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VAM-Velferd, arbeid og migrasjon

Pathways to Active Citizenship

Alternative title: Veier til medborgerskap

Awarded: NOK 10.4 mill.

The project PACT (Pathways to Active Citizenship) is concerned with different groups of people who have a refugee background, and who have recently been granted residency in Norway. PACT looks at their way into participation on important societal arenas such as work, education and voluntary activities. The aim of PACT is to improve public and non-profit services that facilitates active citizenship in the Norwegian society. The project consists of three so-called ?work packages?, each investigating a specific topic. The first work package looks at unaccompanied refugee minors and their quality of life and resilience, transition between adolescence and adulthood, the follow-up services they receive by the municipal Child Welfare Services in Bergen, Stavanger, and Drammen. The second work package is a follow-up study of a previous study, which investigated whether the service Individual Placement and Support (IPS) was more effective than ordinary follow-up in providing ordinary work for refugees in the Introduction program in Bergen. This work-package will investigate the effect of IPS five years after the participants were included into the original study. Will we see a long-term difference between those receiving IPS and those receiving ordinary follow-up? Collaborating partners are NAV Vestland and the Introduction Center for Refugees in Bergen. The final work package in PACT looks at how work training in the Norwegian Trekking Organisation (DNT) kan be constructed in way that is most beneficial for both the participants and DNT. Collaborating partners are DNT Stavanger and the Refugee Section in Stavanger Municipality. A core ambition in PACT is that the knowledge that is produced by the project should be applicable for those working practically with different groups of refugees, as well as for decision makers on a political level. Another ambition is to identify potentialities and evidence-based priorities that facilitate processes towards active citizenship.

PACT commits itself to the task of exploring how newly settled refugees navigate within the active citizenship dimensions in the arenas of work, education/qualification, and the voluntary sector. The refugees' own experience, as well the role of services to facilitate desired processes, are the main pillars of the project. PACT consists of three work packages: WP1 focuses on unaccompanied refugee minors, and uses existing registry data, comparative analysis, questionnaire data, and longitudinal qualitative methods to investigate quality of life and educational and working life trajectories among unaccompanied refugee minors. WP2 uses existing registry data to examine the long-term effects of a work rehabilitation intervention for refugees in the introduction program in Bergen, and to identify possible sequential patterns in the study population’s labor market attachment. WP3 uses a mixed methods evaluative trailing research design to construct a program theory for a work-training program for refugees in a voluntary sector organization, and to standardize the program so it can be implemented on a larger scale. Towards the end of the project period, collaborators will work together to synthesize results into a coherent message, and translate the results into their daily practices.

Funding scheme:

VAM-Velferd, arbeid og migrasjon