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Valuing diversity: guidance for labour market integration of migrants

entrepreneurs developed by the Interkulturelles Bildungszentrum in Manheim,
Germany. These practices benefit from the cultural insight, empathy, sense of
security and peace that immigrant practitioners can bring to guidance processes.
In spite of its growing popularity, this approach warrants comment:
(a) first, the stock of immigrant qualified professionals is limited so this cannot
be the standard practice in guidance for immigrants;
(b) second, resorting to immigrant counsellors does not remove the need for
multicultural training, since it carries the danger of subjective value
judgements on behalf of professionals arising from experiential and cultural
proximity;
(c) third, employing immigrant counsellors is only one potential aspect of
community involvement, which does not imply openness of career support
services to community initiatives, ideas and specific assets.
These are, nevertheless, interesting examples of outreach activities and
community capacity-building, as they are frequently managed in the context of
cooperative structures (involving councils, ministries and associations). Of special
interest are the activities aimed at promoting traineeships and employment of
immigrants with the direct intervention of employers, by creating on-the-job
learning opportunities, tailored CMS development, transforming perceptions and
cultural preconceptions. Two such cases are the CED, in France and the Aristotle
University project for the integration of immigrants in agriculture, in Greece.
The training of guidance professionals partially reflects the fact that countries
are at different stages of development in introducing multicultural elements in
guidance interventions. Some countries have had strong investment in the past in
multicultural training of practitioners and have actually reduced the number of
initiatives (e.g. the Netherlands), while other countries are at an earlier stage and
have started investing in this area more recently. Consistent investment in
multicultural training is important to generate accumulated capacity which can
guarantee a certain level of cultural adaptability of practices. The Greek case
study is an example.

6.4. Innovation and guidance in integrating

Integration policy is fertile ground for innovative practices in guidance. Examples
are culturally-adapted assessment methodologies, strong gender-based
methodologies, advocacy activities, and inclusion of communities in practitioner
training and service provision. Such practices are often in the context of project-
based initiatives, which makes them difficult to mainstream. New financing and
legal mechanisms seem to be a requirement for continued innovation.

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