The ESPoR Project

The ESPoR (European Skills Portfolio for Refugees) project enables the trial of a Skills audit model (Bilancio di competenze (BdC) aiming at making activities for the Supporto all’Inserimento Lavorativo (SIL – Support for Inclusion in the Job Market) more effective. SIL activites include training courses for professional qualifications and for requalification, organising work experience, validating or certifying professional skills, recognising professional qualifications, active job searching, facilitating job placements, establishing new businesses and self-employment. The aim is to make the placement of migrants in the workplace faster and more efficient, and as a result help migrants become self-sufficient, by reducing the time they spend in reception centers, and aiding their integration in the host nation.

SIL activities often do not best match the skills, potential and motivation of the migrant with the needs of the Italian job market and with existing job opportunities. An in depth analysis into immigration policies, as described in the European Migration Network (EMN), has in fact shown that whilst career guidance projects with this specific aim do exist, there is also evidence of their limitations, which the ESPoR project hopes to address and overcome. These limitations include an insufficient amount of time dedicated to the process, a lack of expertise during the job consultation process that is specific to the target market, and the episodic nature of such consultations.

Central to the ESPoR project will be the trialing of a process that will be complementary to the “EU Skills Profile Tool for Third Country Nationals”. The EU Skills Profile Tool for Third Country Nationals is already recognised at international level for its potential to collect vast amounts of information regarding a migrant’s expertise in a systematic and transferable way; however, it is at risk of producing incomplete and unreliable results when adequate skills profiling is not carried out ahead of filling in other information.

THE FIVE OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

SUSTAINABILITY
Promote the sustainability of ESPoR based SIL activities in reception centres and within existing economic resources and services at regional and national level. This objective will be achieved by setting up 6 discussion panels, 5 regional and one national, in charge of examining ways to ensure future sustainability to the BdC model and resulting in new networks and guidelines.
PROFESSIONALISM
Increase the number of experienced operators that use the BdC ESPoR model as part of SIL career guidance, and define a required skill set with the aim of promoting additional training courses for those working in reception centres.This objective will be achieved by training 50 operators at the ESPoR model.
EMPOWERMENT
Provide asylum seekers with concrete tools to enhance their individual professional skills and social skills with a view to creating greater proactivity and awareness with regards to job hunting and the integration process. This objective will be achieved by trialing ESPoR based SIL career guidance activities on 50 groups of 10 migrants.
EFFECTIVENESS
Identify ways of making SIL interventions more effective thanks to the targeted introduction of ESPoR. This objective will be achieved by studying the effectiveness of the project through the quantitative and qualitative analysis of data collected during the trial period. The trial will be the subject of publications and presentations at conferences.
INTERNATIONALISATION
Investigate concrete possibilities of transferring the BdC ESPoR model to EU Member States in order to promote its uptake, trialing and dissemination. This objective will be achieved by verifying the transferability of the model, and the use of the final document, in the course of relocating migrants in other member states of the European Union, with the collaboration of 3 Associated Partners in Spain, France and Germany.