Immigration and Prevention: A training manual for local actors

FORUM EUROPÉEN

EU FORUM

SECUCITIES

SAFETY & DEMOCRACY

INTI2004

Immigration and Prevention : A training manual for local actors

WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE EUOROPEAN COMISSION

INTI2004

European Forum for Urban Safety

SECUCITIES IMMIGRATION AND PREVENTION

A TRAINING MANUAL FOR LOCAL ACTORS

Written by : Sven Engel, Project manager Dominique Lodwick, Zakia Khattabi, Project experts 2

With financial support from the INTI2004 programme, European Commission.

Printed in France by Lalo editions on the presses of Imprimerie Rochelaise ISBN : 2-913181-26-0 - EAN : 99 9782913181267 Legal Deposit : september 2006

Translated in english by John Tyler Tuttle Jr

EUROPEAN FORUM FOR URBAN SAFETY

38, rue Liancourt 75014- Paris- France Tel : +33 (0) 1 40 64 49 00; fax : +33 (0) 1 40 64 49 10 Internet : http://www.fesu.org Email : fesu@urbansecurity.org 3

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This training manual for local actors working in the prevention and integration fields is the result of a collective effort made by project partners across Europe.

We would therefore like to thank all representatives from the partner cities mentioned in the text, as well as their collaborators who have been involved in preparing the seminars and conferences, and in particular the city of Charleroi and the Law Institute of Lithuania for their excellent organisation of seminars and the warm welcome of all project participants.

Our gratitude also goes to the experts, Ms. Zakia Khattabi and Ms. Dominique Lodwick for their great knowledge, enormous flexibility and strong commitment to the project.

Last not least, we want to thank the European Commission Directorate General Liberty, Security and Justice for their support, as well as the colleagues at the European Forum for Urban Safety who have been involved in making this project a success.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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PREFACE

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1. INTRODUCTION a. The project’s history and context b. Objectives c. Project players d. Sequence and project seminars

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2. A MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY: NEW CHALLENGES FOR CITIES a. The city and cultural diversity b. Immigration and crime c. Difficulties and challenges for local governments d. Training needs

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3. LOCAL ACTORS a. The players concerned by the training manual a1. Decision-makers: the town councillors a2. A target group: Public sector employees a3. A grade to mobilise: departmental heads b. Culture and professional identity of public sector employees

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4. KINDS OF TRAINING AND METHODOLOGIES a. Theoretical approach to the training process b. Constituent elements and methodological criteria c. Presentation of specific tools c1. Analysis of representations c2. Methods of culture shocks c3. Methods of harmonics c4. Awareness of training needs and questioning of work habits

34 34 36 38

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16 16 18 19

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5. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE MANUAL a. General recommendations for training public sector employees b. Systematic recommendations for training various public sector employees b1. Difficulties encountered b2. Specific recommendations

44 44 45

6. GOOD USE OF THE TRAINING MANUAL a. A tool at the disposal of managers for strategic management b. General recommendations b1. Entrusting this tool to mobilised managers b2. Supporting managers by offering to invest over the medium and long terms, articulating training and service project c. Elaboration of the terms of preference c1. How to gather local information on training needs ? c2. How to write a terms of preference d. How to optimise the use of the manual and the implementation of training

50 50 52

7. CONCLUSION

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8. APPENDIX a. Comparative table of questionnaire results b. Descriptions of partners and their local realities b1. Charleroi (Belgium) b2. Frankfurt am Main (Germany) b3. Turin (Italy) b4. Vilnius (Lithuania) b5. The London Borough of Waltham Forest (United Kingdom) c. Other training manuals d. List of participants

62 62 76

9. REFERENCES

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84 85

PREFACE Migration has become a problem for our societies. Long considered a natural population shift within countries (the exodus from rural areas to the city or from Southern Italy to the North), within Europe (Spanish and Portuguese to Northern Europe, Poles to industrialised countries), outside of Europe (Africans from colonising or European countries going to Canada or Australia) or worldwide, with the old example of the Chinese towards all continents, this migration was always a mixture of people belonging to the elite of a country and leaving it for political reasons or persecutions and others seeking economic survival for them and their family.

This migration, predominantly of poor people, permitted all countries to become industrialised and modernise with very low labour costs, the effect of this sometimes being native workers rioting against the immigrants.

Today, the poor continue to migrate, but this is perceived as a threat to the stability of our ways of development. In fact, in addition to the internal wage competition that immigrants have always generated there is now the competition of labour in all counties on the planet. Enough of the poor, but borders remain open to individuals with skills in relation to internal demand, for the training efforts of countries are increasingly being tapped by rich economies.

Migrations for economic reasons have always run alongside migrations provoked by war or political reasons, hence the development of different forms of refugee status recognised by international law. It must be noted that the increase in the number of civil wars and greater awareness of the issue of human rights have accelerated the migratory movement.

For quite some time, this movement was concentrated on former colonising countries of Europe. Over the past few years, owing to the closing of their borders, the movements have turned more massively towards Italy and Spain, which have had to set up reception policies as a matter of urgency.

As countries’ borders close, clandestine immigration has developed, increasingly taken over by individuals exploiting the desire to leave regardless of price. The United Nations estimate the share of organised crime in clandestine immigration at 80%. But we must be careful to distinguish from what is real human trafficking, implying a constraint on a person from departure up to being put to work to ‘reimburse’ the help in crossing the border.

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A large share of the political debates concentrates on the issue of an ‘uncontrollable flow’. The discourse always has very alarmist connotations, bringing to the fore the danger that this immigration represents to our way of life. The links with crime and insecurity, with the introduction of inadmissible family morals, are stirred up by extremist movements.

Cities are the framework for receiving these populations. The town councillors in local governments have no influence on migratory movements or on their supervision. On the other hand, it is up to them to face up to the presence of migrants and, in particular, handle relations with native inhabitants, not to mention services to be provided and shared. The impact of the quality of reception is considerable, and many cities succeed in maintaining a sufficiently serene atmosphere in their city so as to avoid tensions or reactions of rejection. Numerous, too, are the cities seeking to develop international contacts to improve their knowledge of other cultures in order to better ensure their being taken into account in local life. It is starting with these cities that the European Forum, ever since its founding, has always dealt with this issue, being fully aware of the danger of lumping together, especially lumping the issue of immigration together with that of crime. No statistic has ever proved an increase in crime, aside from that inherent to being without papers such as a residence permit. But the reason does not suffice, and exchanges between cities are indispensable for maintaining a democratic approach to the issue in face of an atmosphere of intolerance, which obscures the public debate.

In 2000, the Forum held a large conference in Naples and adopted a Manifesto on security, wherein immigration was broadly treated. The cities urged the States to adopt a joint strategy and manifested the wish to be associated in the elaboration of this strategy, which had to be based on the definition of ‘(1) new ways for legal immigration, abandoning the closed-borders approach; (2) the fight against clandestine immigration; (3) integration policies; (4) partnerships with the countries of origin; and (5) a reception policy for humanitarian reasons.’

The elected officials ‘forcefully [supported] European initiatives aimed at giving migrants living and working conditions equal to those of other citizens…’ They strongly insisted on the development of policies for fighting against discriminations and xenophobia and observed that a ‘multicultural society must be the fruit of an adaptation on the part of immigrants as much as on the part of host societies’.

The promotion of such a society must rely on ‘all forms of representation and participation in local political life, beginning with the recognition of the right to vote in local elections for residents whose papers are in order’.

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We thought that, in the framework of the development of multicultural societies, it was important that the persons in charge of the reception and integration of migrants try to determine what might constitute the principles of a training manual intended for all European cities. This is the work of a network of cities and experts that we are presenting. It is a further step in this process of setting up a joint European approach that the Forum supports.

Michel Marcus, Executive Director European Forum for Urban Safety

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INTRODUCTION

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1. INTRODUCTION a. The project’s history and context In developing local conflict-prevention projects linked to migrations, cities set out to elaborate a public action implemented by local actors on their territory.

The set of themes broached in this project are linked to the increase and diversification of migratory flows accompanying the growing circulation of merchandise, capital and information. In recent years, the increase in the movements of capital, goods and services, stimulated by unprecedented growth of transportation and the new communication technologies, has accelerated the mobility of populations and generated new trends. Poverty, political conflicts and wars continue to influence migratory flows considerably. In this context, European countries and, on their territory, the cities, represent a pertinent observation level both of the itineraries followed by migrants, and eventual difficulties created by this phenomenon, and of the level at which social cohesion is capable of reducing and preventing crime in general1. In December 2000, the member cities of the European Forum for Urban Safety, meeting in Naples, adopted the ‘Safety and Democracy’ Manifesto based on the observation that the problems linked to immigration cannot be resolved by criminalisation and the rejection of diversity (EFUS 2000, Art. 6).

They confirm the desire to live in heterogeneous, hospitable and tolerant cities in which ‘ties of proximity, conviviality and community, and the feeling of belonging to a community and multicultural city are reinforced’ (EFUS 2000, Art. 11).

Amongst the various players concerned, public sector employees find themselves in a professional situation that is often perilous owing to unadapted initial training.

Put in the position of intercessor between the institution they represent and the public they receive, they perceive better than anyone else the limits of a standardised response to the requests, needs or tensions expressed.

The project’s context and principal theme thus concern the adaptation of professional practices to diversity. Here there will be the issue of cultural diversity: diversity of the cultures of origin as well as diversity of professional cultures.

Furthermore, there will be the question of diversity of social and economic contexts, the history of the city and country along with diversity of migratory flows and, within these, those of migratory itineraries. For example, there are now considerable differences between the countries of Western Europe and those of the East, where it is more a matter of emigration, following the fall of the Soviet Union. Moreover, these developments are based on very different history, in which even the words ‘minorities’ and ‘immigrants’ have different meanings.

This project modestly attempts to substitute a logic of interaction for a logic of intercession or delegation to outside operators in charge of establishing mediations 1

Which, for example, is confirmed for Great Britain; see Wedlock 2006, pp. 2 and 5.

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in case of conflicts. This training manual proposes mobilising the institutions responsible for security and prevention on the city’s territory. It is elaborated for all parties present on this territory and takes into account the different ‘guilds’. It is presented as a tool for implementing collective policies that best satisfy the interest of all. It also proposes a strategic observation that must allow for going from a situation in which the protagonists, institutions and users are all losing out to a situation in which everyone has an interest in improving the situation.

At the heart of the cities, the town councillors bear the responsibility for involving the institution and administration they run in this fight against the degradation of social cohesion of which xenophobia, racism and the designation of scapegoats are patent signs2. Thus they bear in full legitimacy a requirement of good practices and agents placed under their authority. That is the reason for which the elaboration of this manual was the opportunity to carry out, within the group of participants, fruitful debates on the conception and place of everyone in the implementation of public prevention policies, on this theme of ‘Migration’.

By accompanying the participants in this programme, EFUS proposes a way of realistically tackling the difficult question of dealing with cultural diversity and the fight against all discriminations by involving all the players in integration through training. The participating municipalities in the EFUS member programme contributed widely to the elaboration of this manual thereby demonstrating their involvement in these issues and their desire to open a realistic viewpoint despite the difficulty of the topic being broached.

The elaboration work for this document required taking into account the issues of intolerance and racism3 as well as the social situations that are difficult for many immigrants. We can hope that the improvement of social situations will considerably reduce the risk of conflict. The fight against racism is also a matter of fighting against violence and emerging discriminations within and between several minority groups. The discussions brought out the necessity of setting down the refusal of dangerous confusions prior to any thinking: thus, there would be no question of linking immigration and crime and consequently designating the most vulnerable groups of the population as scapegoats. b. Objectives The SecuCities Immigration and Prevention project aims at producing a training manual. Based on an analysis of multicultural society (Chapter II), it defines Here we use the term ‘institutional racism’ as defined by the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report (MacPherson 1999): The collective failure of an organisation to provide the appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racial stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.

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A certain level of racism exists in all European countries; see EUMC 2005 for the figures.

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the targeted public of the training (Chapter III: local actors) and identifies the types and methodologies of training (Chapter IV). On this basis, it sets forth recommendations for the implementation of training public sector employees in the field of immigration and prevention (Chapters V, VI).

It is thus indeed a document for helping in thinking about objectives and contents of training. A tool for aiding decision, which should enable the town councillors and managers concerned by the implementation of the training plan for public sector employees to order and negotiate the training offer, taking the local context into account and having all useful information at their disposal. The training manual will have achieved its objectives if it enables decision-makers to ‘create their own culture on the subject’. c. Project players This project, led by the European Forum for Urban Safety and co-financed by the European Commission in the framework of the INTI 2004 programme, brought together the following cities and institution: the cities of Le Havre (France), Frankfurt am Main (Germany), Charleroi (Belgium), Turin and Siena (Italy), the London borough of Waltham Forest (United Kingdom) and the Law Institute of Lithuania (Vilnius). The partner municipalities and institutions were represented by elected officials, civil servants and project leaders. The work was enriched by the expertise of two migration professionals, Ms. Zakia Khattabi and Ms. Dominique Lodwick. d. Sequence and project seminars This manual was elaborated in the course of three seminars, according to the following steps: 1. Identification of questions and problems linked to immigration and public security in the local actors’ daily work, and analysis of problems with the aim of improving or installing new training tools; 2. Identification of issues concerning training and training programmes already in place, with the aim of drawing up a list of training needs and specific recommendations; 3. Creating a training manual adapted to local actors.

The first seminar (hosted by the city of Charleroi) concentrated on the principal problems and difficulties of fieldwork: the different territories represented in the programme were presented here, this allowing for collecting the various types of professional situations encountered by decision-makers and public sector employees.

The second seminar (hosted by EFUS in Paris) allowed for analysing these situations by matching them up from one territory to another so as to determine the ‘common-core syllabus’ of problems encountered and the professions concerned 13

whatever the diversity of the territories. This indispensable step constituted in itself a difficult exercise to which participants subscribed, this representing an approach to delicate collective elaboration. Standing back from one’s own function and territory and accepting to question one’s knowledge and representations in order to construct a tool common to all is not simple. That is the reason for which a few theoretical contributions were programmed during these sessions so as to provide breathing room and distance from the daily routine. This middle seminar permitted picking out ‘typical situations’ and the ‘kinds of agents’, analysing the specific training needs and recommendations of local actors according to this typology, elaborating a basic framework for a training manual and going deeper into the discussion of its contents.

