In 2016 the British Council published its initial 'Language for Resilience' report, which identified five principles for planning language education responses for displaced people and the host communities who welcome them, namely: 1. Home language and literacy development; 2. Access to education, training and employment; 3. Language and social cohesion; 4. Addressing the effect of trauma on learning; 5. Building the capacity of teachers and strengthening educational systems.
Two years' later, I was one of a team of academics and practitioners who created a follow-up publication, Cross-disciplinary perspectives on the role of language in enhancing the resilience of refugees and host communities under the editorship of one of the original report's co-authors, Dr. Tony Capstick. My particular area of focus was Prinicple 2, i.e. access to education, training and employment. I summarised my key findings in this short blog for the British Council's Teaching English website.