Background

In Vantaa, immigrant families needed better support for everyday integration, and cooperation between homes, schools and communities was uneven. Services did not always reach families effectively. The project was launched to build trust, improve dialogue and create practical support models in cooperation with schools, the city and local organisations.

Objectives

Families and children

• Support integration, everyday wellbeing and cooperation with schools.
• Provide safe meeting places and low-threshold support in multiple languages.

Schools and professionals

• Strengthen effective home–school collaboration in multilingual settings.
• Create opportunities for equal, open dialogue with families.

Community organisations and local actors

• Build a lasting cooperation network around key integration actors.
• Develop models that can continue after the project ends.

Project Activities

During the project we:

• Built a cooperation network connecting the city, schools, NGOs and multilingual instructors,
• organised open-door walks, multilingual parent evenings and neighbourhood events
• provided work coaching in several languages for immigrants from outside the EU through five NGOs
• brought Laurea’s mobile multisensory space “Aistien tila” to schools and community venues as a meeting place,
• engaged 52 Laurea students in project work, placements and theses in local schools and communities, and
• compiled eleven effective integration practices into the project’s final publication.