The last seminar (hosted by the Lithuanian Law Institute in Vilnius) represented a powerful moment of synthesis at the end of six months of collective progression.

It permitted revising the project’s overall architecture (table of contents), discussing and validating its construction, the denomination of the various contents of integrating the commentaries of the group of participants who, at this stage in the work, had a plural, European identity) and a collective culture on this subject.

There remained only to provide for and guarantee good use of this tool, this being the reason for which the document devotes its last chapter to these methodological recommendations, hoping that future users will take it up with as much enthusiasm as the players in this project.

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A MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY : NEW CHALLENGES FOR CITIES

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2. A MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY: NEW CHALLENGES FOR CITIES a. The city and cultural diversity Mass unemployment, poverty, repression, violence and wars in different regions of the world all encourage populations to go elsewhere, seeking better living conditions.

Thus have we witnessed populations of diverse cultural origins settle in Europe.

Even though, in debates linked to immigration, the populations from the South (Africa, Asia, Latin America‌) are mentioned most often, there are other groups of migrants: even nationals of European countries who, whether hunting for jobs or for personal reasons, move throughout Europe. To this population of citizens from ‘old’ member States are added the citizens of the new member States of the European Union, still prevented from acceding to the job markets in several Western countries at this stage. In addition, there are Europeans citizens born of immigrant parents who are often mistaken for immigrants, due perhaps to their social marginalisation or the colour of their skin. We thus clearly see that populations seeking to adapt and become integrated into the society that takes them in can be extremely diverse and that we must avoid oversimplification and unsuitable categorisations that are as much a representation of the problem as the expression of reality.

Beyond debates on notions and concepts of integration or assimilation4, the participants identified, based on their own experiences, three political strategies implemented on their territories: 1. Supporting immigrants in a process of adaptation to the community and local culture: integration policies being understood as a process of cultural integration; 2. Improvement in cohesion of the community and intercommunity contacts: integration as improvement in living together in respect and tolerance; 3. Support by local governments: setting up mediation service and antidiscriminatory programmes.

We thus see that, in numerous European cities, the presence of immigrants or individuals born of immigrant parents poses real challenges in terms of public policy, and that the public services try, without being properly prepared, to meet particular needs linked to the encounter with another culture. b. Immigration and crime When certain statistics5 indicate a higher crime rate in immigrant populations or amongst people born of immigrants, and often a high rate of victimisation, it appears that they are drawn up on the basis of representations and confusions that 4 On the different levels of integration of immigrants in European countries, see Migration Policy Group 2005.

5 See Home Office 2006 on the fact that immigrants are at the same time at high risk of crime and high risk of victimisation.

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do not take into account important factors6: The statistics include violations of the law applying to foreigners, offences that cannot be committed by nationals; The immigrant population is younger, with a higher percentage of males, than the overall population (Germany: 55% boys in immigrant families, 50% in German families), and crime is largely committed by males; Immigrants live more in the large agglomerations where crime is greater than in rural areas (in Germany: 44% of foreigners and 29% of Germans live in urban areas); Complaints lodged against delinquents born of immigrants are more numerous than for national delinquents; Immigrants are more often the object of police checks; The negative effects of immigration on family relations is not taken into account (‘illusion of return’, generational conflicts, lack of parental support, etc.).

As for the media, they often present the crime of ‘immigrant or born of immigrants’ populations as being an effect of immigration itself, this inducing the idea of imported crime that can give rise to an anti-immigration policy.

As regards the work objective, it seems more pertinent to remember: The more difficult economic situation of immigrants (unemployment, exposure to economic crises and, in particular, post-industrial changes: loss of jobs in industry, job creation in services); The difficulties of integration in the educational systems and training programmes, civil services, etc.; The problems encountered by young people in acceding to prevention services; social interventions often difficult; - The immigrants more often belong to marginalised social classes.

A brief discussion focussed on the potential risk, by grouping together and classifying individuals within previously-defined groups of immigrants, of communalisation. Another important reality mentioned is the existence of different levels of perception – and therefore of acceptation – of the foreigner. For example, white South-Africans in Great Britain are, socially and economically, better integrated than Polish or Baltic seasonal workers even though they do not hold European passports. A third element discussed is the observation of the presence of different forms of representation in the face of questions of legal status. Definitions clearly found in legal, sociological and administrative domains should thus be included in the training manual. Finally, it was specified that a training manual should have a very simple, down-to-earth approach, provided for people working directly in the 6 See Gesemann 2004 on the problem of statistics that make a connection between immigration and crime, taking the situation in the city of Berlin as an example..

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field who are confronted with highly different realities and demands.

It appears that the ‘immigrants/born of immigrants’ or ‘foreigner’ categories are secondary in the prevention debate, which must concentrate more on social and educational action. c. Difficulties and challenges for local governments We note similarities regarding challenges to be taken up and difficulties encountered by the different local governments in the different European cities: 1. The lack of interlocutors or negotiators on the side of immigrants or persons born of immigrants; even if there are associations, these are often not representative; 2. Recurrent difficulties in mobilising the immigrant populations and their associations; 3. The personnel is in contact with persons whose papers are not in order (certificate of residence, work permit, etc.) but is obliged to take legal obligations and administrative procedures into account whilst making sure that the of access to fundamental rights (e.g., health, education) is respected; 4. Work often depends on the availability of networks established amongst different populations (Turkish associations, Italian associations, etc.); coordination between those different groups can turn out to be non-existent; 5. In case of conflicts between personal and institutional values, public sector employees are obliged to adopt the institutional position; 6. Security concerns override granted prevention efforts; 7. Public policies focus more on access to jobs, investing less in dealing with community conflicts; 8. The most visible problems are often concentrated in certain quite restricted quarters (like a particular neighbourhood or even just a street, a square, a school, a market, etc.); the services must then make sure to detect problems in other quarters; 9. Local governments lack information on certain problems specific to immigrant communities, this entailing a difficulty of communication between administrations and immigrant populations; 10. Cultures convey different values and conceptions of community life; children playing in the street and making a racket might be acceptable in one culture, but not in another; tolerance alone can suffice for working out disputes between neighbours that result from it; 11. The expression of religious convictions confronts administrations with certain problems, e.g., the participation of certain Muslim girls in school physical education classes, etc.; 12. The poor mastery of language makes immigrants’ long-term integration difficult.

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d. Training needs Ensuing from these problems and generally speaking, training needs identified by the participants are: 1. Training in informal social work, ‘street-work’, local work done outside social security offices, local governments and official circuits; 2. Awareness of immigrants’ cultural context (to better understand their situation and different values; e.g., their way of viewing economic activity differently) without for all that falling into anthropological specialisation.

There remain difficulties in clearly defining the concept and scope of the notion of culture; 3. Training social workers in the acceptance of the Other, concrete realities of immigrants’ situations and the preliminary analysis of their own values; 4. The need for specific training programmes on the problems of young people born of immigrant parents.

Training must take into account the concrete realities of the public concerned (for example, the often complex and ill-known situation of immigrants) in order to make the institutional culture evolve on these questions.

The front-line personnel must have priority without for all that neglecting the mobilisation of the hierarchy to the problems encountered in daily work (aggressions, discriminations, frustrations, language and cultural barriers, etc.).

Examples concerning the front-line personnel were mentioned: as in Charleroi, this is partially realised with the Forum Theatre and role-playing methods in which the personnel can play different roles.

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LOCAL ACTORS

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3. LOCAL ACTORS a. The players concerned by the training manual The Immigration and Prevention training manual is elaborated for public sector employees holding a position in services that are dependent on municipalities located in all European countries. The first seminar’s presentations of the historical, economic and sociological context of each territory, and mechanisms implemented regarding prevention, allowed for spotting what we call here, by agreement: ‘The cultural diversity of responses provided as regards integration and prevention’.

Although the methods of approach and resolution of problems differ, that stems from both the differences of cultures of the host society and differences as to the cultural origin of migrants present on each territory. We must however go beyond those considerations if we wish to construct a migration/prevention training manual that can be used by all municipalities.

One of the work hypotheses thus consists of taking up the smallest element common to these territories: the prevention public sector employee, regardless of the diversity of contexts or professional situations, and regardless of the reality of immigration in the territory where he or she works. Looking for what is ‘theoretically’ common to all, we can begin to lay the foundations of a proposal in training that will be a reference for everyone.

Thus, first of all, we shall take an interest in what they are rather than what they do; this will be about their status, function and role. We observe that the differences linked to the contexts are, in a way, visual effects that can be taken into account as such. We also observe the professional situation of the department heads and the constraints imposed by the public management. Finally, we shall quickly mention why these migratory problems, complex and sometimes the source of violence and insecurity, concern the town councillor and the local government.

This first step in the elucidation of what is common to all agents and managers is indispensable for broaching the issue of training, taken as a process of professionalisation – and therefore qualification – of the agents, and supporting the managers’ implementation of an elaboration approach to the service project that is compatible with the territory’s reality. a1. Decision-makers: the town councillors The elaboration of preventive policies linked to migratory problems corresponds to a major preoccupation for a large number of elected councillors in European cities. These problems are at the crossing of several themes: migration, solidarity, security, education… These themes concern, first of all, public power. Indeed, if the need for the elaboration of a training manual in this field is felt, it is because there is at least a risk, if not already a reality, of degradation that must be remedied.

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Incidents and conflictual situations which were discussed and dealt with according to the modus operandi also presented at the first seminar, illustrate this degradation.

The grounds for which the authorities are led to intervene locally are evident, and we can briefly mention them. In a context of increased globalisation over the past twenty years, the circulation of men and merchandise has accelerated. In this same context, one might even say a bit schematically that the disparity from one region to another, the inequality from one group to the next has increased. To put it plainly, the market cannot regulate everything and certainly not commit itself to the resolution of long-term problems since it is, by necessity, always called upon to favour the short term. It is, in fact, up to the State to take charge of a long-term strategy regarding security, education, health, etc. That the private initiative might be developed here or there does not prevent the fact that, in all the cities and territories we examined, there is also a player who assumes this more comprehensive, more strategic function; these are the municipalities and States. This is, in particular, the objective assigned to the programmes implemented by the towns in the prevention field. Those players have a managerial concern centred on the obligation of results as regards the maintenance of law and order, preservation of the community’s general interest and the long term. Thus, if they adopt the principle of subsidiarity or delegation on these issues, it is uniquely so that these concerns be dealt with as close to the citizens as possible and so that the results be perceptible to the citizens. a2. A target group: Public sector employees The public sector employees in front-line posts, in charge of receiving, orienting and supporting publics of diverse origins, are confronted with social changes and the diversification of migratory flows without always being prepared for this. They must be capable of meeting the expectations of both the users and the institution to which they belong or for which they provide a public service.

Their place is defined and guaranteed by their status as an official of the community or of an organisation over which the community has authority. In a certain way, their status protects them and protects their activity.

The Latin origin of the word ‘statutum’ refers to ruling: it concerns a legal decision allowing for defining the mode of recruitment, for example, as well as all the laws governing the situation of these officials, the capacities of each of them or of the group of professionals to which they belong, their rights and obligations.

However, we observe categories of officials working in diverse activities: public security officers, greeters, prevention officials, etc., each of them carrying out a specific task and thus having a specific function. The function therefore defines the characteristic place of an element within the whole.

This term ‘function’ comes from the Latin ‘functio’, or accomplishment. The word 24

‘function’ is the execution in legal Latin of functum, or public service, and ‘fungere’, to carry out or fulfil. It dictates precisely what a person must accomplish in order to be effective in a social group. Combined with the notion of duty, it represents the responsibility specific to every job. We can therefore say that public sector employees have a status and fulfil a function that is related to public service.

Here, one thus sees that the question of active participation in a public service mission is not negotiable nor can it be broken up, and that the service rendered to each must be, out of principle, equitable and efficient.

One also often speaks of the role of a given official. This is generally the case when mentioning the participation of such and such a service in the implementation of a policy or a sectional project: educational, preventive, social, etc. This term ‘role’, which comes from the mediaeval Latin ‘rotulus’ (rolled parchment), has several possible meanings. The first is in relation to the law: a ‘role’ is a notarised act, a judgement, a project mission, the list of personnel making up a ship’s crew and indicating the service of everyone onboard. But the role is also the incarnation of a character played by an actor or the behaviour of a person ‘playing’ a character.

The role thus concerns putting into actuality, a staging or observable behaviour.

Everyone embodies it with his interpersonal skills and specificities.

Thus, status finds its origin in the law from which ensues a function which it is suitable to fulfil by executing a role, defined in the framework of this function, a role that everyone will execute differently according to what he or she is as a person, as a subject.

All training must take into account the three main lines, round which the individual’s social structure is organised, the individual for whom this manual is conceived. Taking these into account allows for recentring our objectives on the public target of the manual in what it has in common, regardless of the territories concerned, in order to allow agents to develop know-how with these differences.

The themes of prevention and immigration constitute an opportunity to put to work more particularly questions relative to the confrontation or even the shocks of cultures of belonging.

We may presuppose that training constitutes a support on the condition that it consider that the services of which the agents are part are living, evolving organisations. The agents in training are the players in a change of perspective and operating method.

By taking hold of this theme and taking the time to work on what they are and on their constraints, they will be able to think about their relation to the other and the relation of all users with the institution.

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a3. A grade to mobilise: departmental heads The departmental head is guarantor of an organisation and of a work framework that allows for reconciling the diversity of particular demands and the general interest. It is to meet this imperative of effectiveness on the territory and to ease or support their teams that those in charge: 1. Call for persons with technical skills, if possible persons with different skills since they generally consider that these differences permit responding to every particular situation; 2. Develop partnerships and contribute to the implementation of projects allowing for supplementing or compensating for what is provided by the public services. In fact, these structures or partner organisations provide a public service by delegation. Thus can a certain number of new professions develop here and there, including that of cultural mediator who, on the sidelines of the institution, ensures a service aiming at the preservation of social cohesion and conflict-prevention.

