The project consists of two distinct phases:
1st Phase: The initial phase starts from the arrival in the receiving country (country of initial reception). It evolves alongside with the asylum seeking procedures and while all the basic needs of the beneficiaries are being covered. The main objective is the formulation of a “personal portfolio” which will include knowledge, skills and qualification the target population, as well as the (training, counseling) needs identification. This will be carried out with the cooperation of partners from final destination (host) countries, in order to have an accurate account of skills and knowledge needed in these counties.
2nd Phase: The second phase is composed of training programs, guidance-counseling and certification activities that take place in the receiving country (first reception). Based on the “personal portfolio” and the data related to required skills and knowledge from the final destination countries, diversified training and counseling courses will be developed and implemented. The ultimate goal is the full implementation, monitoring and evaluation of personalized social integration projects.
Regarding the target groups, the project is aimed at functional integration of refugee populations and more specifically the integration of a) asylum seekers and b) recognized refugees and families. The general characteristics of subpopulations of the project are as follows:
- Subpopulation A: Young people over 16 years old awaiting resettlement or family reunification.
- Subpopulation B: Adult asylum seekers with legal residence during the application review
- Subpopulation C: Adults – international protection beneficiaries, which have confirmed difficulty accessing formal education structures.
of the project are:
This project should be carried out transnationally as the phenomenon of refugees’ inclusion in the European societies is by its nature an international problem and, therefore, sustainable partnerships should be developed between member states to promote the integration of target groups into the labor market. Furthermore, it is crucial for the project’s implementation to promote knowledge and exchange of experience between Member States which may already operate similar mechanisms for refugees’ integration in the labor market.
Regarding evaluation actions Internal evaluation will mainly be focused at the “on-going” evaluation of the project as it progresses, as well as at the final evaluation, which will principally concern with project outcomes and will seek to identify and measure effectiveness in achieving stated objectives and targets, in order to appropriately inform and influence decision-making at National and European level. External evaluation will be commissioned to an external independent Expert-evaluator. The evaluator will be asked to focus on the assessment of the project’s efficiency (value for money) and effectiveness (measurable outputs) in the delivery of ERASMUS+ Program objectives, using relevant appropriate tools. The applied quality assurance approach is based on approaches identified as especially useful within project work. The overall approach follows a combined quality concept that equally considers input, process, output and sustainability aspects.
The project will be based on the following innovative features:
- Simultaneous assessment of needs – expectations – opportunities both of refugee populations and the first host and final installation societies. The main goal is the coupling and the active combination of each other, encouraging in this way a more functional integration, as a sum of dynamics among refugee populations and host communities.
- Effective use of time and duration of the refugee routes, which, however, requires continuous step-by-step monitoring of the procedures for reception and integration of refugee populations in real time. More specifically, from the preliminary needs assessment of the target subpopulations, there was a time lag between the first registration and the final settlement of asylum applications, relocation or reunification, ranging from 6 months to two years. Until now, the existing structures of national education and training systems have been unable to use this useful time for the benefit of target populations by limiting their social inclusion potential. This proposal attempts to address this actual need.
- Finally, the development of new tools for recording, managing and evaluating skills and training qualifications specifically tailored to the needs of the target population of the proposal. The existing tools respond to the needs of the general population of formal education systems. In the context of this proposal, new e-portfolios need to include additional information and data such as the personal action plan and the social record of trainees. In addition to the possibility of a more individual personalized management of each learner case, the development of a new functional e-portfolio will facilitate the direct and unambiguous exchange of information between the educational structures in the host and installation countries (in cases of relocation and family reunification).
Innovation in this project concerns:
- Individualized approaches/ methods, designed to address specific problems/ needs, and/or to overcome specific obstacles of the target group
- Specific/IT tools, enabling participants to benefit at most and practitioners to implement the new approach or method – these include training materials, procedural manuals/ guides, curricula/modules
- Project documentation (including cases of good practice), demonstrating the success, requirements and applicability of the new approach/method
Moreover:
- Field-testing innovation with the purpose:
- to measure the success of the project’s activities, in relation to performance indicators which reflect its key objectives
- to generate immediate feedback from practical implementation, making possible the progressive refinement and improvement of the innovative approaches and tools being tested
- to document innovative action, and to provide the evidence needed to assess its effectiveness, requirements and difficulties, as well as its wider relevance and applicability