Handbook
This Manual is designed to support training and provides a comprehensive guide for guardians on the rights, risks, and support for children, focusing on their best interests in relation to state services, ethical standards, and the challenges they face, especially for unaccompanied or vulnerable children. It covers key areas such as understanding children’s rights, building effective guardian-child relationships, guiding them from arrival to long-term solutions, and utilizing tools for addressing vulnerabilities, cultural dimensions, and trauma. The manual, applicable across the EU, adapts to the diverse guardianship and reception systems of Member States while emphasising human rights principles and aiming to enhance guardians’ confidence in promoting children’s rights and acting impartially. Building on previous work by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), the manual draws from research on guardianship, child relocation, and asylum law.