We must consider here that the know-how of these professionals, acting under public order, is not put forward as an absolute truth in all places and all circumstances, nor does it suffice to deal in-house and in common law with the question of the training needs of agents who are also confronted with difficulties on a daily basis.

That is the reason why the need appeared evident, in the course of the first seminar, of including these partners in the public targeted by the training and therefore working on the training needs of all prevention players.

There we are taking the option of considering that department heads must be capable of analysing the function of the service he or she runs in a vaster entity including the institutional and association partners.

Observing that delegation to partners would not be able to compensate infinitely for the difficulties encountered by the agents of services, they expect the training to permit their agents to prevent incidents, resolve tensions and thereby participate actively in the good management of social and economic changes.

The objective of the elaboration of a manual must therefore be the development ‘of an understanding of preventive practice for their own agents’.

Knowing how to take existing laws, regulations or procedures into account but above all, applying them intelligently as regards particular needs and/or the local context.

It is probable that immigration/prevention training will bring out the necessity of taking into account the difficulties of middle managers in the exercise of their 26

responsibility on this theme.

All impetus emanating from their hierarchy, whether expressed by the voice of a councillor, the regulatory authority or the administration, gives rise to resistance to change, which, however well known in theory, is no less difficult to work in the organisation. That is the reason for which the manual will instance support to department heads (cf. Good use of the manual).

In conclusion to this chapter, we shall therefore recall the principal objectives that underlie the elaboration of training in migration/prevention: • Reminding public sector employees that their status defines their rights and obligations. This status enables them to have a function and carry out a preventive role on this theme.

• Reminding department heads that public management consists of supporting the adaptation of the service to the needs of the territory and the population.

To achieve these objectives we shall take into account that, in his relation to the service, the user is not ‘the strongest’. To analyse and improve the relation of the applicant (user) and agent (social worker, local public service employee, prevention agent), it is useful to be able to clarify the respective constraints and obligations of the agent and the applicant.

We propose henceforth classifying agents according to four categories: 1. ‘Counter’ officials or greeters: by that we mean registry office employees, for example, who receive all publics (all inhabitants) and who are therefore ‘exposed’ to questions linked to immigration on daily basis; 2. Safety officers (law and order, health, environment...) who, by their function, are induced to intervene on site in at-risk situations; 3. Social workers and support teams (social workers, youth workers, teachers) who intervene in giving support to groups and ensure a socialcohesion function; 4. So-called ‘intercultural’ agents, who correspond to the new professions: mediators, public writers, etc.

SENIOR MANAGERS Middle managers Police

Middle managers

Middle managers

Middle managers

Safety officers Counter officials

Social workers and support teams

Agents working in the intercultural field

TABLE 1: Categories of public sector employees 27

The training will take into account the function of each group considered and probably the role assigned to each of them in establishing a preventive policy. b. Culture and professional identity of public sector employees Tackling the problems encountered by public sector employees means already treating whatever poses problems for them in the work context. That is the reason why one must take into consideration the institution in which they work, this being, as has previously been stated, a living organisation capable of evolving.

The community agents carry out their function by referring to the culture of their institution. The organisation’s culture is made up of all the elements that allow its members to live, work, communicate and collectively resolve its problems.

They are trained in professional practices that have no direct connection with the notion of better living together. Trained to ‘execute’ diverse services, their belonging to the public service does not explicitly imply that they must ‘think’ or ‘re-think’ their profession, including in it the capacity to make the connection and to prevent intercultural conflict.

The community, in asking its agents to get involved – each in his own place – on the fields of conflict-prevention linked to migrations and diversity, is introducing a new preoccupation in institutional orientations. Training public sector employees on this issue is a contribution towards making the organisation’s culture evolve.

Then the question arises of the contribution of agents or players who, on the fringe of this same organisation, have received delegation to prevent and deal with disputes in the field.

The new professions of social work, called better living together, also refer to a culture. Do they have the same organisation culture or are they on other references and another culture? (Can we say they make themselves a culture in the field of new problems and that this new culture interests the other agents?)

The participants in the programme went beyond this difficulty without, for all that, denying it, choosing to observe the overall intervention mechanism on the territory and retaining only what connected one to another.

Since they are in fact interdependent, even in the extreme case where they are unaware of each other, it is appropriate to lay down an absolute principle wherein the training must be conceived on the basis of these relations of interdependence and that it is therefore advisable to develop a culture common to all the players acting on the same territory, whether they be municipal officials or prevention field agents.

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It is agreed to: use the relations of interdependence of the different agents in the local organisation to elaborate this common culture by formulating the hypothesis that this method will lead to the adaptation of so-called ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ professions. Considering that everyone’s initial training is not in question, it is understood here that the realisation of an inter-services training plan bringing together the differentiated players remains the surest means of provoking a change in the organisation culture and that this change will have effects on the professional practice of every agent concerned; affirm that the improvement in services and the adaptation of the professional practice in the face of diversity requires work in the elucidation and support of the organisation’s values. By ‘values’, we mean what the organisation believes in and which serve as guidelines for behaviour; reinforce the links between municipal employees (public sector employees), delegators (department heads and elected officials) and proxies (prevention agents, new professions); list and deal with whatever poses a problem for each one without exception: that means already acknowledging diversity as a component of the institution. In the training situation, groups of agents of diverse origins and socio-professional backgrounds are backed up for confronting what sometimes results from the shock of cultures. It would be a shame to deprive oneself of this opportunity on condition that the trainers turn it to best account as regards the stakes of training.

The sketch of a model is thus presented, allowing for spotting the origin of certain conflictual situations. The status, function or role of the civil servants can sometimes be incompatible with their personal convictions or values (see following table).

on

tua

lR

c Fa

ti ela

PERSON User of public services

SERVICE PROVIDER as a private individual

Of

fici a

lR

ela

SERVICE PROVIDER as a public representative

Conflictual relation TABLE 2: the complex position of public sector employees 29

tion

This chart shows that public administration employees can have their own convictions, opinions and ideas but they must also act as representatives of the public administration and thus play their role as regards the public interest, in the broad sense of the term. In a heterogeneous, multicultural society, the role of the public administration is also to set an example on the way in which different groups, persons and cultures can coexist.

At this level, there is thus the functionaries’ ‘institutional’ or so-called ‘organisational’ culture and a ‘personal culture’, and the boundaries between the two are not always clearly respected. To illustrate this, let us imagine a first-generation immigrant who has a position as a social worker but who still has the ideas and cultural values of the rural world of his or her country of origin; or else, young immigrants who are hired to work as mediators in various neighbourhoods without having any specific training in this area, aside from the supposed competence attributed to their cultural identity.

Here we see local actors who have acquired a status on the presumption that their cultural identity would automatically turn into professional skills. Our exchanges brought out that they are often not even in a position to react to complex realities in difficult neighbourhoods.

We recommend dealing with this issue by bringing out in the training manual proposals for working on disputes between the reference to personal values that underlie intervention and the institutional values that underlie public service (conflicts of loyalty linked to double belonging).

Another illustration that, this time, concerns a conflict relative to the function occupied: Although the function of public sector employees can be, overall, the same regardless of neighbourhood or for different users (for example, waste collection), one realises that the place where this function is carried out leads to diverse expectations regarding the role assigned to it. The role the workers play will depend in large part on the neighbourhoods in which they are sent to collect the waste.

These two examples infer discussions as to the way in which a public administration must work within the reality of a multicultural society.7 Several important exchanges supplemented this analysis of which we provide a few excerpts.

7 The term ‘multicultural society’ is used here and in the text at large for want of anything better, despite problems that it poses. It is used in the sense of a society made up, in truth, of people from different cultural backgrounds and not in the sense of an elaborate political or ideological concept, any more than in the sense of a culturalist perspective that presupposes the existence of static, immutable cultures, separated by clear boundaries.

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1. On the reference to secular, republican order: secular, republican law and order, such as exists in France, for example, does not mean that religious differences are denied or ignored, but in fact that the State does not intervene in the religious sphere. In France, for example, mosques cannot be built with public moneys but nonetheless necessitate public building permits.

Similarly, religious groups can be given a part in the decision-making process as advisory organs but cannot be officially recognised. On the other hand, in other countries, certain religious institutions are supported by the State.8 2. On the reference to legality: there is not just the law that comes into play in the way people act. Far beyond that, culture, advice, politics, convictions, personal values, etc. play an important role, modulating the way people enforce laws and regulations in their daily work, and the differences can be considerable.

3. On the reference to the multicultural concept: it is necessary to be cautious when using the term ‘multicultural society’, saving it for the factual coexistence of different cultures on the same territory. The danger is that the cultures might appear as stable entities existing independently of one another, or else as an ideological term used during political confrontations.

4. On the reference to the notion of public interest: the term ‘general interest’ can be preferable to ‘institutional/administrative culture’, since its sense is broader.

5. On the objective of professionalisation: professionalisation goes beyond intercultural dialogue. Its objective must be the providing of excellent services, independently of cultural differences but without ignoring them. For example, the head of the Dutch police aims at stimulating a general attitude: every police officer, regardless of his cultural context, will be attentive to whatever problem posed when a citizen calls on him, the ultimate finality being that the cultural context of the police officers is totally excluded from their daily work. This approach aims at avoiding the pitfall of having Turkish police officers working only in Turkish neighbourhoods and Dutch officers in Dutch neighbourhoods, for exemple.

6. On local democracy and the participation of inhabitants: the empowerment of users also plays a crucial role. The participation and active mobilisation of users of public services, truly involved in decision-making processes, can alter the relation of power, often to the detriment of minority groups.

The recommendations accepted by the group at this stage can be summed up as follows: Actions and efforts must be coordinated and applied at the local level. Furthermore, training must be in relation to the practice. The question of the relation with the public(s) concerned or those who are victims of violence therefore arises. That is the reason for which training must tackle both the problem of agents likely to be brutally aggressed in their daily work as much as a public that is the victim of violence.

8 See Hoare, Marshall and Chu 2006 for a comparison of relations between public school and religion in Great Britain, France and the United States.

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1. The target group for training is made up of public sector employees and prevention agents having received delegation on prevention missions.

2. Training must focus on institutional and political orientations of prevention, not of repression.

3. It is advisable to take professional and individual limits into account by choosing to work on the organisation’s working habits and culture rather than on the question of personal resistances and difficulties.

4. It is important to take into account the disputes and tensions linked to the professional situation.

Conflicts between public service providers and users.

Conflicts between personal convictions and the organisation’s culture.

Conflicts linked to inadequacy between the function and the role assigned to an agent.

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33

4

KINDS OF TRAINING AND METHODOLOGIES

34

4. KINDS OF TRAINING AND METHODOLOGIES Professionals are constantly confronted with what is called ‘cultural diversity’.

How to establish quality communication, how to succeed in speaking with one another, i.e., understand one another and exchange when points of reference, cultural codes and habits are not the same? How to avoid misunderstandings, lack of understanding and the occasional temptations for rejection inherent in all situations that bring persons of different cultures face to face? How to go beyond the obstacle always represented initially by the confrontation with cultural diversity so that cooperation quickly wins out over confrontation? Even more so in the professional situation, the intercultural approach implies recognising the existence of two different players, with their own systems of values and representations. It is increasingly customary that the comprehension of this issue involves a personal effort of self-correction to set the limits of the affect, take the necessary distance and go beyond one’s own representations. Professionals are therefore invited to carry out a veritable job of intellectual construction to acquire useful knowledge and appropriate the indispensable approaches for facilitating interaction.

This is a matter of know-how and interpersonal skills, and involves modifying attitudes and behaviours. These are true professional skills with which one must equip oneself and which can be acquired only by training. That is indeed our objective. a. Theoretical approach to the training process Every elaboration of training programmes presupposes a minimum of theoretical and methodological knowledge. We shall see that training brings agents’ cognitive aspects and practical experience into play.

Beyond the different methods used in the various training programmes present on the market, it is important to specify the general methodology implemented, according to variable proportions, by all training offers. We have thus seen that training lies within a theoretical field situated between three poles (see following table): • teaching which designates the transmission of institutionally-approved knowledge.

A classic example is teaching in school, where precisely-defined knowledge is passed on to children by their teacher; • instruction which designates the acquisition of know-how or skills adapted to socioprofessional requirements, of which a classic example is the professional training that transmits specific techniques. Here, the process is oriented more towards practice and consists of doing things for learning. This kind of training can teach how to be a baker, for example, with precise knowledge as to what a baker does and who he is and to which codes of conduct he must conform. Aside from learning how to make bread, the baker will also learn the ‘art’ of making bread and the pride that goes hand-in-hand with the fact of being a baker; 35

• education which can be understood in the broad sense of self-knowledge and one’s place in the world (mastery of interpersonal skills) and general upbringing.

It designates a process of acquiring theoretical and practical knowledge and continuous thinking, almost a transmission of values, a real way of being and apprehending the world. This process involves not only public institutions but also schools, the family, the broader context of neighbourhoods, cultures, religions and traditions, personal and political convictions, etc.

From this results the fact that, in its common base, beyond these three poles, the training activity generally includes the transmission of knowledge structured round practices in the concern for the individual’s overall development as a subject and social player.

TRAINING Must target this sector

EDUCATION Society – Values – Cultures

INSTRUCTION Professional training

TEACHING Schools, universities, etc.

TABLEAU 3: Three poles Above all at this level, we must not forget that the way in which someone carries out his or her functions and role is important. A baker, for instance, must satisfy needs that go beyond providing bread and which depend on the local context in which he is working. In a Muslim neighbourhood, for example, special sweets will be made during Ramadan, whilst other contexts might necessitate other skills and different know-how. To take the example of a police officer, he or she must receive appropriate teaching on laws and regulations (at the police academy), adequate instruction (in the form of practical on-the-job training, supervision of teamwork and ongoing professional training), as well as the appropriate 36

education (an understanding of the status, function and role of a police officer in a democratic society, i.e. the importance of being courteous, treating people identically, reasonably and impartially). Thus, the training of local actors as regards immigration and prevention must include at the same time the transmission of theoretical knowledge (the history of immigration, for example), the study of practical tools and know-how (conflict-management, for example) and finally must pursue a logic of change going beyond the limits of professional identity.

