The SIRIUS European Policy Network on the education of children and young people with a migrant background proposes a strategic partnership between seven countries. This project aims to address the high occurrence of early school leaving (ESL) among migrant youth in European school systems by empowering migrant parents through the sharing of practice and transfer of knowledge. Specifically, this project seeks to address the many barriers to increased empowerment of migrant parents by establishing local migrant parent empowerment networks in five countries. These networks will work to empower migrant parents by involving them in the decision-making process, collaborating with a wide variety of stakeholders and facilitating local and international exchange of practices. The main short/medium term objectives of ALFIRK are to: (1) develop cross-sector, impactful, and sustainable migrant parent empowerment networks in the participating countries and (2) lay the groundwork for the development of future networks in non-participating countries. The main long-term objectives of this project are to: (1) facilitate the expansion of and continued existence of established networks in the participating countries and (2) lead to the development of networks in non-participating countries. The seven partners participating in this project are part of the SIRIUS Network, and have been working jointly for several years now. This group of partners joined together for this project because of their expertise in the field of migrant education and their interest in and commitment to contributing to ALFIRK. Our aim to represent the diversity of European school systems with regard to history of educating migrant students in this project also informed the composition of the partnership. Thus, this project includes partners representing countries in an early stage of the reception of migrants into their education systems, countries that have been experiencing large influxes recently, and countries that have been receiving migrants for several decades. ALFIRK will include three main phases: knowledge gathering, network development and dissemination. During the knowledge-gathering phase we will produce two major intellectual outputs, create an important project management document, and hold the first transnational meeting of partners where these outputs will be shared and discussed. In the network development phase, we will use the knowledge gathered to help establish migrant parent empowerment networks in five of the participating countries. This phase will include cross-sector conference of stakeholders committed to empowering migrant parents in the five countries, a second transnational meeting where all partners will finalize plans for ensuring the sustainability of the networks in each country, and a cross-sector training workshop in each of the five network development countries. In the dissemination phase, we will conduct an impact evaluation, finalize the comparative toolkit on migrant parent empowerment network development and develop an online collaborative platform. During this phase the partners will disseminate all project outputs at the local, regional, national and international level. In terms of short- and medium-term impacts of ALFIRK, we expect: - migrant parents to become more engaged in their children’s education and to feel more able to manage day-to-day family situations, to work with the school system and to advocate for improved educational services for migrant youth in general. - increased and improved cooperation between schools, parent associations, NGOs and local authorities at the local, regional, national, and international level. - increased awareness of the importance of a collaborative approach to migrant parent empowerment at the local, regional, national, and international level. With regard to longer-term impacts, we expect the project to lead to: - the development of migrant parent empowerment networks in non-participating countries - decreased ESL among migrant youth throughout the EU due to the strengthened parent empowerment and cooperation between stakeholders.
The project ‘ALFIRK – Collaborative Networks for Migrant Parent Empowerment’ addresses the importance of including parents, and in particular migrant parents in school and educational processes of their children in order to tackle the high occurrence of early school leaving (ESL) and disparities in learning outcomes of migrant youth in European school systems. This project sought to address the many barriers to increased empowerment of migrant parents by developing practical tools for functioning migrant parent involvement and networking in six countries. ALFIRK was initiated by the SIRIUS Network – Policy Network on Migrant Education with the support of the European Commission through the Erasmus+ Program and builds up on the SIRIUS (2014) ‘Agenda on Migrant Education’. Migrant parents are often found to participate less in the school processes and the education of their children while at the same time many migrant students lag behind in educational achievements. Parental involvement in school and education matters of their children carries the potential to contribute to enhanced educational performance. Furthermore, parents with a migrant background are often not as well connected to local structures and information as parents without a migrant background. Strengthening parental networking and their inclusion in local structures carries the potential to further enhance their involvement in the education of their children. Before this background, ALFIRK addresses barriers in increased parental empowerment in education processes, particularly among migrant parents, by: • Analyzing patterns of migrant parental involvement, parental networking, and barriers in parental involvement and empowerment at case study schools in six EU countries; • Identifying practical tools and good practices for migrant parental involvement and empowerment in order to enable schools to improve their strategies for migrant parental involvement; • Developing online tools to enable migrant parents to easily access information about school and education systems in EU countries and to network and exchange information among each others. This is implemented through three outputs: 1) A qualitative study on the experiences of Migrant Parents. 2) A toolkit for good practices in migrant parental involvement in education 3) A migrant parent empowerment collaborative platform. In the long term, ALFIRK aims to empower migrant parents at three levels: • The family level, which reflects parents’ ability to manage issues of the family within the social context, • The service system level, which reflects the degree to which parents are able to effectively work with the school system, • The community/political level, which reflects parents’ advocacy for improved services for migrant youth in general. The collaborative approach is reflected in the project name “ALFIRK,” which means “the flock.” The project ran from September 2015 to August 2018; it was coordinated by the european forum for migration studies – efms (Germany): The partners were Multi Kulti Collective (Bulgaria), Risbo (the Netherlands), Leeds Beckett University (United Kingdom), Economic and Social Research Institute (Ireland), Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (Spain), and Migration Policy Group (Belgium).