Integration Network of the district of Burgenlandkreis
About this good practice
The Integration Network of full-time actors includes cooperation partners of the Migracion Agency (MiA), including external social support for the shared accommodation, independent providers of projects, social economy organizations, welfare associations, stakeholders from the administration, advice centers and language courses as well as actors at interfaces such as education, equality, inclusion and participation management and psychiatry coordination.
The network was created in order to improve the cooperation between institutions, the local administration and the business community.
The integration network comprises more than 70 members and meets at least three times a year in a "large group", while smaller working groups, oriented towards fields of action, work on specific topics in the meantime. Currently, there are nine such fields of action, including anti-discrimination, health care, volunteering and labor market integration. The meetings enable all stakeholders to better get to know each other and to learn what resources are available in order to make better use of them and avoid parallel structures. Besides, it provides a framework to solve migration-related problems together, to address problems for which other stakeholders may have a solution and enforces the capacity building of the actors involved.
A shared digital work and information platform enables the network to exchange information and continue working together despite fluctuations and changes.
Resources needed
-External process coaching and moderation of the network and catering costs: ca. EUR 1.500/each meeting.
-Organization of the meetings and accompaniment and assistance of the network by the Integration Coordinators of BLK: ca. 10 hours/week.
-Website hosting costs / digital platform EUR 2.000/year
Evidence of success
The meetings of the Integration Network of BLK have been taken place with long interruptions since 2009, but since the beginning of 2022 this have been an established process. Although it´s difficult to meassure the successes, these can be seen in small everyday examples, like job placement of migrants within the community network, collaborations that are very practical, or vaccination within one day of a large number of children who were waiting for a long period of time before attending school
Potential for learning or transfer
The Integration Network is a easily transferred approach for other regions, since it can addapt in number of members and in political context in each region, local or regional, urban or rural, throughout Europe.
This is particularly interesting for rural areas, as the drop-out rate is higher than in the city, partly due to mobility problems. With the integration network, actors and institutions involved always follow up the processes and take care of the migrants. If such process breakdowns occur on a permanent basis, the network enables all institutions involved to gather and work towards a common solution.
Further information
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Good practice owner
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