The objective of the project was to remove barriers to the integration of foreign workers into the social services sector. The project focused on the development of general guidelines and recommendations for employers on how to approach foreign workers, as well as on the development of training for employer representatives, who are managers and HR managers of social service providers. The training is set up to understand the specific needs of foreign workers and to teach employers how to approach these foreign workers, how to ease their transition to a new working environment and enable them to fully participate in the work process as soon as possible. The training program consists of two parts. The online training is designed as a Massive Open Online Course - MOOC, it is more universal and suitable for all European countries. It is divided into 4 modules, includes online testing and a certificate is generated upon completion. The MOOC is available in 5 languages – English, French, German, Greek and Czech. The second part is the professional curriculum, which is designed for fulltime training of managers and HR managers, and is 8 hours long. The curriculum is divided into 4 modules and the lecturer can adapt the curriculum accord.
The social services sector in EU countries faces a number of challenges. One of the most serious is the shortage of staff, which will continue to worsen given the changing demographic structure of the population. Foreign workers, who represent a significant source of labour, can play a key role in overcoming staff shortages. The project seeks to support the integration of foreign workers into the social services sector, who face difficulties in entering the labour market due to language and cultural barriers, mistrust of employers and prejudice from other employees. These problems can be particularly significant for workers from non-EU countries. Therefore, it is crucial to educate employers in the social services sector to understand the various barriers and difficulties faced by foreign workers and to learn how to approach such workers in order to make their adaptation to the new environment as easy as possible so that they can fully participate in the workplace. The project therefore aimed to support the removal of barriers to the integration of foreign workers, in particular through the development of a Guidelines and Recommendations document as well as a training program (online and face-to-face) mainly for managers and HR.