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Valuing diversity: guidance for labour market integration of migrants

counsellor might not possess. It requires self-awareness of his/her cultural value
judgements, knowledge of the other cultures’ values, skills in language and active
listening which allow for a calm steady flow of information and reflexion to be
enabled and eventually drive to self-reflexion and personal planning by the
migrant. It is suggested that multicultural training should be an integral part of the
initial training of all guidance practitioners and a required training course for all
professionals who perform career training (including teachers).
Besides their training in multicultural guidance methodologies, guidance
practitioners need to have knowledge of, and be able to supply information about,
practicalities in integration. They need to have a minimum knowledge of legal
contents, systems, procedures, contact points and means of articulation between
services in the several dimensions of the individual’s integration: access to
healthcare, housing, legal work, education and social security.
It is also fundamental that practitioners can provide reliable information
about the labour market (see next point) and that they have mastered tools and
methodologies to produce useful information for labour market signalling,
identification of training opportunities and successful job matching. These
methodologies include being able to identify relevant work and learning
experiences, skills, knowledge and personal aspirations, to assist labour market
integration.

Information provided about the labour market needs to be realistic
On arrival, immigrants may have misconceptions about the host country labour
market and guidance practitioners need to help their clients acquire a realistic
perspective. Practitioners need to have access to reliable, updated information
about job offers per sector and profession, and their trends. This information has
to be easy to access, interpret and manage and it needs to cover a geographic
level relevant for the advice and information provided. As self-evident as this
aspect of guidance may appear to be, the current state of labour market
information across Europe still does not allow practitioners in many EU countries
to use reliable, updated and useful tools. The development of a counsellor toolkit
is would be an important step in ensuring access to quality labour market
intelligence and other career information.

A user-centred approach implies cultural adaptability
A user-centred approach, by accounting for the client’s perceptions, values,
aspirations and ways of expressing, should automatically imply respect and
awareness for his/her culture. Such an approach is made effective by practitioner
training and by supplying professionals with a good range of tools to respond to
challenges imposed by the cross-cultural context. Adapting questions, examples

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