Coming Together: A Critical Analysis of Key Issues, Actors and Tools in the Current Global Landscape of Family Tracing & Reunification

In 2017, Samuel Hall conducted a study on key issues, actors, and tools in the current global landscape of Family Tracing & Reunification (FTR), commissioned by IKEA Foundation. Based on an extensive and rigorous literature review and 22 additional key informant interviews with FTR providers and experts worldwide, the study focused on the current landscape of FTR tools and methods, their respective actors and key challenges to accessing and providing the best FTR support services possible. 

FTR was understood in this study as a holistic process, covering all formal, informal, individual and institutionalised efforts to overcome separation of family members; ranging from the separating event until reintegration. The findings and recommendations of the study are designed to enable the Foundation and other engaged donors to create evidence-based interventions intended to reshape the current FTR landscape, including:

1. Reshaping and optimising the FTR process and its tools;
2. Reshaping and optimising the FTR actor landscape;
3. Reshaping the legal landscape to allow separated persons to access reunification; and
4. Supporting separated persons’ futures through technology.