The Experimentation phase is followed by the Evaluation phase, which aims at understanding the strengths that make the model effective and efficient, integrating it with suggestions about what are the conditions that make it more powerful, and highlighting and correcting any critical areas that may emerge.

This phase consists of three actions. The first will consist in conducting interviews with workers, coordinators of the partner bodies and some participants to identify strengths and weaknesses of the model. The second will consist of a workshop, which will involve researchers, representatives of partner organizations and representatives of the Participating Foreign Parties. The aim of this workshop is to suggest changes to the intervention protocol, in order to make it more effective and efficient. The last step will be to update the manual according to what emerged during the workshop.

EVALUATION

Partners

- understand the strengths that make the model effective and efficient;

- highlight the critical areas;

 - the final result will be a protocol review and the draft of the final manual, which will be translated into English in order to popularize the Italian experience abroad.

On October 2 and 3 the partner organizations’ representatives and some operators met at Università Cattolica in Milan to take stock of the data resulting from the experimentation phase. The operators of FOCSIV, the partner in charge of monitoring and evaluating, reported the results that emerged from the interviews conducted with each operator for each one of the 42 groups made up of 10 migrants.

The first element that came out is a strong heterogeneity of the several situations. Each participant differed from the others in terms of nationality and literacy level. The operators were equally both Italian and foreign. Finally, the institutions were of two kinds: those that directly host refugees or asylum seekers, and those who have tested the model on participants who are hosted by other structures. This variety of situations allowed us to understand more precisely the conditions in which the ESPaR process proves to be more efficient.

As for the groups, both the general atmosphere and the participation have always been quite good. This is also proven by the very limited absences at the meetings. Yet, the data concerning the group members’ homogeneity is less optimal: it should be taken into account that this is likely to be a difficult element to avoid, especially for those small institutions that have little chance of selecting participants in a way that guarantees similar levels of literacy and orientation needs.

In general, the activities structure has been confirmed: the only adjustments that will be made to the manual will concern a longer duration of two of the group meetings, a reduction from three to one of the individual interviews and the doubling of the number of hours dedicated to back-office activities, mostly necessary for drafting the final document. As for the individual activities, some of them have proved to be effective and do not require changes, while others will be partly reorganized so that they may be more suitable for those who don’t have a high level of literacy.

Finally, considering the effectiveness in general, the first data confirm its efficacy, most of all as far as the ability to modify dystonic expectations about the skills possessed and the real opportunities for job placement, thus fostering a more realistic planning (see graph). Furthermore, the operators have underlined how the final document proves to be extremely useful for those helping the migrants to choose professional retraining paths and to look for job opportunities or internships suited to their skills and expectations.

THE EXPERIMENTATION PHASE HAS ENDED: NOW IT’S TIME FOR EVALUATION

At the end of September almost all the groups finished their activities and the ESPaR documents were drafted and delivered to the participants. At the same time, starting from July, the evaluation phase by FOCSIV began. It’s about conducting a series of interviews via Skype, one for each one of the 42 groups, based on a questionnaire consisting of both open and closed questions and organized in several sections.

The first one concerns the group: homogeneity level of the participants; general atmosphere; active participation. Then, both scheduled group and individual meetings are reviewed, in order to understand how much and why they were useful, and to identify any critical issues. The third section anonymously investigates how much the programme has contributed to improve each participant ability to plan his/her professional future in a more consistent way according to his/her new situation. Finally, the overall efficiency of the project is evaluated with respect to its main objectives:

AWARENESS: how much did the whole experience help the participants to become aware of their professional situation (skills, interests, values, employability)?

NARRATION EFFECTIVNESS: how much did the whole programme help participants become more efficient in telling about their professional experience (skills, interests, values)?

CAREER REPLANNING: how much did the whole experience help the participants to plan or redesign those career steps that needed to be reconsidered?

The quantitative and qualitative data collected will be then analysed and the results will be the starting point for the activities of the workshop to be held on October 2 and 3, addressed to the managers of those institutions that have tested the model and to the representatives of foreign parties. Its purpose will be to highlight the adjustments to be made to the model so that it can be useful and easily replicable.