Description
It is widely agreed that both Roma individuals and people with disabilities still have a special „status” on the labour market and that this status is affecting their social inclusion. There is a need to provide a wide variety of activation employment policies addressed to these two vulnerable groups. The project aims to provide a viable research documented foundation for the current policies and programs addressed at professional integration of vulnerable categories, the final purpose being to facilitate positive changes in the processes of integration of vulnerable groups into the labour market. The project expected to achieve a higher level of compatibility between Romanian and European policies addressedat professional integration of vulnerable categories and improved and better adapted policies (at national and local level) for the social and professional integration of vulnerable groups. The project aims to improve current policies by revealing the weaknesses and, more importantly, the strengths of the socio-professional integration initiatives for people with disabilities and for the Roma population. The joint events and activities that will be organized within the project (annual consortium meetings, an international conference, a post-graduate study program) by the Romanian and Norwegian Universities, will contribute to strengthening the bilateral relations. The Norwegian research team is put together by people with particular experiences and competency in the themes and methodologies chosen for this project. In addition to the experiences in Disability research which all team members hold, Fylling has particularly expertise in methodological aspects of studying disability (Qualitative as well as quantitative); Breimo has a particular expertise in institutional ethnography (IE), and Sandvin has extensive knowledge in interdisciplinary social and disability theory and long and broad experiences in qualitative analyses.
Summary of project results
The project was necessary to provide a viable, research-based foundation for policies and programs addressing the vocational integration of vulnerable categories, with the aim of facilitating the integration of vulnerable groups into the labour market. The results of the project have had a specific impact on the following social and economic dimensions: (1) The proposed policy and legislative improvements contribute to increasing the compatibility between the Romanian and European policies aimed at the professional integration of the vulnerable categories; (2) A particular impact factor has undoubtedly been the increase in awareness among decision-makers, practitioners and researchers about the dysfunctions existing in the social integration process of vulnerable groups and on the models and strategies to address these dysfunctions; (3) Creating and disseminating a documented research tool for use in evaluating the success of interventions with vulnerable groups; (4) Developing a model for the training of professionals in the field through a post-graduate level course. The research team formed within the partnership has achieved the following: (1) 10 research reports have been issued; (2) 20 scientific articles were published / accepted for publication, of which 2 articles in ISI-indexed journals; (3) three books were published, two of which were published by international publishing houses; (4) a post-graduate training program; (5) dissemination in a series of international conferences, organization of the International Conference SIEO 2016; (6) two proposals for the improvement of the legislative and methodological framework regarding the social and professional inclusion of vulnerable groups in the Romanian communities. The proposal of legislative changes regarding disabled and Roma people that we presented to local authorities from Timis County will actively contribute to the development of the quality of services for these communities and to the increase of their labor inclusion. Also, through the post-graduate program we contributed to the raising of the competences of the social services specialists.
Summary of bilateral results
The activities carried out in Romanian-Norwegian collaboration: analysis of research information and drafting of the research reports; editing scientific articles; editing the books; organizing the international conference; organizing the post-graduate course; formulating the policy and legislative improvement proposals. The partnership created within the project was extremely functional, contributing to the achievement of the expected indicators and results. The combined expertise of the two partners contributed to a full vision of the socio-occupational inclusion issues of the two target groups, resulting in relevant research reports and scientific articles. The project team members from the two countries elaborated and published 6 joint scientific publications in academic referred journals and one Practice Guide for the specialists in the field of social and labour market integration of vulnerable groups. Moreover, the research conducted jointly allowed the team members from the two countries to improve their knowledge about each other, in terms of social and institutional arrangements for the inclusion of vulnerable groups. The training provided by the Norwegian team to the Romanian researchers on the use of the Institutional Ethnography method improved their level ok expertise in the field of research. The International Conference SIEO 2016, organized jointly in Timisoara was an important opportunity for the two partners to share with each other their network of international and national collaborations. The partnership created within the project was extremely functional, contributing to the achievement of the expected indicators and results. The combined expertise of the two partners contributed to a full vision of the socio-occupational inclusion issues of the two target groups, resulting in relevant research reports and scientific articles.