Austria, Germany, Italy, Norway and Sweden have given home to a large number of refugees and asylum seekers during the last months. The countries with high immigration figures, their regions and municipalities are right now at a crucial stage: They have to find ways to quickly integrate immigrants and refugees into society and the world of work in order to allow people a structured and financially independent life and to ensure that societies can cope with the large number of new citizens. The talents project will transfer and further develop a new and and very successful language and vocational training and integration concept for immigrants of the City of Göteborg. ... % of the participating immigrants were employed after guidance and training. The Göteborg HOTEL TALENTS concept will be amended so that it can be transfered to other sectors (e.g. health, logistics, retail trade) and other countries and regions with different legal, financing, integration and training systems.Specific Objectives of the project are to analyse, build up, test and further develop European role models, guidelines and tools for guidance, training and company cooperations to support the (fast) access of adult immigrants and refugees to the labour market by …a) analysing existing regional guidance settings and training curricula (including intensive language trainings combined with professional language, professional skills and company cooperations). The heart and driving force of the project is the “Hotel Talents” project of the City of Göteborg.b) testing these training concepts in different regions and countries and in different economic sectors, mainly sectors with a lack of qualified workers, e.g. hotelery and gastronomy, health sector etc.c) scientifically following up the project and do research e.g. on how such guidance, training concepts can be adapted to needs of different groups of immigrants (high-qualified, low-qualified, persons with traumas etc.), to legal backgrounds and to financing systemsd) amending the pilot concepts and defining flexible role models for different target groups, sectors, legal backgrounds and financing systemse) developing European guidelines and tools which allow to introduce flexible guidance and training curricula in different EU countriesf) developing modules that can be used independently from full integration concepts (tools for validation and guidance, curricula for language training, professional skills training etc.)g) developing teacher trainings to support the transfer of conceptsDuring the project lifetime of three years the project reaches up to 9000 participants, among them staff of all project partners, counsellors and teachers participating in trainings, staff in companies and partner institutions involved, persons receiving guidance in connection to training activities, participants in six pilot training courses, users of the European toolbox and modules of the training concept, persons who will participate in TALENTS courses in- and outside the project within five years from the project start, persons who have a profit from improved guidance and training in partner organisations and other institutions and persons reached through other dissemination activities like press articles.Intellectual Outpus of the project will beO1 European guidelines and toolbox for projects and training concepts to support the (fast) access of adult immigrants and refugees to the labour market O2 “Talents” App for the matching and the competence management between immigrant-company-training provider O3 Scientific analysis and study on the adaption and pilot implementation of the TALENTS concept including policy recommendationsO4 Curricula for trainings for educational staff (project managers, guidance counsellors and teachers) on the basis of the “Talents” conceptThe project's methodology will be based on the Soft Open Method of Cooperation (SMOC) that has been developed by the project partners EARLALL and the University of Florence in a previous EU project. SMOC promotes policy learning and transfer processes of best practice among regional governments, stakeholders and practitioners and offers software support. The TALENTS project will contribute to the successful integration of immigrants on the local and regional level and support national as well as EU initiatives to tackle the refugees crisis.
The Talents project focused on a new form of comprehensive language and professional training for immigrants and refugees with the aim to support their fast access to the labour market – as jobs are considered to be the most important basis for successful integration. Project partners from Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Norway and Sweden commonly developed and tested new strategies of integration in countries and regions which welcomed high numbers of refugees and which, in general, have high immigration rates. The heart and driving force of the project was the “Hotel Talents” project of the City of Göteborg - an innovative fast-track programme for immigrants and refugees that combines vocational language training with practical experience at the workplace. The Talents trainings prepare participants for a first job within a short period of several months and build a direct track to the labour market. The parallel, alternating structure of classroom language and professional training and internship in companies led to promising results. High employment rates of participants after the trainings in Sweden proved that the concept is effective and a suitable measure to increase employment rates among persons with migration background. In the course of the Talents project, the Göteborg role model was transferred to Germany and Norway, and the Swedish partners extended and further developed their fast track concepts as well as upskilling initiatives. The goal was to test the fast-track training model in different legal, financial and structural frameworks focussing on main characteristics of fast track and necessary functions to be taken over in the context of such concepts. In Germany and Norway, Talents fast-track trainings and curricula were developed in the sectors hotel and gastronomy, retail trade, warehouse and logistics as well as building and construction Moreover, some project partners developed fast-track trainings for immigrants and refugees with an academic background, e.g. for doctors, for persons who finished pedagogical and social studies or hold a degree in business administration. In Göteborg, fast-track trainings have meanwhile been developed for more than 50 professions. In addition, upskilling pathways were designed in Sweden to guarantee that career options and the perspective of a second and a third job are available. The Talents project partners are main stakeholders of integration in their countries on different levels and in different fields. They are responsible for the political and strategic steering of education and integration on the regional and local level, they are experts in the field of validation and guidance, they offer language classes and vocational training and do research on integration issues. The following institutions contributed to the Talents project: Volkshochschulverband Baden-Württemberg e.V. (Co-ordinator) / DE, Ministerium für Kultus, Jugend und Sport Baden-Württemberg / DE, Göteborgs Stad / SE, Cuben Utbildning AB / SE, Oslo Voksenopplæring Rosenhof / NO, Steirische Volkswirtschaftliche Gesellschaft / AT, Università degli studi di Firenze / IT, and EARLALL (Association Européenne des Autorités Régionales et Locales pour l'apprentissage tout au long de la vie) / European, based in Belgium. Outputs of the Talents project are: 1.) a European modular tool box, providing training concepts, curricula, pedagogical material, and other training documents for practitioners carrying out fast-track trainings, 2.) a competence balancing App to support the exchange on necessary competences for a certain job between employer, trainee, teachers, and coaches, 3.) a study on the project activities and 4.) curricula for trainings for language teachers and guidance counsellors that work in fast-track training programmes. During the project lifetime of three years, the project reached up to 9000 participants, among them staff of all project partners, counsellors and teachers participating in trainings, staff in companies and partner institutions involved, persons receiving guidance in connection to training activities, participants in 20 pilot training courses, users of the European toolbox and modules of the training concept, persons who will participate in Talents courses in- and outside the project within five years from the project start, persons who have a profit from improved guidance and training in partner organisations and other institutions and persons reached through other dissemination activities like press articles. The Talents project contributed to the successful integration of immigrants on the local and regional level. Talents classes have high access rates to full employment. Talents motivated a large number of follow-up initiatives in the Talents regions with additional budgets of several million Euro, it initiated structural changes on local and regional level land was a role model for national and EU initiatives to tackle the refugees crisis.