings that support newcomer children and families, including refugees.

2 ECE hours