Good Practice Criteria
Inclusivity & Participation
Does the practice ensure that its services are accessible and responsive to diverse groups?
The practice works to erase all obstacles to information about COVID-19, as well as to its prevention, detection and treatment (including vaccination). The involvement of local communities is an essential part of the INTERSOS approach, and awareness-raising is at the centre of this vaccination intervention. Timetables for services and focus group discussions have been diversified in order to facilitate the participation of all groups, and to accommodate limitations imposed by third parties (women victims of sexual exploitation, for example, have a regularly scheduled day for medical visits).
Inspiring tools:
Inspiring tools: INTERSOS report.
Good practice checklist
✓ Adopt a participatory, gender mainstreaming, age sensitive, inclusive approach and secure equal opportunities for beneficiaries.
✓ Make sure to provide precise and accessible information on how to access services in different languages, formats and through different communication channels
✓ Ensure that equality and diversity are an essential part of how services are delivered, taking into consideration different needs and capacities.
✓ Make reasonable adjustments to service delivery in order to take into account particular needs of the target group.
Does the practice involve the active participation of the receiving society?
The practice views its interventions as temporary and functional, empowering local institutions, services and individuals and helping them to interact with each other independently. INTERSOS actively supports public institutions in their efforts to improve intake capacities and to overcome bureaucratic, cultural, linguistic, and practical barriers to accessing healthcare. The training of community-based organisations reinforces this.
Good practice checklist
✓ Consider integration as a two-way process, and aim for change on the side of the receiving society.
✓ Foresee an active role for the receiving society in the design and implementation stages of the practice, and involve actions that encourage native communities and beneficiaries to work together.
Does the practice consult its beneficiaries and involve them in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the action?
The INTERSOS community-based approach involves beneficiaries in the implementation of its practices.
In each informal settlement, some beneficiaries are trained to support the service in reaching potential beneficiaries and collecting relevant information and feedback.
Good practice checklist
✓ Organise consultation activities with migrant beneficiaries in order to co-create actions where possible and secure their feedback on the design and evaluation of the action.
✓ Provide appropriate feedback mechanisms by which beneficiaries can safely express their opinions on service quality.
✓ Use flexible and interculturally-adapted formats and compensate participants for their contribution.
Relevance & Complementarity
Are the objectives of the practice relevant to the needs of the migrants?
The practice supports the most marginalised migrants to improve their health conditions and protect their rights. The involvement of volunteers and the use of focus groups helps in the identification of needs and design of actions.
Good practice checklist
✓ Identify and analyse the needs of the relevant migrants and prioritise methods which directly ask them about their needs.
✓ Identify and analyse gaps in integration support and design actions to fill these gaps.
– Aim for systemic improvement, satisfying the needs of the majority of target groups in the target area.
Is the practice relevant to the empowerment of migrants, the strengthening of their autonomy and the support of their long-term integration?
The active involvement of migrants is a constitutive element of the INTERSOS intervention model. In this way individuals are empowered, and supported for further intervention where needed. Awareness is at the centre of the vaccination intervention process: the aim of the practice is not persuasion, rather increased awareness. This can be achieved only in the long run, through small steps and the establishment of mutual trust (and this mutual trust in itself promotes integration in the longer term). The involvement of local institutions in the practice is pursued in order to improve public services in the long run.
Good practice checklist
✓ Devise actions with the overarching goal of providing positive feedback and making migrants more confident, autonomous and independent.
✓ Contribute to migrants’ engagement with the community for the common good.
✓ Ensure that services contribute to the strengthening of the capacities of migrants/migrant communities.
✓ Include (or create the preconditions for) actions that facilitate long-term integration.
✓ Address discrimination and information gaps as obstacles to long-term integration.
Does the practice align with the priorities, strategic goals and policies of other relevant stakeholders, and contribute to the wider integration framework?
The practice aims to strengthen the services of public institutions, rather than to substitute them. Such institutions are supported to increase their intake capacities and to overcome bureaucratic, cultural, linguistic, and practical access barriers. Since the beginning of the vaccination period, INTERSOS has carried out related advocacy at both regional and national level.
Good practice checklist
✓ Ensure that all actions are in line with international and European human rights standards.
✓ Employ regional/local, national and EU/international level integration-related guidelines and tools.