The work of the local actors can, in fact, be significantly improved by teaching stories of migrations, racism, tolerance, democratic values, etc., in the framework of opening up towards broader horizons of social and cultural realities, outside of the public administration or institution. b. Constituent elements and methodological criteria The singularity of the training process being heightened in comparison with activities that are close but distinct, at present, we must bring out the specificity by their common content beyond the multiple modalities of particular training programmes. To do so, four characteristic traits of training practices were noted: 1. The logic of change: the training aims at producing changes, be it in individuals (behaviour, representations, attitudes, methods) according to diverse psychosocial approaches, or systems (breaks, company cultures and functioning) according to diverse socio-analytical tools.

2. The adjustment of programmes, objectives and activities to needs or requests as well as to the context of the intervention. This presupposes the negotiation of programmes, objectives and activities according to the priorities of the sponsors and the needs or requests of the trained public. The discrepancies between the priorities of the trainees and those of the trainers have to be negotiated. In the example of a municipality offering training to the personnel, the trainer must first find out the objectives of the town councillors, then the objectives of the personnel that are supposed to benefit from it, in order to then reduce the inevitable gap between these two positions.

3. Structuring theories to practices. Knowledge is not the aim in itself or an autonomous sphere of reference but used according to the stakes that give it meaning, theory being communicated, if necessary, as a tool for resolving problems stemming from the practice. All training must exploit and rely on the context of the people in the field. Under these conditions, the theory must apply to resolving concrete field problems.

4. Rationalisation and professionalisation. By ‘process of rationalisation’ of the training, we mean the ability for the trainer to objectivise his intentions and means, the context of intervention and the hoped-for results. That translates into a series of demands from the definition of the objectives, the negotiation with an eventual sponsor and/or participants up to the settingup of an evaluation arrangement. The rationalisation process presupposes the recourse to recognised authorised professionals having experience in the 37

subject. Personal charisma, theoretical competence or pedagogical knowhow do not allow for defining the trainer’s quality. Moreover, he is induced to live the training in a partnership relation that is not without risk and by referring to practices or knowledge on which he does not have a monopoly.

From this results a delicate positioning of the trainer who does not intervene as an expert, a therapist or a teacher and who, quite often, must forge his status and show his competences even during the training process.

Moreover, it is advisable to consider ten methodological criteria in the construction of any training process (see Table 4). All training, even with clearlydefined objectives, must meet the expectations of persons to be trained as much as those of the institution having organised it. The trainer must negotiate possible discrepancies and programme an action based on clearly-defined means and conditions. Pedagogical means must be adapted so that the training is productive, the methods and contents thought out according to the needs of the beneficiaries, and the objectives defined in the most general framework of a training policy.

Every good training programme must be followed by a functional, significant evaluation mechanism.

1

define objectives

2

analyse needs and/or demand(s)

3

distinguish institutional and public demand(s)

4

negotiate possible discrepancies

5

plan the action

6

determine means and conditions

7

adapt your methods

8

shape contents

9

base training plans in a general policy framework

10

establish an evaluation mechanism

TABLE 4: Methodology criteria This methodology led us, in the framework of the construction of a training process on the subject of immigration and prevention, to reflect upon different elements: in what would local actors be trained; what fields of knowledge/ skills would be broached; and precisely defining the object of this tool under construction.

In the framework of this project, it does come down to thinking about tools likely to help and accompany public sector employees in prevention to better manage – in their daily professional life and in the respect of their professional identity – the difficulties linked to contact with persons of other cultural origins.

38

Given the existence of multicultural societies across Europe, the objective of living better together not only calls for better understanding of culture(s), but requires the art of communicating between or amongst them. For that purpose, training is oriented towards the creation of empathy and aims at something much broader than knowledge (acquired by teaching) or know-how (acquired by instruction). c. Presentation of specific tools Without pretending to be exhaustive, we present three tools specific to training offers on the subject of inter-culturality, which seemed particularly pertinent to us. c1. Analysis of representations The analysis of representations9 designates the methods that stimulate awareness, the examination and decoding of prejudices, clichÊs and stereotypes that everyone accumulates – most often without knowing it, depending on the impact of the ambient culture – concerning others or the unknown. This analysis, based on, amongst others, introspection, exchange, group dynamics and role-playing games as well as on the pedagogical exploitation of diverse supports (articles, advertising, audiovisual documents, personal work, brainstorming...), aims at a better mastery of spontaneous and/or elaborated perceptions in order to reduce the gap between objective reality and personal interpretations. As such, this type of analysis is particularly suitable to the intercultural context. c2. Methods of culture shocks The culture shocks method10 aims at making professionals in an intercultural situation more capable of discovering, then understanding, cultural differences starting from the awareness of their own values, norms, frames of references and prejudices that make up as many obstacles to understanding and communication with persons or groups of different culture. This method was created by the psychosociologist Margalit Cohen Emerique in the 1980s. Noting the difficulties in effectively transmitting the cultural characteristics and identity singularities of migrants to social workers and professionals in medical-psychological intervention, Ms. Cohen Emerique opted for training methods combining both an opening-up to the knowledge of other cultures and an awareness to the perception, recognition and search for cultural differences as an initial condition to an intercultural approach.

To delimit the areas of incomprehension in intercultural situations, the notion of culture shock was brought out in the sense of a reaction of disorientation, frustration, rejection, or even revolt and anxiety as well as positive astonishment.

9 References: Mucchielli (undated), Moscovici 1973, Mendras 1978 10 References: Camilleri/Cohen Emerique 1989, Antipodes 1995, which combined and abridged two articles written by Margarita Cohen Emerique in 1984 and 1986 and updated by the author. The present heading is largely inspired by this dossier, an authority on the subject. Antipodes is published by ITECO.

39

The hypothesis being that this shock acts as a revelation of his or her own culture and of the most critical areas in the encounter. In practice, the method proceeds to a selection of situations in which culture shocks were lived by the participants in the training. These shocks are analysed according to a standard grid that allows for bringing out the objective variables of these ‘critical incidents’ reported by the narrators. After answering questions relative to the players present, the shock situation, its context as well as the frame of references of each of the protagonists (the person who underwent the shock and the person at the origin of the shock) and the follow-ups to the incident, the sub-groups met for a pooling guided by the trainer. Through successive practice, the participants become progressively more aware of culturally sensitive areas in which conceptions (of the individual, the family, education, male/female relationships, relations to time, space, religion...) are often confronted with systems of different norms and values.

This better comprehension of the cultural frame of references of the Other and one’s own self enables shedding light on the situations lived differently and, with the parties involved, seeking appropriate solutions through dialogue and negotiation.

Although it places the accent first and foremost on the cultural dimensions of interactions, this method is not culturalist to the degree that the proposed grid advances factors of context (institutional wagers, north/south relations, helping/ helped, status in society, historical disputes...) and helps to delimit the multiplicity and dynamics of the protagonists’ identity referents. c3. Harmonics The Harmonics method11 aims at the awareness of the real-life experience of discrimination in its mechanisms and effects by means of a submersion arrangement in a discriminatory environment set up according to methods deriving more from sociodrama than role-playing. It is inspired by the experiment of ‘the divided class’ by the American Jane Elliot (on one side, your ‘brown eyes’, decreed as the dominated category, and on the other, the ‘blue eyes’, decreed as the dominant category), which, in the 1970s, invited participants to directly live through a situation of racial discrimination rather than analyse or denounce it by scientific or moral considerations. After having lived and felt the impact of discriminations, it was in all other mental dispositions that these participants in the sociodrama perceived the testimonies of racism that a few contributors of colour confided to them in neutral fashion.

11 References: Amoranitis/Manço 1998, RTBF 1997.

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c4. Awareness of training needs and questioning of work habits In the general discussion that followed the exposition of the main lines on training, an additional model of the conception of different dimensions of training was presented, mentioning, for example, the way in which we learn to drive (see Table 5).

INCOMPETENCE UNCONSCIOUS

COMPETENCE UNCONSCIOUS

INCOMPETENCE CONSCIOUS

COMPETENCE CONSCIOUS

TABLE 5: Model of conscience-competence training The learning process begins in the first box, above left (‘unconscious incompetence’) and continues in the direction of the grey arrows. A newborn, for example, has no idea about the way to drive a car, let alone the existence of cars. To learn to drive, you must however first realise the fact that you are incapable of doing it. Realising that there are cars and that people are driving them around you, but that you cannot do so yourself, you are at the stage of conscious incompetence. Starting from there, driving lessons can lead you to the stage of conscious competence: when you take the steering wheel for the first time, it will be awkward and uncertain; you will learn by making mistakes and from the rectifications of an instructor. In the end, when you drive to work every morning without giving much thought to what you are doing, you will have reached the stage of unconscious competence.

What is important to understand here is that the progress in learning and the direction of the grey arrows in the diagram can and sometimes must be reversed.

Training then aims at following the black arrows, when people learn something to improve their unconscious competence. As concerns road safety, for example, good drivers will have to come back from their unconscious competence to their conscious competence to unlearn bad habits, lax conduct or even returning to conscious incompetence to remember that drinking and driving do not go together.

Or it is simply possible that an English driver arriving in France must change in order to drive on the right, plunging back to the stage of conscious competence.

That is precisely where the strongest individual resistance to training arises. An administrative employee or a recalcitrant civil servant will insist on the fact that things were always as they were, that procedures should not change, and will stick 41

to the good old methods, even when contexts and societies change, rather than adapt to new situations and use the training as a tool for improving not only one’s personal knowledge but also one’s professional work.

In the discussion that followed, several important points were brought up: 1. It is rare that the change in behaviours or procedures concerns only such and such functionary or employee in particular. Most often, the logic of change must apply to the whole department or the entire public service, and that requires the participation of the whole hierarchy. Thus, the effects of training are double, one being the change of the individual agent, the other being that of the entire system in which he or she works.

2. Training must reconcile the transmission of new knowledge and an incitement to new ways of behaving and doing things.

3. The person who receives the training has the first role in the training processes since no one can do anything in his or her place if the person does not learn willingly.

4. The training can run into serious obstacles, such as an absence of motivation or the lack of awareness of the needs for training. The public administration was mentioned as an example for it is common to find people there who agree that things should change but deem that this concerns only ‘the others’ or other colleagues. When the front-line personnel is in a situation of denial of difficulties, a means of negotiating must be found to overcome this resistance, either by attacking head-on or succeeding in bringing out the advantages linked to a change in procedures and/or behaviours. Different kinds of resistances will be encountered according to the professional categories: social workers, police officers, etc.

5. It will be necessary to take into account everyone’s incapacities to face up to difficult situations and the anxiety generated by those situations.

6. It will be difficult to achieve the change by continuing to think that change can only apply to one or two details or problems. Change cannot be achieved without considering cultural values and contexts in a broader sense.

7. By accurately targeting the group of beneficiaries, one avoids any generalising, ineffective mass approach. Training programmes obligatory for all have, in the past, proven their ineffectiveness and created frustration.

At the present time, training must be well adapted to a specific public with precise needs on the subject.

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43

5

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE MANUAL

44

5. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE MANUAL a. General recommendations for training public sector employees After having considered the methodological aspects in the development of a general training policy, several elements were brought forward for the elaboration of specific training intended for public sector employees: 1. Faced with difficult situations, agents need to be prepared, to have tools and methods at their disposal in order to react; they must be able to express themselves and exchange with their colleagues and hierarchy.

2. It is imperative that the whole managerial line be made aware of the issue and be strongly involved so that the agent does not find him- or herself alone before the problem.

3. Thinking on the subject must be organised within each administration; the conception and experimentation of training methods and support of agents must be developed.

4. It is a matter of providing tools well adapted to local situations, taking as starting points the complex realities and specific recommendations (rather than the institutional structures or those of the project).

5. The necessity of clarifying the definitions and terminology of the different groups of persons present on a territory (refugees, migrants for economics reasons, etc.), and tackling the situation of those without proper papers and communities that are difficult to reach.

6. Identifying and analysing the main challenges in the daily work of the local personnel and developing a typology of issues/conflicts.

7. Identifying the specific training needs resulting from this typology of issues/conflicts/situations.

8. Clarifying the relation between prevention and security whilst avoiding the dangerous lumping together of immigration and crime.

9. Clarifying the difference between training, heightening awareness and information and choosing one of these three possibilities according to points 3 and 4.

10. Clarifying the relation between personal/institutional/cultural values.

11. Clarifying the difference between know-how and interpersonal skills and developing values training programmes for both aspects.

12. Developing training tools by identifying a public, contents, limits, methods, resources and trainers.

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b. Systematic recommendations for training various public sector employees b1. Difficulties encountered

Categories A - D A

B

C

D

Police/ Security

Social workers

Professionals in cultural diversity

Administration agents

After bringing up the practical daily problems common to local actors, a basic structure of issues to be dealt with in a training manual was devised by the group.

Table 6 thus takes up the difficulties of local actors that were identified and aims at linking them with the four target groups identified. In order to do so, the table has a double entry with, on the one hand, the type of status of the main players in immigration and prevention and, on the other, the problems and difficulties they encounter, this allowing for spotting the challenges to be taken up in training.

Challenge I - XI I. Conflicts between institutional and personal values II. Conflicts between professional culture and prevention mission III. Technical and communication problems IV. Taking into account requests to which one cannot respond/limits V. Ignorance of the law and regulations VI. Incompatibility of codes and usages VII. Partnership culture vis-à -vis administrative culture VIII. Lack of knowledge about outside resources and partners (limits of competences) IX. Absence of participation or lack of knowledge about the decision-making process X. Effects of the local/regional/national levels – confusion of local actors XI. Relations of power and empowerment

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X X

X

X X X

X

X

X

X X

X

X

X

X

X X

TABLE 6: Typology of problematical situations for local actors

46

X

X

The principal commentaries on the table: • The necessity of collaboration between the different contributors was noted. A culture of partnership between the public administration and other players is to be developed more systematically in order to avoid administrative cultures being overly dominant.

• Partnerships are implemented differently, depending on the country.

They are designated by a central authority in France and Germany, whereas in the United Kingdom, associations are recognised in the same way as the other partners. The police, for example, and a local group can even work in the same building. In Germany, the association movement attests to the federal nature, quite decentralised from the outset, of the public administration (the case of members of a regional government of Hesse being able to decide to hire non-German nationals in the German police forces was cited as an example).

