Co-developing the Immigrant Integration Services of the Järvenpää’s Immigration Office Verso
Hafeez, Kirsi; Menard, Päivi (2019)
2019
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2019112622560
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2019112622560
Tiivistelmä
The Master´s Thesis focused on evaluating and co-developing the immigrant integration and employment enhancing services of Järvenpää´s Immigration Office Verso in cooperation with the customers and employees of the Verso Advisory Services. The aim of the thesis was also to contribute with suggestions on how to engage all the Järvenpää immigrants in the Verso services.
The methods used to reach the goals of the thesis were a combination of literature study, planning meetings, interviews with the personnel, analysis of population and customer data, ethnographic research, semi-structured customer interviews, co-design workshops, ideation, brainstorming, prototyping and testing one new service idea as a pilot in practice.
Based on the research and customer experiences, Järvenpää Immigration Office Verso provides high-quality and versatile first stage integration services for the immigrants. Nevertheless, to increase the impact of the integration measures, during the service development process, the following further development suggestions were created as a result of the successful teamwork. The whole service ecosystem in Järvenpää needs to be more visible. To improve the data transfer, the integration service package planning should increasingly take place in multi-actor, everyone on-site stakeholder collaboration meetings. The communication should be improved to reach the whole immigrant society. To increase inclusion and independent life management of immigrants, the intense focus needs to be on learning the Finnish language and professional skills as well as recognition of immigrants´ existing qualifications. It is essential to increase the multicultural training of immigrants as well as the Finnish employer companies, to forecast in the future needed professional skills and to give tools for digital citizenship to avoid immigrant exclusion from the society. Increasing the awareness of women's rights is needed among immigrants. A helpdesk is required to provide face-to-face work-life and labour law guidance for immigrants. To extend immigrants' support person and mentor networks, real incentives are needed. It is crucial to boost immigrants' and citizens' own initiatives and engagement in building an inclusive society for all.
The methods used to reach the goals of the thesis were a combination of literature study, planning meetings, interviews with the personnel, analysis of population and customer data, ethnographic research, semi-structured customer interviews, co-design workshops, ideation, brainstorming, prototyping and testing one new service idea as a pilot in practice.
Based on the research and customer experiences, Järvenpää Immigration Office Verso provides high-quality and versatile first stage integration services for the immigrants. Nevertheless, to increase the impact of the integration measures, during the service development process, the following further development suggestions were created as a result of the successful teamwork. The whole service ecosystem in Järvenpää needs to be more visible. To improve the data transfer, the integration service package planning should increasingly take place in multi-actor, everyone on-site stakeholder collaboration meetings. The communication should be improved to reach the whole immigrant society. To increase inclusion and independent life management of immigrants, the intense focus needs to be on learning the Finnish language and professional skills as well as recognition of immigrants´ existing qualifications. It is essential to increase the multicultural training of immigrants as well as the Finnish employer companies, to forecast in the future needed professional skills and to give tools for digital citizenship to avoid immigrant exclusion from the society. Increasing the awareness of women's rights is needed among immigrants. A helpdesk is required to provide face-to-face work-life and labour law guidance for immigrants. To extend immigrants' support person and mentor networks, real incentives are needed. It is crucial to boost immigrants' and citizens' own initiatives and engagement in building an inclusive society for all.