✓ Make sure that the services offered contribute to the strengthening of the capacities of relevant institutions to support future development.
Effectiveness
Is the practice adequately planned and based on a comprehensive design?
The practice is monitored in a systematic way, based on analysis of previous interventions. Specifically-determined indicators are used to monitor two of the three main activities: information dissemination and practical support.
Good practice checklist
✓ Aim for actions that achieve observable outcomes among the target group or contribute to changes during the implementation of the action.
✓ Make sure that the objectives and planned results of the activity are feasible and clear.
✓ Develop a communications strategy during the design phase of the action and pay attention to communication with host communities and local authorities.
✓ Ensure the practice is based on indicators that are measurable, achievable, and relevant.
✓ Develop a staff management plan to identify team members with the right skills to work with beneficiaries, and their needs for training and further qualification.
Does the practice regularly monitor implementation and evaluate its results?
The actions of INTERSOS and the community-based organisational partners are monitored on either a weekly or a daily basis. Previous experiences and relevant expertise was taken into account in the creation of the practice, and it was designed to be flexible enough to accommodate new elements as needed.
Good practice checklist
✓ Ensure regular monitoring of action implementation and compare actual performance to goals set during the design phase.
− Anticipate obstacles that might occur and plan alternative scenarios during the design phase of the action.
– Ensure achievement of intended outputs / outcomes.
✓ Determine whether practice outcomes are considered successful by beneficiaries, the host and practitioner communities, funders, and policymakers.
− Assess whether interventions contribute to long-term sustainable change.
Sustainability
Is the practice prepared to sustain its positive effects after completion?
Since the initial design phase, the practice has improved the ability of both local communities and public services to accommodate the needs of migrants and others who are socially excluded. INTERSOS aims to make relevant actors autonomous as soon as possible, in order to better sustain the practice in the long term
Good practice checklist
✓ During the design phase, anticipate opportunities to continue the intervention after completion.
✓ Prepare and apply a well-defined sustainability plan to ensure the continuation of positive effects / outcomes.
✓ Devote resources to building capacities during the implementation phase, in order to ensure that the necessary human resources, expertise and infrastructure are in place to sustain the services upon completion of the action.
Does the practice attract structural funding and support from new sponsors and individuals, or have the potential to develop a business model to generate its own resources?
In the INTERSOS approach, interventions are temporary and local institutions and actors are trained to ultimately become autonomous. To achieve this, different sources of funding are utilised and responsibilities are transferred. For example, multicultural mediators are now used at the Foggia health institution, thanks to a project funded by Fondazione con il Sud (a banking foundation).
Good practice checklist
✓ Develop partnerships and relations with relevant stakeholders at the early stage of the action to ensure that the practice has strong support and potential partners for after the primary funding terminates.
✓ Identify new EU and national funding opportunities for long-term integration (e.g., shifting from project-based initiatives that are limited in time or dependent on one (external) donor to a comprehensive, multi-year strategy based on secured funding or diverse funding opportunities).
– Diversify funding opportunities and identify options for self-financing through business activities or social entrepreneurship.
Partnership & Collaboration
Does the practice establish communication and coordination with other relevant actors to foster the integration of migrants? (e.g., migrants, civil society, public authorities, businesses)
Along with being involved in advocacy activities itself, INTERSOS works to involve relevant local actors in the process as much as possible.
Good practice checklist
✓ Ensure the involvement and participation of key stakeholders in the development phase and create strategies to involve them in the action.
✓ Include multi-stakeholder consultation with professionals, institutions, and citizens, in order to promote the meaningful participation of refuges and migrants and support a joint sense of ownership of decisions and actions.
Does the practice contribute to discussion on the improvement of integration support policies?
Participating in different clusters and networks at national and regional levels, INTERSOS contributes to the exchange of information and the improvement of integration support policies. At every site where INTERSOS is operational, its staff members create new – and work to enhance existing – coordination groups so that they might collaboratively review operations and outcomes, and advocate more effectively at local and regional level.
Good practice checklist
✓ Seize opportunities to contribute to the development of comprehensive integration strategies involving EU-level/national/regional/local authorities, service providers and civil society.
✓ Work with relevant partners to jointly review operations, practices, services, and integration outcomes.