The Home Office has launched the new Indicators of Integration Framework, with the aim of providing practical ways to design more effective refugee integration strategies, monitor services and evaluate integration interventions.
Professor Jenny Phillimore discusses the Indicators of Integration Framework
IRiS Director, Professor Jenny Phillimore has provided her integration expertise to help develop the framework and its supporting documents, including an interactive toolkit and a guide to ‘what works in integrating refugees’. These materials will be utilised by local authorities, charities and other organisations that support refugees and their integration in communities across the UK.
The consultation around the Indicators of Integration covered all nations in the UK and has involved workshops with local authorities, strategic migration partnerships, NGOs, think tanks, all relevant Government departments and critically refugees. The result is a set of materials that can be used flexibly according to the needs of user groups and will help shape integration policy and practice in the UK and beyond for the next decade. Professor Phillimore said ‘The move away from placing all emphasis on refugees, and changes in the role of host communities and state, represent significant steps forward in changing attitudes about integration.’ Her involvement in the Indicators of Integration project over the past two years has been supported by the University of Birmingham and the Economic and Social Research Councils IAA scheme which ensures that the learning from research projects can be turned into tangible benefits for society.
The new suite of integration documents represents the most comprehensive set of materials available to support users of all kinds. If they are as widely used as the 2004 version, then they have the potential to reframe thinking on integration globally. Today’s launch may mark the end point in the process of renewing the Indicators of Integration documents. But Professor Phillimore states that this is ‘the beginning of a new and extremely important phase of work to implement the new framework and support stakeholders to use the document and associated materials in ways that best supports refugee integration in the UK’.
Read more about Professor Phillimore’s involvement in the Indicators of Integration in her blog.
View the Home Office’s Indicators of Integration documents