MALVA - Preparing immigrants for working life

MALVA - Preparing immigrants for working life



The project encourages the employment of young and disadvantaged adult immigrants in Päijät-Häme and Uusimaa region. The project will create a timely model for low threshold support, coaching and work-based guidance for the immigrants and the staff supporting the immigrant during the employment process. The project identifies the needs of support for immigrant youth and adults. It also looks for common issues and solutions to them.



The project supports a change in the professional identity of workplace counselors, company recruiters and immigrants' teaching and guidance staff. It also supports a resource-focused and coaching approach to coping with work. By supporting the personnel in the educational institutions, the target group members and workplace councellors will operate a standard model. This clarifies the process for all involved, thereby building an important link in the process and improving the integration of the immigrant into Finnish working life.?The project clarifies the support and guidance process that is being developed through multi-professional co-operation. The starting point is precisely the aspirations, needs and aims of those with an immigrant background. Although different support services are available, the challenge is to reach and provide those services to young immigrants unfamiliar with Finnish society.



The need for support is higher than that of natives. The typical communication channels of young (like social media) needs to be taken into account and the process must be customer-oriented so that support reaches young people in a timely and appropriate way. The project will investigate what kind of channels young people find useful and develop a mobile and online counseling and guidance model that will help immigrants in problematic situations in working life. In the case of adult immigrants, the channels may not be the same as for young people. Appropriate support services will also be explored during the project. The project provides fast and flexible low-threshold support.

The project also identifies the needs of educational institutions and municipal work coaches, partner companies and especially the needs of workplace tutors. The project seeks solutions to these needs. Work is done in collaboration with companies, but the focus is on the customer oriented approach. In addition, the project will examine whether similar peer support is useful for workplace supervisors, teaching and guidance staff. Effective mobile support methods are modeled and recommended.



The project is implemented by Salpaus Further Education, School of Vocational Education of Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences, and LAB University of Applied Sciences in co-operation with companies in the regions. The primary target group of the project is young and adult immigrants, who are in a difficult labor market situation and whose access to the labor market has been hindered by a lack of knowledge of Finnish work culture and / or working methods, professional language skills or recognition of their previous skills. The other primary target group are workplace instructors and companies whose recruitment and coaching processes change as language and culture awareness increase. The indirect target group is the personnel of education institutes.