• The margin for decision of elected representatives is limited in certain countries where decisions are made by all partners (United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium), whereas they have a more important role in other countries such as France.

• The traumatisms undergone by refugees, users of public services, can be a serious subject of concern for the service provider and engender communication problems and conflicts. Numerous immigrants who turn to the public administration for help in resolving their social or economic problems also suffer from post-traumatic stress, resulting from their personal history, conflicts in their country of origin or their negative experiences facing the state repression authorities.

• An imperfect formulation on the user’s part must not be confused with the incapacity of service providers to respond to a specific request. It can so happen that a request, however clearly formulated, be misunderstood or ignored. In other cases, the capacities of comprehension can be excellent, but the user does not manage to express his needs clearly enough – both cases appear in many local governments.

• The limits of departments’ resources represent a considerable constraint for effective work. These limits may concern the personnel and its members or financial aspects as well as knowledge and practices.

• The mobilisation of resources must be carried out as much within administrations as on the side of public services users, local groups, associations, citizens’ organisations, etc., in order to make better use of existing qualifications, knowledge and human resources present in a given neighbourhood.

• Power relations structure exchanges between the public administration agents and their users. For the most part, users are heavily dependent on the institution.

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• The different incidence of legislation and regulations, established at a local, regional, national or even European level, can put the local personnel before serious dilemmas, in the sense that it is already difficult to stay informed of evolving administrative structures and competences and, all the more so, of legal modifications.

• Line V must be adapted to the different target groups. A functionary who is, for example, responsible for wedding ceremonies must know laws and regulations that are different from those concerning a police officer, a social worker, an intercultural mediator or a school teacher.

• Line I, ‘institutional values’, might have also been entitled ‘public values’ to shift the attention from the institutional side to the public side, so as to recall that the notion of ‘public’ service corresponds to what the users perceive, more than what the decision-makers think of it or wish it to be.

• A discussion concerning line I of Table 6 focussed on the different connotations in French and English terminology: whereas ‘intérêt général’ comes from the French philosophy of Rousseau to Montesquieu and their heirs, such is not the case for the English terms ‘general values’ or ‘public interest’.

• In certain countries such as Lithuania, only the first two groups of agents identified (police and social workers) exist, whereas the other two are absent. Only recently has the training of social workers become a university degree course.

• The police should also figure in lines I and V of Table 6, but that depends on their status (national police, local police, municipal police or other).

After analysis, the participants did not wish to prioritise the problems and difficulties listed. b2. Specific recommendations In view of the themes dealt with, it appears that all training must meet four principal needs, regardless of the cities concerned: 1. The need for distance: the issue of emotional involvement; 2. The need to go beyond obstacles linked to the non-mastery of the language: questions of adaptation of the professional’s language (or jargon) and translation; 3. The need to make opposing frames of reference coexist as well as possible: the issue of cultural codes, beliefs and stereotypes; 4. The need for taking the limits of negotiation into account: the issue of the institutional framework and constraints.

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49

6

GOOD USE OF THE TRAINING MANUAL

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6. GOOD USE OF THE TRAINING MANUAL The finality of every training policy is its effectiveness. There are fields of training where this is easily measurable, those that aim at mastering computer skills, for example. It is another matter when the question of effectiveness is clearly less quantifiable; which is, roughly speaking, practically everything having to do with social issues and prevention. This is precisely the case with training programmes dealing with the themes of prevention and immigration. It is therefore essential to give some information allowing users of the manual to understand what this tool represents and how, in their place, they will be able to use it.

Thinking about good utilisation means already setting the objective of the training’s effectiveness.

One might be tempted to decide once and for all to never ask oneself the question of evaluation, the consequence of which could be to deprive oneself of any possibility of reflection on the action and method for ensuring its monitoring.

In the course of this chapter, we are going to make a decision that is diametrically opposed. Let us consider that the ‘prevention–migration’ training manual is a tool for instituting a qualitative, dynamic and interactive approach whose effect is to provide, in addition, a method for thinking about the action of training and following it with a critical look.

First of all, we shall define who may use this manual. The first persons at whom this manual is aimed are all the operations managers of the public service or services to the public (to distinguish and associate the partner organisations of the public service carrying out a public service on its authority). This chapter thus concerns firstly managers and more particularly senior managers having a role in the definition of fundamental options taken by the community. a. A tool at the disposal of managers for strategic management We are going to consider that if the city implements a prevention policy and that within it the services are called on to participate in the implementation of this policy, the managers are in charge of making sure the efforts of each converge to fulfil this new mission. This is what is commonly called strategic management.

Let us first recall what a manager’s work consists of or rather what is the place occupied by a manager. A manager is a person who exercises two professions at the same time: there is his basic job (engineer, jurist, social worker, doctor or whatever), and simultaneously he has a second job that consists of making agents work and above all, making them work together. This second comes on top of the basic technical nature of the first job and is not self-evident.

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The place occupied by each of the two jobs varies according to the place occupied by the manager in the organisation, all managers not being in the same rung on the hierarchical ladder. For a manager who is at the lowest level of the managerial staff, the essential part of his work concerns his basic technical nature.

The higher one climbs in the hierarchy the more secondary that basic technical nature becomes, being replaced by the managerial preoccupation.

Preoccupation

Place occupied by management

1st level

Place occupied by the basic technical job Middle manager

Hierarchical level Senior manager

TABLE 7 : The managerial job From this diagram we thus see how each level on the hierarchical ladder is positioned and concerned by the implementation of a training policy for agents.

The principal managerial preoccupation concerns the motivation of agents. In a context made more difficult by the diversity of publics and sometimes the tasks to accomplish, the manager is the one who, in a service or department, is often perceived as the last recourse in case of conflict or tension with the user. His or her function consists of giving direction and meaning to the work of the teams.

Everyone who works needs to feel useful and believe that his or her work has meaning. This meaning is not immediately perceptible for the agent intervening on the front line. It is up to the manager to see to it that it is.

If, in a municipality, a prevention policy on the immigration theme is given impetus (at the request of officials), it will be up to the managers to make sure the efforts of all converge on this same objective. That necessitates internal communication work and recourse to management techniques adapted to the objectives to be attained.

Work on the service project allows for taking up the question of agents’ functions and roles in regards to the prevention mission. The person in charge of the service 52

is therefore the one who is going to provide the ‘sense’, i.e., both the direction and the meaning. The first mistake would be to consider that mobilisation depends solely on the motivation of the agents or the manager himself.

In fact, it is by giving a direction that one then speaks of focalisation that the managers mobilise the agents on objectives. The mobilisation thus results from motivation and focalisation. By clarifying objectives, the effect of the training policy will be to mobilise the agents. b. General recommendations b1. Entrusting this tool to mobilised managers Given what has previously been stated, the first piece of advice that can be given as to the use of this manual is to verify that the managers themselves are motivated and aware of the objectives to be attained.

They must be capable of saying where they are going: what are the missions of the department they are in charge of and what are the objectives that they want to attain as regards the ‘migration’ problem – in short, capable of laying out prioritised objectives.

Next, they must be capable of saying how to succeed: What is the strategy? What are the organisation’s values12 to be favoured? What are the rules of the game? In short, capable of taking hold of the training as an opportunity to make the service evolve.

It is frequent to grasp the opportunity of a reorganisation of services, a transfer of competence from one department to another, to implement a training action.

This action, and more particularly on this theme, is a lever for creating changes. The manager and the trainer are therefore linked in the implementation of a training action, even though – or because – the proposed theme contains an underlying emotive power that can turn out to be important (fear of the unknown, fear of the Other or of the future...), it is advisable to foresee ‘return effects’ in the service.

It is therefore advisable to take into account that the implementation of a training action on this theme constitutes a lever for the elaboration or revision of a service project. b2. Supporting managers by offering to invest over the medium and long terms, articulating training and service project Managing people is an activity that includes two horizons: the short term, which corresponds to relational management and involves conducting interviews with 12 Values of an organisation: what one believes in in the organisation and what serves as guidlines for behaviour.

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agents, running meetings and daily communication; then there are the medium and long terms, which concern strategic management. This is the mobilisation of energies, the conduct of change, in-house communication policy and the strategic management of competences. In this sense, training agents for prevention policies on immigration questions concerns the medium and long terms and corresponds to the ‘wish to mobilise energies’.

This strategic preoccupation is supported by choices made beforehand by elected officials, by the highest level of the organisation. It is, for example, a local prevention contract or the announcement of a local project of access to the law, the fight against discriminations or simply the improvement in the public’s access within the municipality.

For the manager, making medium- and long-term efforts converge on this theme will mean: 1. Subscribing to objectives and values by instituting a management that arouses adhesion by developing communication and showing results; 2. Reducing the conflicts that are not lacking in the life of any team; 3. Identifying the dynamic agents, the powerhouses.

It matters little what motivates them; the training manual can be considered an aid in the elaboration of a service project in the organisation, provided that the managers have the possibility of working on the elaboration of the terms of preference. c. Elaboration of the terms of preference The terms of preference must take into account training needs as well as collective and individual needs. Generally, in a community, the director of personnel and human resources takes care of training plans. Either the middle manager is put in charge of gathering the individual demands of agents and passing them on, or he proposes because he considers that the service needs to set up a training policy for the whole service (this is the typical case of computer-training policies).

We have just spoken of needs; we could also speak of agents’ expectations.

Let’s pause for an instant on these distinctions. An agent expresses a request for training. This request corresponds to the immediate professional situation, often a difficulty. It is advisable not to mistake need and expectation. There is no need that does not result from a preliminary analysis, which is the reason why it is advisable to initiate a needs analysis.

This needs analysis is important: • •

for the agents who will do the training; for the hierarchical manager; 54

• •

for the head of training; and for the trainer.

It should be taken into account that collecting training needs, participation in the elaboration of the terms of preference of training actions and the evaluation of the transfer of knowledge acquired in the field are the responsibility of managers. c1. How to gather local information on training needs?

There exist what are called inductive needs factors; they are listed in six categories.

To each one correspond useful sources of information (see following table).

Inductive needs factors Individuals and groups The environment Resources and training offers Demands of the public Work posts Institutional organisation

Where to find useful information Unions, the agents themselves, consultative organs Experts, the media, the administrative hierarchy The institution’s training service, training organisms, universities, publications The public, the media The agents concerned, the administrative hierarchy, futurology organisms The decision system, the administrative hierarchy

TABLE 8: Information on training needs The evolution of each of these factors brings with it a need in training. We have previously seen that the evolution of several of these factors, on the proposed theme, infers a strong training need. c2. How to write a terms of preference The terms of preference is a descriptive document and will serve as the reference document between the municipality and the service provider. The previous chapters should help in establishing the material.

The writing of the terms of preference is the occasion, for those in charge, to work on the clarification of a certain number of preliminary points concerning your strategic and political objectives. The best way of stating them is to note, right from the outset, your expectations and more particularly the expected results of the training. Thus can you connect a training action with a programme in the process of realisation, a particular event or else with studies, diagnoses carried out on the territory of which you are in charge. It is important to note that this is a matter of involving agents in a management adapted to situations. The aptitude 55

to face up to change and diversity are notions that will lead to a training proposal corresponding to your expectations.

As the person in charge, he or she who commissions a training programme is also subject to a certain number of constraints. Checking that the action progresses coherently must be one of your concerns. This is the reason for which you are going to have to write down in the terms of preference non-negotiable information and data such as length, the number of persons concerned, the monitoring of sessions and the participation of agents. In addition, you will have to think about indicating what is the service, hierarchical echelon or, even better, the frame of reference for this action, and who, as it is going on, will remain the service provider’s special correspondent.

This preliminary work thereby enables you to define criteria that allow for making sure of the coherence of the progress of the action and the means that will be implemented to ensure the results obtained.

In general, the terms of preference answers the following questions: 1. Why? In the manual that is proposed to you, you have the principal elements relative to the usual difficulties and dysfunction on this theme and you realised a prior, specific needs study (cf. previous paragraph).

2. Who? The characteristics of the population to be trained; the director of human resources or the department head has considerable information to communicate on this question.

3. What? The tracks of contents are also in the manual: it is up to the trainer to translate them into pedagogical objectives, i.e., in terms of knowledge, know-how and behaviour at the end of the training.

4. How? The terms of preference may suggest a duration and methods: it will therefore be advisable to transmit the manual to the trainer. d. How to optimise the use of the manual and the implementation of training To best make use of the manual and implement a training programme for local actors, it is advisable to: 1. Synchronise a training action with the implementation of an on-site prevention project such as a welcome campaign for newly arrived immigrants to the city or setting up a neighbourhood mediation unit; 2. Seize the opportunity of training to think about the redevelopment of areas such as, for example, neighbourhood public reception areas or the opportunity for renovating premises; 3. Seize the opportunity of inter-service training programmes to work on the decompartmentalisation of services as, for example, the application of a new administrative circular necessitating the participation of several services and which will give rise to work in inter-services solidarity; 56

4. Seize the opportunity of needs studies and training actions to develop participatory urban methods of treatment (how to involve inhabitants), especially in the diagnosis of needs, also the identification of persons and resources in the community who are likely, initially, to pass on information and then become a relay for the implementation of projects; 5. Implement transnational training actions on this theme by developing exchanges of good practices. This can be seizing the opportunity of European invitations to tender for networking municipalities and operators having developed pertinent projects.

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7

CONCLUSION

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7. Conclusion All training efforts must be based on clearly-defined objectives and must concern a specific public (in the case that occupies us here, directly and indirectly touched by migration issues). These are the ‘specialists’ working in the sector linked to integration, such as mediators, as well as the public sector employees having more or less experience in front-line work. The department heads and administrators of social services are directly concerned by the elaboration and unfolding of the training programme since it will allow for supporting a local conflict-prevention project or adaptation of the public service. It can turn out to be useful to open up the training to agents of effective or potential ‘partner’ services: police, justice. The participation of elected officials is always a favourable element.

The contents of the training programme must be worked on beforehand, taking into account the local context and the objectives to be achieved.

The tools proposed must allow for improving contacts and communication.

The preparation of the training action at the local level will bring out resources (trainers, teachers, particular competences of given agents or persons, resources on a site, collected data heretofore unexploited, etc.). They must be made available and developed.

