MyCoventry
Funder
MyCoventry is part-funded by the EU Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund. Making management of migration flows more efficient across the European Union.
Value to Coventry University
£268,513.66
Collaborators
Coventry City Council, the JobShop, St Francis Church of Assisi, ACH and Positive Youth Foundation
Team
Sinead Oullion, Jessica Vincent-Burns, Jack Shuttleworth, Kevin Taylor, Daniel Range and Sharon Cartwright
Duration
1st January 2021 - 31st December 2022
Website
Project overview
The MyCoventry project is an initiative that supports Coventry as a ‘City of Peace and Reconciliation’, by welcoming non-EU and EEA National newcomers and giving them the opportunity to make a meaningful and positive contribution to the community. The scheme will help improve language skills and enable new communities to learn and feel a part of the life of the city; as well as boost employment opportunities. Each partner will have designated mentors who will meet regularly with clients to discuss their progress and signpost them to services across the city. A key component of MyCoventry is the ‘Integrass’ Assessment Toolkit which will produce a Personalised Integration Plan for each client, based on an individual’s specific needs and barriers.
The Integrass Toolkit is a tool to measure a person’s ‘level’ of integration by asking a service user specific questions on key indicators of integration to create a map of where a person is along their integration journey at that particular point in time. As part of the toolkit, the Integrass assessment is used to measure changes in a person’s integration indicators over time to generate accurate support plans tailored to specific needs.
Project objectives
Legal migration and integration: supporting legal migration to EU States in line with the labour market needs and promoting the effective integration of non-EU nationals;
We will do this by:
Supporting eligible persons through integration measures in the framework of national, local and regional strategies, such as; education and training, including language training and preparatory actions to facilitate access to the labour market.
Impact statement
The overarching desired impact of this project is to create a thriving Coventry in which people have greater equality of opportunity and are able to prosper as migrant voices and perspectives are placed at the centre of this process. Through providing support to create greater levels of inclusion, cohesion and integration, it is hoped people will be able lead more independent and fulfilling lives as the community and voluntary sector, and overall the City will become better able to respond, recover and help refugees due to closing gaps in partnerships.
It is hoped that the MyCoventry experience will then influence partnership working, European Migration Policy and add to wider discourse within the discipline of refugee and forced migration studies by providing a new architecture for mobility and coexistence.
Outputs
- Accredited and non accredited courses
- Learners gain Level 1/ Level 2 Qualifications
- Learners take part in wider initiatives including home makeovers and upcycling of furniture to benefit wider communities
- Learners become permanent members of 'maker' community of FabLab
- Learners develop their 'digital badge portfolio' and are part of the youth enterprise project
