Liesbet De Backer

Biography

Liesbet De Backer is a PhD researcher with a multidisciplinary background in Orthopedagogics, Science of Arts and Archaeology. Before joining Cosmopolis, she worked in a socio-cultural organisation in Brussels for a number of years.

Liesbet’s research is funded by Innoviris and focuses on the life trajectories of unaccompanied minor newcomers in Brussels after their eighteenth birthday. Through in-depth interviews with stakeholders, she maps the complex web of actors involved in the preparation of unaccompanied minor newcomers for adulthood. She uses a qualitative, longitudinal and inductive approach to look into the interrelationships between the residential trajectories of unaccompanied minor newcomers from the moment they come of age and their paths of socio-economic integration. Based on the information gathered from these different sources, she collaborates with societal partners in order to develop a protocol that works towards a better socio-economic integration of unaccompanied minor newcomers in Brussels.