Transcultural Open Badges Platform for Migrant's Transition Mentoring EARLY LIFE FAMILIY CARE

Transcultural
Open Badge Platform for Migrant's Transition Mentoring in Early Life Family
Care (TObP) is an EU-project focuses on non-recognition of foreign
qualifications and prior learning. Methodologically leaning on participatory
action research, the project aims to kill two birds with one stone by to
gaining recognition for the migrants' transcultural competences and improving
the existing ELFC services by aligning them better with the needs of the
migrants.

The project
focuses on non-recognition of foreign qualifications and prior learning as the
central migration issue of the new century in all post-industrial societies (UN
2016). It introduces a newly started EU-Strategic Partnership for setting up
new standards for skill recognition of migrants in the field of Early Life
Family Care (ELFC), using open badges as flexible and visible recognition
system and with the aim of creating a new job profile called Transition Mentor.

The project
spans over 3 years from September 2018 to August 2021 and will take place in
five different European countries: Austria, Finland, Germany, Kosovo and
Switzerland. In each country, Higher Education Institutions and Research
Organizations are collaborating with a local, small and/or social enterprise,
either in the field of ELFC, IT-Technology or Social Welfare and Networking. In
Finland, JAMK University of Applied Sciences coordinates the project. The
working life partner of JAMK is Multicultural Center Gloria.

'Cognition
precedes recognition' - With this statement in mind, the project seeks to
tackle transition barriers and skill-mismatches faced by the migrants as early
as possible in order to foster a more inclusive society and cohesive Europe.

The
migrants and refugees in the ELFC sector are in a unique situation, since they
are going through two transitions simultaneously: both arriving in their new
target country, and entering parenthood. With growing mass migration, the
amount of pregnant migrant women arriving in Europe is increasing and with it,
their heightened vulnerability is becoming more apparent. In the ELFC-sector in
its current state there is, on one hand, a clear skill shortage in the
transcultural knowledge and on the other hand, a lot of unused potential – that
of the migrants and refugees themselves.

In order to
gain access to this unused potential, the project sees a paradigm shift
necessary: by using Participatory Action Research (PAR), the project will
develop Transcultural Case Studies out of the real (working) life. This is an
innovative approach, giving members of marginalized groups, in this case
migrants/refugees, an active role and a voice in order to co-create the aimed
new competence and job profile called Transition Mentor.