The assessment consists of an initial interview as well as specified measures for clarification, when necessary.
An authority may carry out the assessment itself or organise the specified measures included in the assessment as an outsourced service. However, the initial interview included in the assessment must always be conducted by a public official.
Many educational service providers, for example, offer measures included in the assessment, such as evaluations of literacy and Finnish and Swedish language skills. In terms of content, the assessment for which the municipalities and the employment authorities alike are responsible are based on the Assessment Decree, yet the elements of the assessment may be given different emphases based on the immigrant’s needs.
The initial interview and the other measures included in the assessment shall take place in the immigrant’s native language or a language in which the immigrant is sufficiently fluent. The authority must ensure that the immigrant understands the matters reviewed in the assessment and arrange interpretation when necessary.
The initial interview determines at least the immigrant’s competencies and the following general integration skills as well as the immigrant’s needs and wishes for integration services:
- literacy;
- Finnish and Swedish language skills;
- learning skills and study skills, working life skills;
- need for employment and education and training services as well as associated objectives;
- previous education and training and experience;
- competencies in particular skills and other strengths;
- need for integration plan;
- life circumstances and the ensuing service needs;
- other needs for services promoting integration and objectives for these.
When the wellbeing services county takes part in preparing the assessment, an initial determination of the need for healthcare and social welfare services may also be made.
The initial interview shall cover at least the objectives of the services promoting integration, the preparation of the integration plan and the service process, the obligatory nature of the integration plan and the associated rights and obligations of the immigrant. The processing of the immigrant’s personal data shall also be covered. The objectives of employment services are moreover described for immigrants who are jobseekers.
Based on the information gleaned from the initial interview, the assessment of skills and the need for integration services may comprise one or more of the following specific measures:
- identification of competencies;
- determination of level of literacy;
- determination of level of Finnish and/or Swedish language skills;
- determination of learning skills and study skills;
- determination of employment opportunities;
- determination of specific needs for services.
The assessment of an immigrant’s skills and their need for integration services is often a multi-stage process, the content of which depends on the situation of the immigrant concerned. Nonetheless, the assessment must be sufficiently thorough to allow it to serve as a basis for assessing the immigrant’s need for services from the viewpoint of integration and employment and for referring the immigrant to services consistent with their needs. The assessment is an important starting point for preparing the integration plan.
The assessment of skills and the need for integration services shall be initiated without delay once the municipality becomes aware of a person in need of assessment. As a rule, the assessment shall be arranged as an in-person meeting at an office or another service point of the employment authority or the municipality. For justified reasons, the meeting may also be arranged by other means, for example remotely, when this is appropriate in terms of the customer’s situation and needs. In the interests of smoothly initiating the assessments carried out in the municipality, it is important that a party responsible for the assessments has been designated and that procedures for referring immigrants to the assessment and for carrying out the assessments have been agreed in the municipality. At the same time, it is important to reach agreement on the manner in which the assessments will be communicated to those groups of customers who do not use the services of the municipality or the employment authorities on a regular basis. The procedures may be established when preparing and updating the municipality’s integration programme, for example.
Read more:
Government Decree on the Assessment of the Need for Skills and Integration Services (in Finnish)