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Valuing diversity: guidance for labour market integration of migrants

insertion offices in the Portuguese CNAI); another case in which teaching is
associated with guidance is the development of CMS.

CMS development is reported in five main cases and three secondary
cases. CMS development assumes the form of teaching of language skills for
work, ICT usage, job-search techniques, social skills development, interview
techniques, CV and presentation letter drafting. Some practices rely heavily on
CMS development, such as Cellule stages in France which attempts to empower
youth to search for and obtain their own internships.
Mentoring and tutoring activities can be either the fundamental aspect of a
project or one of the activities of a more complex programme. Activities to
support the integration of women and the academic success of youth frequently
rely on the development of mentoring models, generally resorting to role models.
This is the case of the support to migrant students provided by the Belgium
Artveldehogeschool tutoring project.
In other cases, such as the Malmo validation centre or the CED, mentors
and role models are used to perform a specific function within a larger
intervention. In the case of the validation centre, migrant qualified women can be
involved as role models to assist those recently arrived. In the CED, mentoring is
provided by older workers in the organisations where the internships are offered
and by firm owners of immigrant background in the transition to employment.
Job sampling is a fundamental characteristic of the CED from the
assessment stage, to establish solid personal plans for the interns. Another way
to promote job sampling is through job shadowing of professionals in their work
contexts, such as those in the local integrated programmes for the social
inclusion of vulnerable groups.
Advocating and networking activities are growing concerns of integration
services, and they are normally developed on two levels:
(a) defence of the fundamental rights of immigrants and increasing their access
to the receiving country’s systems;
(b) increasing access to professional/labour market networks in the country.
Many of the awareness-raising activities developed by projects such the
Spanish Red Ariadna network to fight discrimination in working environments fit
into the first category. The actions developed by organisations to improve the
access of immigrants to further public sector provisions also constitutes
advocacy; an example of this is the Portuguese GIPs.
Examples of networking immigrants into the labour market can be found in
the French Cellules stages and the CED. The CED attempts to develop, in
internships, both soft and hard skills which can be easily transferable to the firms
it networks with. Another interesting example is the secondary case Atana which

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