The limits of the training must be defined: structural limits, inherent to every public administration, repetitive situations or problems that can last because they result from national or European legislation. One of the group’s objectives was working on the risks associated with the implementation of a training action on this theme.

An approach unsuited to the local, specific situation of the city. That is the reason why the study of local situations was the subject of specific work in seminar. It is therefore recommended to devote time to it.

Inadequate training proposals (poor trainers, irrelevant contents, etc.).

That is the reason why types of training programmes likely to support discussion with the provider were reviewed.

The simplification of social and cultural problems in training, likely to further reinforce stereotypes and prejudices, the lack of professionalism on the part of the trainers.

The ‘anthropological risk’ of training public sector employees only in their relations with a given group of immigrants, which could change in a few years (e.g., London, where agents were well trained in relations with immigrants from Asia and the Caribbean, but not with those from Eastern Europe).

By working locally on the choice of training means and methods, thereby seeking the way in which the training programme can be proposed to the local personnel, one lays the foundations (if this has not already been done) where a local prevention policy is reinforced.

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This manual now belongs to everyone. The EFUS member cities that contributed to it made the choice of cooperation and ‘positive’ thinking starting from a complex topic. The different readers of this text throughout all of Europe, through the particular use they make of it, will contribute intelligently and noticeably to the collective effort in developing the prevention policies and inventing a future without racism or discrimination.

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8

APPENDIX

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8. APPENDIX

a. Comparative table of questionnaire results

A questionnaire was distributed at the beginning of the project to gather some basic information on the situation in the cities participating in the project. A comparative table was drawn up, which summarises this information.

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CITY City residents Regional residents Immigrants (%) Immigrant communities Social situation

FRANKFURT AM MAIN (Germany)

LE HAVRE (France)

(LONDON BOROUGH OF WALTHAM FOREST (United Kingdom)

657,000

190,000

220,000 in the borough

6.4 million in the RheinMain region

230,000 in the urban area

7.5 million in greater London, 12.5 million in the metropolitan area

25.6% foreigners 40% Germans of foreign origin

Unknown

35.5% of Black communities and ethnic minorities

Turks, Yugoslavs, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Moroccans, Russians, French

Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco); Western Africa (Senegal, Mali, Mauritania)

West Indian Black, Pakistani, Black African; Pakistani secondlargest population in London; group having experienced the largest expansion made up of Eastern Europeans (Russians and Poles); community of multiple faiths, six mosques; conflicts between Tamil groups

Problems of language and integration, unemployment, drugs amongst the young people

Port and industrial city, high unemployment rate (12% citywide, up to 30% for certain categories of populations or neighbourhoods))

11th out of 33 boroughs in terms of hardship, 25th out of 354 local authorities in England; 5 electoral sections amongst the 10% most underprivileged and 1 section amongst the 5% most underprivileged

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TORINO (Italy)

SIENA (Italy)

CHARLEROI (Belgium)

VILNIUS (Lituany)

950,000

54.000 (city and metropolitan area)

200,000

1.5 millions dans la zone mĂŠtropolitaine

3.5 millions dans la RĂŠgion Toscane

3.4 million in the Walloon (Frenchspeaking) region

4.2 %

4.2%

14% in the city 9% in the Walloon region

42.2% nonLithuanians

The inhabitants have decreased, elderly, too; large waves of immigration from North Africa, Eastern and Central Europe; the largest community from Romania (quite recent), then Morocco, China, South America, the first generations of non-Italians, the second is now quite young (primary school))

Albania, formerYugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, former USSR, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal, Cameroon; Greece and Poland for the EU

Italians (17,000), Turks (2,800), French (2,300), Moroccans (2,100), Algerians (1,300), Greeks (900), Congolese (200)

Poles 18%, Russians 14%, Byelorussians 4%, Jews 0.5%, other 5%

Economy still linked to the automobile industry (Fiat), many job losses in the 1980s; transition from Fordist city with one company to post-modern city

Economy based on tourism; no area based on the economy of tourism; no large industrial area; historic city, renowned university

Multicultural, postindustrial city in redevelopment; unemployment rate of 13%; situation of immigrants: concentration in certain neighbourhoods; problems of language and schooling; domestic violence

Gypsies are the most vulnerable (discriminations and domestic violence); Jews are not socially vulnerable but problems linked with recovering citizenship, restitution of property and anti-Semitism; language problem for others

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540,000

FRANKFURT AM MAIN (Germany)

(LONDON BOROUGH OF WALTHAM FOREST (United Kingdom)

No

Problems of language and of education of children for certain communities; difficulties of integration for young people whose parents live in shelters (especially Eastern Europe); concentration desired or supported by certain neighbourhoods

The most underprivileged neighbourhoods in the south and central parts of the borough where the proportion of minorities is highest

Urban violence, discriminations, immigrants-police conflicts, conflicts between neighbours

Problem of fires, heavy juvenile delinquency (school drop-outs;

Intergenerational tension; territorial disputes and alliances based on place and faith; increase in street crime over the past 2 years, with most victims young; a feeling that the authorities do not protect them; armed crime; high level of fear of crime; problems linked to alcohol; increase in antisocial behaviours (alcoholism, noise, harassment, refuse, graffiti, prostitution)

Conflicts between neighbours

Problems of education: how to exert parental authority without hitting; how to tackle French legislation; presence of persons who transit via Le Havre (for the UK)

Transitory nature of the population; access to key services such as housing, income and child protection; conflicts based on race, faith or segregation in the ghettos; right to medical services and employment

Marginalisation and/or existence of ghettos Problems linked to prevention Problems linked to immigration

LE HAVRE (France)

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TORINO (Italy)

SIENA (Italy)

CHARLEROI (Belgium)

No ‘ghetto’ in the literal sense, and no ‘suburbs’ isolated from the rest of the city; recent flow of immigrants living in deprived neighbourhoods where the market of informal jobs and exploitation of the private housing market are current (Porta Palasso, San Salvario)

Neither segregation in the ghettos nor great density in specific areas; immigrants live with Italians in the same neighbourhoods.

Urban micro-crime (drugs, stolen objects), conflicts between neighbours and sharing public spaces; immigrants perceived by the ‘natives’ as responsible for alcoholism in the street, noise, harassment, refuse, graffiti and prostitution; numerous reprisals and the feeling that the authorities are incapable of protecting citizens.

Continuous integration of immigrants amongst Italians for young people born in Italy (confusion between the culture of origin and Italian culture)

Social, economic and cultural exclusion, social cohesion, lack of integration; casualisation and impoverishment in certain neighbourhoods; population quite young

Living and housing conditions (few immigrants have access to local authority housing); exploitation in the private sector; difficulties in finding permanent work; precariousness, poverty and social exclusion; cultural rights; access to key social services concerning housing, social services, income, child protection, employment

Language problems of the first generation; the immigrants occupying particular job segments; with the economic crisis there is a danger that the Italians view immigrants as competitors for work even though they accept jobs that the Italians don’t want

Language problem; problem of education (school); concentration in certain neighbourhoods; break between children and parents

VILNIUS (Lituany) Isolated Gypsy settlements

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Gypsies: specific culture, lifestyle based on the community; lack of necessary skills and motivations for finding work; involved in drug trafficking; similar problems linked to immigrants from Asiatic countries (asylum seekers from former USSR countries); quite often these are the immigrants who are behind criminal activities

Incidents of conflicts or discrimination

Other players

Objectives and Programmes

Services and local partners

FRANKFURT AM MAIN (Germany) Service for Multicultural Affairs; City’s Prevention Committee

LE HAVRE (France) Security Service and city policy

Integration and antidiscrimination; language learning; professional training programmes, advice and mediation (in case of discriminations)

(LONDON BOROUGH OF WALTHAM FOREST (United Kingdom) Partnership in reduction of crime and disturbances (SafetyNet), whose partners include local authorities, police, health, fire-fighters, probation services, schools, religious communities; volunteer workers

See the strategy on the home page http://www.walthamforest.gov. uk/index/safety.htm

NGO

Association of cultural mediation; department in the framework of child protection/ mother and child care; structures relative to employment

Surveillance between neighbours, residents’ association, religious centres, crossing guards, consultative police groups

Police-immigrants conflicts, problems of communication between immigrants and public services employees

Hiring discriminations; little social mix in neighbourhoods or schools

Challenge of reporting hate crimes; impact of the S. Lawrence inquiry; impact of the 7/7/05 bombings on communities and racist reprisals; conflict and violence within and between communities; drug problems hidden inside communities

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TORINO (Italy)

SIENA (Italy)

CHARLEROI (Belgium)

VILNIUS (Lituany)

Province of Turin, Municipality (Immigration Service, Service of Training and Employment, Education Department, Social services, Urban Integration Service), schools, prefecture and police, public health services, tertiary sector (associations)

Municipal immigration bureau; police and prefecture; social workers within medical services; Provincial Employment Service

CRIC, CUNIC, FUNOC, Welcome and Promotion association, city service

Municipality, Migration Service, Ministry of the Interior, Service of national minorities and expatriated Lithuanians, Communities House, Romanian Communities Centre

Strategy of integration and prevention approach: reacting to urban and social problems by mobilising all appropriate local actors (public and private); integrated approach that has generated a host of local projects, different methodology and tools, different partnerships and results; ‘Project Gate’ as better practice

Integration of immigrants while respecting their own cultures

Promoting all (see questionnaire) initiatives encouraging integration; logistical support for associations aiming at integration

Tertiary sector, associations, neighbourhood clubs, immigrants’ associations, formal/ informal groups

Cooperatives and social associations for immigrants

Immigrants’ associations

Individual problems with certain public services, daily life in the neighbourhood; football matches

No problems linked to racism

Complaints about the city’s foreigners’ service; reactions to and rejections of immigrants; problem of the veil

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Anti-Semite publications in national newspapers, illegal Gypsy settlements demolished by municipalities

Prevention programmes

Prevention policy

Local police

Immigrants’ perceptions / local services’ perceptions

FRANKFURT AM MAIN (Germany)

LE HAVRE (France)

(LONDON BOROUGH OF WALTHAM FOREST (United Kingdom)

Diverse, fairly constructive positions, public sector employees more comprehensive in contacts with immigrants; police viewed positively in general

Difficulty in apprehending cultural differences; language problems; forms of distrust or racism

Little far-right political activity even though that has occurred in neighbouring suburbs; joint Labour and Liberal town council; poor perception of housing and job allocations by resident communities towards immigrants who are constantly confronted with discrimination; police deal seriously with hate crimes; minorities work with authorities, but tensions over arrests; more communities have arrived recently

Yes, but only for law and order (parking, cleanliness)

Municipal police without a particular role; missions are defined in relation to French law and not to a community

The metropolitan police has established projects for safer neighbourhoods extending over all electoral sections in 2007 (six employees

See above

Policy prevention centred essentially on minors and through the partnership

Referring to the strategy; centre for reporting hate crimes; street crime officials; Beat Sweeps; Defending Da Hood; Travel Safe; Asian Women Against Crime; STEP; Parents Against Violence

See above

Access to the law (MJD), associations of cultural mediation; setting-up of training for local actors concerning the subSaharan population; national days on the memories of migrations

See above

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TORINO (Italy)

CHARLEROI (Belgium)

VILNIUS (Lituany)

The problems are linked to the bureaucracy and difficulties due to language and documents required for residing in Italy

Communication/ language problem; reactions of police officers towards immigrants who don’t understand French, young people’s distrust of the police

In political and public debates, racism and discrimination are disapproved of, but certain politicians have extremist positions (quite rare); confrontation between the police and Gypsies; Gypsies have a reputation as drug dealers, are dissatisfied with constant checks, have burned the police station, and the leaders were accused of terrorism

See The Gate project http://www.comune. torino.it/portapalasso/ index.htm

‘Neighbourhood police’ who help people with everyday problems linked to micro-crime but not necessarily to immigrants

Local police with neighbourhood agents, main role: being in contact with inhabitants

See The Gate project

Crime prevention amongst young people

Overall prevention policy, Community Prevention and Security Commission (CCPS) and Local Prevention Commission (CPP)

Organised to integrate the community, NGOs and the private sector in prevention programmes by encouraging cooperation between the police and the community

See The Gate project

Mediation in schools for immigrant children; immigrants are admitted into the same services as Italians

Social, cultural, intercultural, athletic prevention, education and integration; prevention of drug addiction; heightening security in schools, public transportation, hospitals, parks

Civic initiative of selfdefence, police and community targeting cooperation and awareness; the ‘spider web’ prevention programmes whose aim is preventing theft; no particular programme for immigrants or racist crimes

Communications and intercultural dialogue; integrated approach to managing difficulties stemming from individual needs; highly complex bureaucracy and legal systems

SIENA (Italy)

The political forces use the ‘civilisation conflict’ as a platform for manipulating the real problems or feelings; not within the Turin government but the national coalition

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Immigrant participation Conditions for success

LE HAVRE (France)

(LONDON BOROUGH OF WALTHAM FOREST (United Kingdom)

Service for multicultural affairs, prevention committee, police

City’s service policy

SafetyNet Partnership on crime and disturbances

Prevention partner

Broad partnership at the local level (associations, city, family allowance office, etc.); networking; partnership with the national city of the history of immigration

As in part 8

Partenaire de préven-tion

In charge of prevention

FRANKFURT AM MAIN (Germany)

Participation through Work group with the work groups and financial populations; difficulty support of working with persons who are only in transit and without papers

Several liaison groups and commitment of communities in the projects and management; links with the Council for racial equality

Active participation, constant contact between immigrants and local administration

Elaboration d’un projet, Elaboration of a project, evaluation and management of risks; qualified, enthusiastic, experienced personnel; information and analysis of the problem in its context; effective communication and anticipated identification of problems; monitoring and evaluation.

