Instructional videos inform asylum seekers of basic rights and legislation
The Finnish Immigration Service is currently preparing new publicity material which presents themes such as basic and human rights, criminal legislation and how the police operate in Finland with the help of videos. Immigrants are also involved in the planning of the videos in order to make the message of the videos easy to understand for people coming from different countries and cultures.
The work is linked to the ongoing TURVA project where the reception centre in Oulu, the National Police Board and the Police University College are involved. The aim of this joint project is to advance the asylum seekers’ ideas of basic and human rights and their understanding of the Finnish society, as well as improve their integration into society.
At the same time, the Finnish Immigration Service develops its reception work and trains reception centre employees.
"The employees at reception centres are trained for example in the use of different work methods that prevent violence," says Seija Hämäläinen, Project Manager at the Finnish Immigration Service.
Research data of the police helps to identify risk situations
As part of the project, the Police University College studied crime related to asylum seekers and went through police reports where an asylum seeker was either the victim or the suspect. This background information is then used when training employees at reception centres and planning publicity material.
The research report of the Police University College was recently completed, and the study phase of the project was thereby finished. The study was conducted by collecting from the national police information system police reports related to asylum seekers from 2016. You can find the research report as an online publication at the address http://www.polamk.fi/en/rdi/publishing.
Identifying crimes related to asylum seekers is essential because this is how we know which risk situations to raise in the publicity material produced by the project. Such are for example risk situations that asylum seekers may most likely face after arriving in Finland and risk situation that can make integration of asylum seekers into the society more difficult.
We will make videos in all the languages that are most common at the reception centres. The actual filming is planned to begin early in the summer.
Training and a guide for reception centre employees
Trainings directed at a pilot group which consists of reception centre employees began last year and are still ongoing. So far nearly two hundred employees have participated in these trainings.
Reception centre employees have been trained for example in how to act in potential risk situations. The methods have been further developed at trial operations and workshops at reception centres. In addition to providing training, a guide on working with violence will be drawn up for the reception centre employees. The guide will be completed at the beginning of next year.
The project has been granted support from the European Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF).
Further information:
General information about the TURVA project: Seija Hämäläinen, Project Manager, tel. +358 295 430 431, e-mail: firstname.lastname@migri.fi
Information about the study: The Police University College http://www.polamk.fi/
Press release published by the Police University College.
