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Valuing diversity: guidance for labour market integration of migrants

sector organisations (Bimrose et al., 2011; Toparek et al., 2001).
Following-up Keeping in touch with individuals after guidance interventions, to assess
if further guidance is needed and of what type, direct outcomes from
sessions, the career progress of individuals, opinion about services.
Follow-up procedures can be at a distance, through telephone or online
questionnaires. These are an important part of a quality assurance
mechanism for guidance, given that they provide direct evidence of the
effects of the service and the level of adequacy for different publics. A
good follow-up system will be of great value in helping tune services
provided to migrants.
Networking Establishing links with individuals and organisations to support and
enhance guidance provision. For immigrant communities this can be of
great importance, since it addresses two fundamental points:
coordination between public services/administrative levels to develop
policy coordination (e.g. VET entities, councils and public employment
service (PES)); capacity building in immigrant groups, by cooperating
with immigrant associations to develop guidance skills among staff and
help develop adequate methodologies. Networking also enhances
knowledge about specific qualities and problems of immigrant groups
(see feedback, below).

Feeding back Gathering and collating information on the needs of individuals and
groups and encouraging providers to respond by adapting their
provision. Connected to networking, successful feedback mechanisms
can be developed in migrant communities with direct involvement of
those in the community trained to act as mediators. Focus groups
resorting to moderators with cross-cultural skills also offer interesting
approaches to feeding back.
Managing Creating and implementing coherent guidance programmes, ensuring
stability and development, while assuring relevance of provision and
quality of material, knowledge and human resources, with regular and
structured assessment. Management benefits from a solid QA system
based on effective follow-up and feedback mechanisms. A very
important aspect of management for migrant-targeted approaches is
sustainability, since many initiatives are project-based, have limited
financing and do not incorporate mechanisms that assure the retention
of guidance methods by agents that can assure continuity of the
provision.

Innovating/ Supporting the development of activities and underlying methodologies
systems as well as management practices to improve the quality of provision.
change Sustained innovation requires the establishment of evidence bases with
common criteria and is strongly related to regional and national level
initiatives.

As seen when analysing the case studies, guidance activities can be organised in
many ways, with space for innovation. Although this list accounts for most of the
activities developed, guidance processes can likely accommodate more.

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