Strong political will and mobilisation of all the administrations (and not only in problem neighbourhoods)

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TORINO (Italy)

SIENA (Italy)

CHARLEROI (Belgium)

VILNIUS (Lituany)

See The Gate project

Mayor and Director of Social Services

Prevention official in direct touch with the burgomaster

Police, NGO, municipality

See The Gate project

Network between the public and private (non-profit-making) sectors

Some 15 private and public partnerships in formal framework (written and signed agreements)

Community, public, private and nonprofit-making sectors; partnership often under contract

See The Gate project

Consulta Comunale per l’Immigrazione, an organism made up of political parties and immigrants’ associations

Selective participation in local activity, a certain falling back on associations founded by communities

No particular prevention programme

Leaving full power to local communities; improving civic participation including that of minorities; consulting and facilitating communication with citizens and in institutions; an holistic approach and integrated projects (focussing on social, urban, economic and security issues); the presence and proximity, an attitude turned towards the resolution of problems, personal motivations and intercultural competences

Fighting against racism and xenophobia; not creating segregation in the ghettos but working for integration

Reinforcing local work with the targeted public

Proper preparation, sufficient sponsorship, succession of programmes and evaluation of their effectiveness

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FRANKFURT AM MAIN (Germany)

LE HAVRE (France)

Other projects to implement?

Priority given to setting up programmes already existing and obtaining permanent financing; one would like to see the programme expand to schools and universities; must be more involved in working with the Eastern European communities.

No

Essential to develop training to better understand cultural differences and limit prejudices

Training is limited and insufficient; greater recruiting of public sector employees with a better apprehension of the community; training based even more on competences would be beneficial; for employees directly concerned, the partnership ensures training in knowing how to apprehend hate crimes and resolve conflicts.

See the project with the police, project leaders for immigration issues with the police (themselves of foreign origin); local prevention committees

Training on the culture of people from sub-Saharan countries; possibility of exchange in evenings organised especially on neighbourhoods

At a broader regional level consisting of conferences; exchanges between the police and aid organisations for immigrants are being set up through the Community Cohesion Task Group and Faith Communities Forum.

No

Training programmes Yes, but often of poor quality conducted by the Agency for the Development of Intercultural Relations (ADRI)

Training of public sector employees Autres formations Awareness programmes

(LONDON BOROUGH OF WALTHAM FOREST (United Kingdom)

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TORINO (Italy)

SIENA (Italy)

CHARLEROI (Belgium)

No answer.

Programmes for integration, in order to know different cultures, travel and take differences into account.

Developing a platform of dialogue involving all players; supporting children beginning with nursery school classes

Non-structured but there are numerous training programmes for the services working with immigrants..

Non-professional training, but we have mediators (who have had specific training in conflict resolution)..

Training on the topic of interculturality organised by the Charleroi University Centre (CUNIC)

Several projects and programmes are underway; see The Gate project

Good collaboration between police officers and leaders working with immigrants

No

Yes, in several structures and on several occasions, agents were trained with social contributors (from the public and private sectors) (see the LIA project, co-financed by the EU 1996-98, or the Nafidat project, co-financed by the EU 2000-02)

Yes

No

76

VILNIUS (Lituany)

b. Descriptions of partners and their local realities b1. Charleroi (Belgium) The city of Charleroi (200,000 inhabitants) has an immigrant population of approximately 22,000, the majority of whom are Italian (17,000), followed by Turks (2,800), French and North Africans. The urban mediation programme aims at reducing racism and fear of ‘the Other’ through dialogue, communication and promoting mutual respect. This programme has two sections: intercultural mediation and social mediation. The former handles approximately 70 cases per year, dealing with communication problems (language barriers), conflicts between different cultural groups and conflicts between immigrants and public administrations. The small staff (only one intercultural mediator) and the variety of languages to be mastered (Turkish, Arabic, Eastern European and Asian languages) make the work difficult. It is interesting to note that approximately half the cases are reported by schools, the police and public services.

The problems that fall within the province of social mediation (194 cases in 2002, 244 in 2003, 396 in 2004, more than 400 in 2005) include the status of residency (visas, naturalisation and regularisation), employment (job search, equivalency of foreign diplomas, work permit) and other administrative issues.

Legal and social consultation is offered, two hours a week, at City Hall, and two hours a week in the schools.

Mediation in the schools aims at bringing together students, teachers and parents and improving early learning of the French language for children. Since many immigrants come from regions with a rural tradition, language and literacy are key issues for creating educational values. In addition, the participation of women in French classes has also increased since 2002 (from 94 to 128 participants), and it is to be hoped that education will improve integration as a key for achieving employment.

Given the example of a primary school in Marcinelle, in the Charleroi suburbs (74% of the children are Turkish, 14% North African, 12% Belgian), the main problems are violence, the lack of respect (especially as regards female teachers) and the question of wearing the veil (hijab). Mediation in this school aims at involving persons with their different values without, for all that, accepting them (e.g., the non-participation of girls in swimming classes, which is unacceptable for school authorities). Mediation is trying to bring together the opposing parties (principal, student and parents) to put the lack of communication, understanding and conflicting positions face to face.

Continuing with another example of a girl who ran away owing to family violence, the discussion stressed that culture cannot be accepted as an excuse for violence, since violence has social and not cultural origins. The needs for specific 77

training thus make themselves felt by the field personnel confronted with these cases, in the sense that it is necessary to consider cultural values without, for all that, accepting them. Comparing this case with that of a girl who died following negligence and ill-treatment in northern London, without the local authorities having intervened, it appeared clearly that the UK might have gone quite far in the ‘acceptation’ of cultural diversity but that it had learnt a hard lesson. In conclusion, the boundary is thin between understanding and tolerating cultures, on the one hand, and, on the other, ignoring or accepting the violence, inherent in all cultures, provoked by social contexts. b2. Frankfurt am Main (Germany) The city of Frankfurt (657,000 inhabitants) created a Multicultural Affairs Service (Amt für multikulturelle Angelegenheiten – AmkA) in 1989, based on a broad consensus in favour of tolerance and against discrimination, which was supported by all the political parties represented on the town council. In 1990, a political declaration against racism and anti-Semitism sent a political message so that the fight against discrimination be a new challenge for local governments, a declaration that was reinforced in 1993 by a resolution of the town council. In 2003, the municipality adopted the Directive against Discrimination, thereby putting into practice the EU legislation on the issue, which also applies to the private sector (unfortunately, the EU directive against discrimination is still not applied at the federal level in Germany).

Given the annual statistics in the fight against discrimination, out of approximately 600 complaints regarding discrimination, 49 turned out to be wellfounded cases (still a very high number), whereas others turned out to be disputes between neighbours or residents which could have been resolved by mediationtype interventions. In all these cases, it was necessary to broach complex problems (including social, psychological, economic and cultural aspects). AmkA’s antidiscriminatory supervisory bureau in Frankfurt is well known; it also subsidises associations with the same objectives. However, although discrimination is against the law (such is the case for family reunification, for example, which is legally limited to age 16 in Germany), AmkA has no competence for intervening.

In the hope of drawing conclusions for training needs, three cases were presented: 1. A young foreign student gave birth to a child in Germany, but her request for child benefits was rejected by the municipal social services – this constitutes a recognised case of discrimination because the right to child benefits depends not on the mother’s legal residence status but on the child’s. An intervention by AmkA was able to resolve the problem, and a report of discrimination was filed.

2. A German citizen (of Turkish origin) was booked for having parked 78

his car in a no-parking zone; he lodged a complaint for racial discrimination against the police officer who signed the parking ticket. From the interview with AmkA for clarifying matters, it came out that the man also insulted the police officer by calling him a Nazi (which is a fairly serious insult in the German context). This case was not considered discriminatory but was resolved in the course of the conversation which led to apologies.

3. In a violent dispute between two groups of young people, the police intervened, and two persons were injured in the course of their arrest.

Drawing conclusions from these cases, it appeared that the prevention work and the local contacts between the police forces and the communities concerned are of extreme importance. This is why AmkA launched a ‘Police and Immigrants in Dialogue’ project (see the attached outline of the project), which brings together police officers and representatives of immigrants’ associations with the goal of going beyond prejudices and better understanding the responsibilities of the other. Apart from that, 100 police officers of foreign nationality have been recruited into the Hessian state police forces under the current legislature (in Germany, the police are supervised by the Bundesländer, or provinces). That was possible because the police were very interested in new recruits. In addition, AmkA organises information campaigns, participates in the local crime-prevention council and encourages the dialogue between the different religious groups (to clearly differentiate itself from the dialogue between state institutions and religions). b3. Turin (Italy) Turin is a city of almost 1 million inhabitants, with an economy still linked to car industry. Since the 1980s major job losses and important waves of immigration from Northern African and Eastern Europe (4,2 % foreign residents in the city) have triggered a considerable transition to a post-fordist, multicultural city.

The Porta Palazzo-Borgo Dora neighbourhood is home to Europe's largest market, is an historic site, close to the heart of the city. Residents from all over the city, from every sort of background, flock to it: factory workers, office employees, housewives, immigrants not just from the traditional point of exodus, southern Italy, but now from all over the world. The foreign population (19%) brings to Porta Palazzo pressing needs, violent strategies of survival that express themselves as availability for black-market labour, decaying housing, and all the petty and large delinquencies that our society allows.

Porta Palazzo is the site of The Gate Project Committee a non-profit mixed public/ private organisation - which received from 1998 European Regional Development fund and funding of the City of Turin, of the Italian government and of various institutions13. The main goal of the local agency is to manage and implement a regeneration project to face the difficulties arising from unemployment, crime and 13 For full documentation, see http://www.comune.torino.it/portapalazzo/

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immigration. The originality of the project lied in the adoption of a method based on direct participation by local residents and taking account of the multicultural context.

The Committee is a tool of the administration of the City of Turin and its partners, for a series of initiatives regarding integrated and co-ordinated regeneration, divided into 5 main areas: Economic Environment: to improve and strengthen the economic fibre, through incentives, aid and the re-qualification of the “natural economy� (small commerce, artisans etc.)

Social Environment: to contribute, strengthen and promote positive dynamics across the territory from the social cohesion perspective, contrasting new types of poverty and social exclusion, minimising the phenomenon of marginalisation and social conflict, and the sense of insecurity perceived by the inhabitants.

Built Environment: to continue the activities regarding the re-qualification of the built environment, both in the public sector as well as the private sector, through assistance with the public policies across the territory. Offering incentives to the private sector, aiding concertation among the different interests and improving living conditions.

Sustainable Environment: to continue the Activities regarding the improvement of the environmental quality of the territory, through actions aimed at re-organisation, education and public-awareness.

Cultural Environment: to promote the district as a cultural and tourist resource for the city, continuing the activities that increase the value of the district, the links and assistance in the production of culture in a multicultural creative environment, where leisure and free time can evolve.

One of the most recent actions that has been projected and managed by the Gate Project Committee dealing with the social environment and in particular to security and immigration is the Shangai Project. This project received Regional funds in 2005 and its goal is to face irregular activities of immigrants (irregular exchange of legal goods) in the street of Porta Palazzo neighbourhood. Some of them are connected to the open air market, some other are closed to the illegal market of drugs, stolen goods, and falsified goods. Residents are not able to see the difference between irregular and illegal activities, they have the perception that there is a lack of legality and security and they feel that illegality is spreading in the neighbourhood of Porta Palazzo. The police use repressive measure to prevent from the increasing of the problems but the problem continues. People identify immigrants with criminal, and this produces more insecurity and creates more fear.

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The project has the aims to directly involve the irregular sellers to find with them solutions, to make innovative experiences, and to give responsibility to them in facing the problems. The project involves in the action-research sellers as well as the police, the municipality, the Economic Development Department.

With irregular sellers we try to create opportunities for identifying main problems and shared collective solutions, to identify and engage informal leadership, to promote a collective sense of belonging, to increase responsibilities, to develop their range of influence. With institutions we try to engage them in the participation process, to legitimate the participation process, to promote new regulations attempt.

In the project we have decided to work directly with the sellers and not with the immigrants associations because in the past we had unsuccessful attempts to face the problem on this side.

Possible solutions could be envisaged along the following lines: work directly with groups of sellers and use participatory and field–action methods to implicate vendors, residents and institutions.

The training needs are: - training in informal social work, street work, outreach work (taking place outside welfare offices and local administration and outside official channels) - (anthropological) sensitisation on the cultural background of vendors (in order to better understand their situation and different values such as the examples of differing concepts of economic activity) - training to improve the development of participation of local residents and to increase active citizenship - action research methods to improve analysis and participation of local communities Another project in which the Gate Project Committee is involved and which deals with security and immigration is the Security Committee of Porta Palazzo.

It is a formal network composed by institutions (the office of the vice mayor of the city, the Social and Health Services, the Foreign Minors Office, the Economic Development Department, the Neighbourhood Administration, the 4 different kinds of the Local Police) and 14 grassroots committees of residents. The Security Committee was born in 2001 on the basis of an ordinance by the Prefect of Turin, in which he invited the local district government to promote: 1.

2.

The increase of the institutional cooperation in security matters A direct relationship between local police and the territories

The organizational structure of the Security Committee has been build through a participatory process in the first year of the institution of the Committee: it has a “Formal Purpose Paper� and each year we revise the formal structure (frequency 81

of the meetings, participants, etc.) in order to make the Committee always more effective.

Formal monthly meetings take place in the District; the President of the Neighbourhood Administration is the president of the Security Committee and he chairs all the meetings; the participants are divided into two groups: the citizens table and the institutions table; joined meetings of the two tables take place every two months.

An organizational and methodological support is given to the Committee by The Gate project.

During 2005 The Gate Project promoted an evaluation process on the Security Committee and its organization using individual interviews and focus group. The main results are: institutions and the police realized that better cooperation and informal relations among institutions make work easier (especially on cases of unaccompanied youth); to exchange on difficulties, to share few resources in daily work, and to make common requests; to better understand other institutions’ mission, structure, objectives, and priorities, following experiments in more cooperation among police corps; to have more trust in each other, and among institutions and residents.

Example: When the police organise controls in some apartments in the neighbourhood, they call the social services to organise an integrated intervention because they know they will find drug selling, as well as other problems involving immigrants and also young people.

Some difficulties still remain: residents are not satisfied of Security Committee because some complex problems do not disappear (drug sell, irregular sell, micro crimes); the residents committee have difficulties to make proposals together; most of the problems that Security Committee faces deal with immigrants, but it is difficult to involve immigrants collective subject /associations in the Committee.

