Europe struggles for adequate approaches and solutions to cope with the high numbers of refugees and asylum seekers arriving. Alone in 2015 the European Refugees Crisis has brought more than 1 Million migrants to Europe. The more people in Europe are looking for protection, the more help has been organised. Volunteers distribute donations of clothes, take refugees in to give language lessons, support in the communication with local authorities or in the health care process. The number of volunteer refugee helpers has risen sharply in the past three years. Citizens of European countries are willing to help with time, dedication and financial resources. And these people are a keystone in the necessary process of integration in order to minimise isolation from receiving communities and to provide opportunities to refugees and asylum seekers to develop their human potential and skills. For a better help on both sides it is crucial to provide these motivated volunteers with information, knowledge and emotional support. Even if the number of asylum seekers in Europe has decreased after the peak in 2015, their integration is a long-term process not finished after the asylum procedures, and it needs the long-term engagement and competent support of European volunteers. Thus, the project caseWORK aims at supporting and qualifying volunteers and enabling them to do their demanding work competently and successfully. In an innovative online learning environment, volunteers will be supported to find necessary information, to develop transversal skills such as intercultural communication competences and to be prepared for the very emotional task of supporting people that have been affected by a crisis situation and seek for protection. Volunteers are highly motivated and committed, but they need information, advice, support and help for developing the necessary skills. It is also essential to be aware of the challenges, limitations and potential (emotional) frustration in the support process. The main output of caseWORK will be an online training seminar, presented in a user-friendly online learning environment, for volunteers, comprising three main topical areas: 1. Information The main aim of this topical area of the online seminar is to enable the volunteers to accelerate and to facilitate the asylum procedure and thus to prepare the newcomers for a successful long-term integration. 2. Intercultural Competence This area of the online course aims at providing volunteer helpers with the necessary sensitivity and awareness for their work with people from different cultural backgrounds. They get enabled to act as mediators between different cultures, understanding the cultural background, thinking and acting patterns of the refugees and to carefully introduce them to the cultural standards of Europe and the single receiving countries. 3. Psychological support In this module the challenges and pitfalls of volunteer work will be introduced and discussed in the scope of human and social psychology tradition. Volunteers will be able to reflect their motives and individual limits and to cope with emotionally demanding situations. Beside the main target group of volunteers the project aims at having a relevant positive impact on indirect target groups benefiting from the project outcomes, e.g. refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, authorities at local, regional and national level, decision makers, health care services, educational institutions, employment agencies and research communities dealing with intercultural competences, social psychology and pedagogy. caseWORK is based upon innovative pedagogical approaches such as learner-centred education, flexible and distance learning, learning with multimedia elements, and combines those approaches with motivating technologies that enable the learners to find content and orientation adapted to their individual needs. The expected impact on the participants and further beneficiaries are: Volunteers receive all necessary information on asylum procedures on European, national and regional level. The participants are trained to develop their intercultural competences, to get aware of intercultural differences and to integrate their competences in their work routine. Learning about coping strategies and psychological competences will be of positive impact for for the volunteers, but also for the refugees and asylum seekers who get supported by individuals who developed emotional strengths and strategies to handle demanding situations. The project’s dissemination and exploitation strategies are parts of an overall valorisation process with the objectives of further using the outputs after the project’s end, establishing the caseWORK learning environment and content as a standard training offer for volunteers working with refugees and asylum seekers, and transferring the results to similar contexts and target groups.
With the beginning of the so-called European Migrant Crisis in 2015, Europe has been struggling for adequate approaches and solutions to cope with the high numbers of refugees and asylum seekers arriving. At that time, more than 1 Million migrants came to Europe seeking for home, shelter and help. The more people arrived, the more help had to be organised and the number of volunteers working in the field of migration rose sharply. Citizens of European countries were and still are willing to help with time, dedication and financial resources. As these people are a keystone in the necessary process of integration in order to minimise isolation from receiving communities and to provide opportunities to refugees and asylum seekers to develop their human potential and skills, the project CaseWORK aims at providing them with information, knowledge and emotional support. Supporting and qualifying volunteers and enabling them to do their demanding work competently and successfully is central for the long term integration of refugees and asylum seekers. Volunteers are highly motivated and committed, but they need information, advice, support and help for developing the necessary skills. It is also essential to be aware of the challenges, limitations and potential (emotional) frustration in the support process. In order to support the target group in the most effective way possible, CaseWORK developed an innovative online learning environment, providing necessary information, helping volunteers to develop transversal skills such as intercultural communication competences and preparing them for the very emotional task of supporting people that have been affected by a crisis situation and seek for protection. The main output of CaseWORK is a flexible online training seminar, presented in a user-friendly online learning environment that comprises three main topical areas: 1. Information: the main aim is to enable the volunteers to accelerate and to facilitate the asylum procedure and thus to prepare newcomers for a successful long-term integration. 2. Intercultural Competence: aims at providing volunteer helpers with the necessary sensitivity and awareness for their work with people from different cultural backgrounds. They get enabled to act as mediators between different cultures, understanding the cultural background, thinking and acting patterns of the refugees and to carefully introduce them to the cultural standards of Europe and the single receiving countries. 3. Psychological support: challenges and pitfalls of volunteer work are introduced and discussed in the scope of human and social psychology tradition. Volunteers get enabled to reflect their motives and individual limits and to cope with emotionally demanding situations. CaseWORK is based upon innovative pedagogical approaches such as learner-centred education, flexible and distance learning and learning with multimedia elements. The project combines those approaches with motivating technologies that enable learners to find content and orientation adapted to their individual needs. The impact on the participants and further beneficiaries was: Participating volunteers received all necessary information on asylum procedures on European, national and regional level. The participants were trained to develop their intercultural competences, to get aware of intercultural differences and to integrate their competences in their work routine. Coping strategies and psychological competences were of positive impact for the volunteers, but also for the refugees and asylum seekers who got supported by individuals who developed emotional strengths and strategies to handle demanding situations. This overall goal as well as all other activities of the project were centered on five main intellectual outputs, namely 1) Publication: Situation and Needs of Volunteers working with Refugees across Europe 2) Content of Online Course 3) Innovative Learning Environment Platform 4) Set of Multimedia Elements 5) Implementation Guidelines In the project and until this day, 322 volunteers registered for the training seminar and the website is still counting registrations every day. The vast majority of users is located in Germany. In addition to that, round about 100 organizations and stakeholders in the field of migration were reached through multiplier events and several thousand people were informed about CaseWORK through presentations on relevant national and international events and conferences, through newsletters and information spread via social media and platforms such as EPALE. The project’s dissemination and exploitation strategies were part of an overall valorisation process with the objectives of further using the outputs after the project’s end, establishing the caseWORK learning environment and content as a standard training offer for volunteers working with refugees and asylum seekers, and transferring the results to similar contexts and target groups.