The main gateway to the recruitment process was through organisations of the humanitarian sector. Hence, as soon as this project received ethical approval, the author contacted all active NGOs that were based in the wider area of N. Greece and operated child-protection programmes at the time. During the initial communication, which was held via e-mail and phone, the author briefly introduced himself, explained his role as researcher and requested an appointment in order to present the project in detail. For this reason, each NGO was provided with an ‘Invitation Letter’ and a ‘Participant Information Sheet’ describing the research aims.

Soon, a formal meeting was arranged with representatives of the organisations that showed interest in the topic. During the meeting, the author clarified the project's scope of study and responded to questions. As soon as the discussion reached its end, the NGOs that participated were asked to forward said ‘Invitation Letter’ and ‘Participant Information Sheet’ to their respective child-protection programmes so that potential participants could be recruited.

The interviews occurred in three consecutive stages. An introductory overview of the followed process will be presented at this point, whereas detailed information about each individual stage will be provided as the chapter progresses, coupled with an exploration regarding the relation between IPA and focus groups in contemporary research.

During the first stage, unaccompanied children were invited to share their lived experiences after having been subjected to detention upon irregular entry into Greece. Therefore, emphasis was primarily placed on understanding the conditions of detention and exploring how the law applied in practice between the years 2016 and 2020, as discussed earlier.

By giving voice to children, their ‘visions of life’ (Clavering and McLaughlin, 2010, p 607) were brought to the surface, along with important details concerning the real face of detention. This process allowed the author to focus on the research aims, namely to examine the positionality of detained UAM in Greece within the context of crimmigration and assess whether the right to be heard was applied correctly in the minors’ favour.

However, in order to shed light on these so far unexamined areas of study, it was crucial to also look into UAM detention from the perspective of professionals. So, after completing the analysis of the first interview stage findings, the author proceeded to the second stage.