Immigrants do not legitimate and have trust in any immigrants association, and so do the Municipality, and residents. b4. Vilnius (Lithuania) The city of Vilnius (600’000 inhabitants) is the capital of a country (3.5 mio inhabitants) suffering considerable losses due to emigration (300’000 to 600’000 people have left Lithuania in the last ten years, according to estimates). Vilnius’ 42.2% foreigners are mostly Polish (18%) and Russian (14%), living in Lithuania for a long time, so they are familiar with the language and culture. The high number of 82

foreign residents results from the Soviet era, when Russians moved to Lithuania.

Apart from problems of emigration (increasing labour shortages, brain drain and loss of knowledge), problems of integration of minorities are linked to lack of skills resulting in failed social and labour market integration, which in turn results in criminal activity, often drug trafficking. The most vulnerable group within Lithuania are resident Gypsies (living in isolated settlements) and newly arrived immigrants from Eastern neighbouring and asylum seekers from central Asian countries (however, in small numbers). At times, conflicts arise between Gypsies and the police force. Jews in Lithuania (about 0.5% of the population) face problems of antiSemitism. Migration patterns have changed rapidly, conflicts arise between different newly arrived groups. At the same time many people are leaving Lithuania (200’000 persons between 1998 and 2001) mostly for Western Europe. Questions arise on how to deal with communities’ complaints about newly arrived communities, with feelings of insecurity, and how to learn lessons from Western European experiences with previous immigration in the past. Clearly, new intra-European patterns of migration have raised the question of definitions of minorities.

In community safety, recent programmes are the Civil Self-Defence Initiative aimed to promote cooperation between the police and the community, the movement Stop Crime, etc. There is no prevention programme targeted at immigrants or to prevent racist crimes except the Program of Control of Migration Processes, adopted by the Government of the Republic of Lithuania in 1999. b5. The London Borough of Waltham Forest (United Kingdom) The London Borough of Waltham Forest is an inner city borough in North-East London. It has 225’000 inhabitants, of which 26% are younger than 21 years of age, 44% are from minority ethnic backgrounds (with Black Caribbean and Pakistani being the two largest groups with approx. 8% each), and 15% are Muslim (according to 2001 data). It is estimated that the Eastern European population has rapidly grown since then and public services are struggling to respond to these new developments.

The 7th of July terrorist bombings certainly had an effect on community relations but the fact that hate crime has only risen slightly following the attacks might be seen as a success of prevention work. However, community conflicts remain difficult to manage, change rapidly and result from complex reasons (the image of an iceberg was used) that can destroy or seriously compromise people’s quality of life.

In immigration and community safety fields, there are three issues to be considered.

The first is young people (with lots of tension between 1st and 2nd generation immigrants), where the local safety partnership also tries to work with parents following a bottom-up approach rather than imposing solutions onto families. The second issue is race, which remains an important but not the most important factor.

The third issue is drug abuse that has a severe impact on community relations.

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Young people: In a consultation of 3000 young people, poor environment and the fear of violence or real violence came out as “top of the mind” issues for youth, which is striking in its similarity to the top issues that the overall population worries about.

Among youth, there is a tendency to tackle conflicts among groups of youth, often never bringing them to the attention of authorities, police, or other public institutions.

A problem of gang cultures is thus emerging as part of a wider problem in entire East London. However, “gangs” as defined by primarily criminal activity, a hard nucleus and logical hierarchy must be differentiated from “crews” whose members rather participate in criminal activities but do not conceive them and have a more fluid, emotional hierarchy. Problems in Waltham Forest fall under the second category.

Race issues: Waltham Forest has a very tolerant community (with a remarkably considerate diversity) but as indicated conflicts are often lived out between gangs, which at times “imports” community conflicts from very far flung places such as Bosnia and Sri Lanka into London neighbourhoods. Hate crime and crime within communities is seriously underreported, which remains a problem even if the Stephen Lawrence inquiry following the murder of a black person revealed the lack of trust and willingness to cooperate with the police among immigrants groups (a Non-Police Reporting project was therefore implemented in Waltham Forest, where people can report racist crime to other, non-police agencies).

Drug abuse: The community safety programme managed to close about 60 crack-houses in 2004, but continues to be confronted with significantly higher profits in drug dealing that are way higher than income from ordinary economic activity, thus constantly fanning the flames.

The main features of community conflict were identified as being: 1. Territorial (with youth not leaving very small neighbourhoods that they perceive as “their” territory, while other citizens are not even aware of this) 2. Shaped by the coincidence of newly arrived communities and disadvantaged communities (which creates conflict between communities) 3. A long standing, simmering character that can give way to sudden explosions of violence From the point of view of young people, the system is seen as the enemy which is why outreach programmes often fail. They see street culture as factually more accommodating than public services.

Waltham Forests’ community safety partnership Safety Net14 was established following the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act that made it an obligation on local authorities to establish local community safety partnerships, developing three year strategies based on community audits. Safety Net now employs 90 people (up from 10 in 2000), bringing together the following key skills: 14 For more information see http://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/index/safety/safetynet.htm

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a wide range of responses to problems, targeting different times and different locations multi-initiative, multi-agency, multi-sector appreoach pursuing community empowerment rather than law enforcement heavy focus on problem solving risk management including assessing, prevention and managing risks community conflict toolkit Examples of immigration related projects are the projects Defendin’ Da Hood, Swapping Cultures, Parents Against Violence, and Asian Women Against Crime. (See questionnaire as well as slide presentation for further details).

The following discussion turned around involvement of women/girls and around the “race” terminology. Usually, 30-40% of participants in community safety programmes are women/girls. While other boroughs such as neighboring Brent and Peckham have problems of Girls’ gangs, Waltham Forest luckily does not so. Regarding race issues, it is important to remember the British particularity of race relations which is evident in many official government activities, the obligation to constantly monitor race in all public programmes; however, identification with one race or the other remains self-defined by people concerned, the categories vary and change over time, and are constantly discussed in public debate.

Concerning the non-police reporting centers, the staff of associations which already possess quite good skills in reporting and/or counseling on race issues are further trained to produce full police reports that are treated no differently from police reports produced by the police themselves. Another initiative to reduce underreporting of hate crimes is the community safety partnership’s full-time coordinator on hate crime and the 24h phone line. Problems remain within gaps to newly arrived communities.

Similarly as in France, race is one issue but not the only issue. Rather, social deprivation, parallel lives and the lack of interconnection among groups and residents are known problems; cultural issues thus seem more important than race. c. Other training manuals 1. In 1994, the Council of Europe published a practical guide on police work with multicultural societies, summarising the training programmes that existed in different countries. The guide recommended a completely open training strategy applied in the basic training programmes and monitoring, using the knowledge of competent NGOs. (See Council of Europe, 1994); 2. Guides of similar practices have been developed by the Toronto (Canada) police since 1989, which are much more developed and favour instead the concepts of diversity in training. The guides resemble that of the Council of Europe but further underscore the importance of a voluntary integration policy in the training programmes meant for the Police: ‘The promotion and visible support for education in diversity by the management 85

personnel is essential.’ The support, involvement and participation of the highest levels in these initiatives must be evident for the whole organisation according to these recommendations. (see Rosenzweig Armor 1999, quoting Büttner, p. 14).

3. The Police Board of Victoria in Australia commissioned a study to better understand what the various communities expected from the police and how they perceived its role, in view of improving their services and those of public agents in general. More precisely, the objective was to ‘find and measure the perception of populations on minorities of nonEnglish speaking backgrounds in relation to crime and security, and the Police in their neighbourhoods (Victorian Mult. Comm. 2000, p. 6). The recommendations are aimed at different levels of government (municipal, regional and national). d. List of participants The following persons participated in the project in its entirety: Bertrand BINCTIN

Deputy Mayor – in charge of Security, City Hall

Giulietta BONECHI Isabella BROSSA

Le Havre

France

Siena City Hall

Siena

Italy

Porta Palazzo The Gate Project

Turin

Italy

Charleroi

Belgium

Vilnius

Lithuania

Frankfurt am Main

Germany

Brussels

Belgium

Marseille

France

Le Havre London Borough of Waltham Forest

France

Dr Aurelijus GUTAUSKAS

Director of the Department for Intercultural and Social Mediation, City Hall Director of the Research Department in criminal justice, Lithuanian Law Institute

Dr Akli KEBAILI

Bureau of Multicultural Affairs

Zakia KHATTABI

Fanny MOTHRE

Consultant on immigration issues (expert) Director of the Jeunes Errants Association (expert) Head of Community Safety, Policy Department, City Hall

Robin TUDDENHAM

Head of Community Safety, City Council

Sven ENGEL

Project Manager, European Forum for Urban Safety

Paris

France

Elizabeth JOHNSTON

Deputy Director, European Forum for Urban Safety

Paris

France

Nihat DURSUN

Dominique LODWICK

86

Great Britain

Present at only one project seminar: Dr Gintautas BUSINSKAS

Minister of Justice, Republic of Lithuania

Vilnius

Lithuania

Dr Algimantas CEPAS

Director, Lithuanian Law Institute

Vilnius

Lithuania

Nathalie CORDIER

Neighbourhood Prevention Division

Charleroi

Belgium

Angelica FERULLO

Charleroi Regional Integration Centre (CRIC)

Charleroi

Belgium

Dr Svetlana GECENIENE

Director of the Department of Criminological Research, Lithuanian Law Institute

Vilniua

Lithuania

Chantal GOSSEAU

Charleroi Regional Integration Centre (CRIC)

Charleroi

Belgium

Rasa PAUSAITE

Researcher in criminal justice, Lithuanian Law Institute

Vilnius

Lithuania

Carmelina RUSSO

Immigrant Policy Promotion Fund (FIPI)

Charleroi

Belgium

Julius SABATAUSKAS

President of the Commission on Law and Order, Parliament of Lithuania

Vilnius

Lithuania

Natalia SIDOROVA

Mediation service

Charleroi

Belgium

Vida VALECKAITE

Deputy Director, Lithuanian Law Institute

Vilnius

Lithuania

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REFERENCES

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9

IX. REFERENCES Ausländerbeauftragte des Senats: NAPAD – Nongovernmental Organisations and Police Against Prejudice. Multikulturalität: Herausforderungen und Chancen, Berlin, 2000 (Verwaltungsdruckerei).

Büttner, Christian, Rosi Wolf-Almanasreh: Polisei und Migranten gegen Rassismus und Vorurteile; Trainingskonsepte und Trainingsmethoden für ein multikulturelles Europa.

HFSK-Report 8/1999, herausgegeben von der Hessischen Stiftung Friedensund Konfliktforschung und dem Amt für multikulturelle Angelegenheiten (Frankfurt am Main, 1999).

Council of Europe: Police Training Concerning Migrants and Ethnic Relations.

Practical Guidelines (Strasbourg, 1994).

Cross, Tony: Time for Change. Greenwich Initiatives, Police Review 23, February 2001.

European Forum for Urban Safety: Manifeste des citées sur la sécurité et démocratie, Naples (EFUS, 2000). Source: http://www.urbansecurity.org Mucchielli, Roger: Opinions et changements d’opinions, Paris (ESP).

Amoranitis, Spyros, Altaï Manço: Le rapport à l'altérité et comportements discriminatoires. Document published by IRFAM (Liège, 1998).

RTBF: L'expérience du racisme’ A show on Planète des Hommes, broadcast by the RTBF on 18 August 1997 (video document), Brussels (1997).

Camilleri, Carmel and Margarita Cohen Emerique: Chocs de Concepts et enjeux pratiques de l'interculturel (Paris, 1989).

Antipodes (publisher): Choc cultural, dossier assembled by Antipodes, Outils pédage series (September 1995).

Moscovici, Serge: Introduction à la psychologie sociale, 2 vol. (Paris, 1973).

Mendras, Henri: Eléments de sociologie (Paris, 1978).

European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC 2005a): Racist Violence in 15 EU Member States. A Comparative Overview of Findings from the RAXEN National Focal Points Reports 2001-2004. Summary Report (Vienna, April 2005), Source: http://www.eumc.eu.int European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC 2005c): Annual Report 2005. Part 2: Trends, developments and good practice (Vienna, November 2005), Source: http://www.eumc.int European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC 2005b): Policing Racist Crime and Violence. A Comparative Analysis, Prepared by Dr Robin Oakley on behalf of the EUMC (Vienna, September 2005), Source: http://www.eumc.eu.int Gesemann, Frank: Junge Suwanderer und Kriminalität in Berlin.

Bestandsaufnahme – Ursachenanalysis – Präventionsmaßnahmen, Berliner Beiträge sur Integration und Migration, herausgegeben vom Beauftragten des Senats von Berlin für Integration und Migration Berlin (2004).

Land Brandenburg: Interkulturelle Kompetens in der Poliseiausbildung.

Dokumentation der Fachtagung am 30./31. (Potsdam, August 2004) 89

Oakley, Robin & Shelley Collins: Police Training for Local Service Delivery in Multi-Ethnic Communities. The Hammersmith Model, Police Journal, Vol. 17 No. 4 (London, 1998) Victorian Multicultural Commission [formerly the Police Board of Victoria]: Multicultural Perspectives of Crime and Safety (Melbourne, 2000) Police Training Council: Community and Race Relations Training for the Police (Home Office, London, 1983) Reading Commission for Racial Equality: Community Involvement in Policing; NAPAD Project and Conference Report (London, 2000) Rosensweig Armor, Monica: Leitlinien für Training und Schulung in Organisationen im Hinblick auf gesellschaftliche Vielfalt und interkulturelle Kompetens (Frankfurt am Main, 1999) Sohpal, Rajinder: Community-Based Trainers and Race-Related Training, Police Journal, Vol. 72 No. 4 (London, 1999) MacPherson of Cluny, W. (1999): The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. Cm 4262-I. Source: http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/ cm42/4262/4262.htm Home Office: Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System – 2005 (London, 2006) Source: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/index.htm Hoare, Stephen, Jane Marshall, Teesta Setalvad, Jeff Chu: ‘God and the Classroom’ in Catalyst, January-February 2006, Commission for Racial Equality (London, 2006).

Migration Policy Group, Foreign Policy Centre: European Civic Citizenship and Inclusion Index 2004 (Brussels, 2005) Wedlock, Elaine: Crime and Cohesive Communities. Home Office Online Report 19/06 (London, 2006) Source: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/ pdfs06/rdsolr1906.pdf

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