Over the last few years, the effects of globalization on the labour market have contributed to the inevitable aggravation of economic and social inequalities among countries and consequently to a substantial increase of global migratory movements of people fleeing to Europe and across the world (Castels, 2009). 

In this scenario, integration into mainstream society represents an extreme challenge for many migrants. This process requires to the individual, to re-establish a livelihood and to execute a cultural transition in an unfamiliar environment. Learning the new language of the host country and to seek employment represents the immediate needs to support their families.

For institutions and policymakers, welcoming people from abroad mean building valid paths of integration and inclusion, especially with forced migrants. 

For this reason, EU edited many documents and recommendations aimed at policymakers and practitioners underline the importance of lifelong learning approach focusing on promoting work integration policies through career guidance paths (i.e, Council Recommendation of 2018). Recognising career and vocational guidance as a strategic tool for improving integration and social inclusion, EU programmes such as the Lisbon Strategy of 2000 and the new 2020 Strategy have drawn some guidelines. In this direction, like all European countries, Italy implemented vocational guidance services path in welcoming actions of third-country Nationals.

According to ISTAT (Italian Institute of Statistics, 2019) 5.3 million foreign citizens living in Italy, 8.7% of the total number of residents. In 2018, 113 thousand foreign citizens gained Italian citizenship (−23.1% compared to 2017). In the same year, there were 242,000 new entries of non-EU citizens (at the beginning of 2019 there were regularly 3,717,406) in our country (+ 15.8%). 

The primary reasons for the new releases are family reunification (50.7%) and the request for asylum and humanitarian protection (26.8%); for the latter reasons, however, there was a sharp decrease compared to 2017 (−35.9%). 

The unemployment rate decreases less intensely among foreigners, who continue to have higher unemployment (the unemployment rate for foreigners is 14%, against 10.2% for Italians); the inactivity rate is lower for foreigners (28.8%) than for Italians (35.0%), with greater differences in the South. 

The Italian framework presents relevant critical issues and weakness, referring to welcoming and guidance actions with young and adult migrants highlighting, in particular, the many challenges they faced after disembarking on the peninsula. Indeed, the greatest criticality of guidance is understanding the specific needs of people from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

Referring to career and vocational practices, the picture that emerges is rather complex and presents a lack of comprehensive integration between policies and guidance practices.

Also, the actions do not refer to any scientific framework and are inadequate to the skills or the potential and motivations of the individual to the proper opportunities and needs of the Italian labour market. Finally, as far as the territorial area is concerned, there is an urgent need to define a powerful network and promote a constant dialogue between various actors who provide guidance path with migrants.

From an in-depth analysis of the national and international scientific literature, we have identified the paradigms of Life Design (Savickas, 2012), the career adaptability (the ability of an individual to navigate career transitions) and Career Construction Theory (Savickas & Porfeli 2012; Savickas, 2012), which recognize in the narrative construct (Bruner, 1992) a strategic tool to promote vocational identity construction (Savickas, 2012; Bimrose, Brown, 2014) with adult and young migrants.

The work describes the partial results emerging from the interviews and focus-group with operators, intending to highlight the deep necessity of reconsidering the current relevance of new models, methods, and materials to build a learning design were underpinned by method based scientific.

The research follows a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews and focus-groups. Participants are 50 vocational guidance operators who work in Italian territories’ entities, 3 supervisors, and 5 coordinators. The aims of the research are four. First: analyse operators’ training needs, the tools and methodologies that they apply in vocational guidance with migrants. Second: develop and implement a training path for operators based on the training gap emerged by the interviews and focus group and promoting their professional development and the improvement of their practices. Third: build a vocational guidance path model based on validated scientific tools focused on young migrants’ needs. Fourth: deliver training with operators and promoting networks between welcoming systems, guidance services, job-placement services. The study started with an in-depth analysis of national and international literature on vocational guidance with migrants. In the first phase, a mapping of the central players in the training and vocational guidance system in the Lazio Region was made, selected by territorially criteria based on the numerical density of the migrant population to ensure the breadth of the data. Subsequently, following the definition of the objectives and the problem, were investigated and an initial verification followed by the formulation of some hypotheses. A further step was the definition of the indicators and descriptors of the research-training, agreed and shared with the actors involved in the research project. The research follows a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews and focuses on groups. To collect a repertoire of critical practices and actions, were conducted individual semi-structured interviews (35) and focus-groups (8). The purpose of the interviews and focus groups was to investigate the skills of the operators in guidance, their perspective on current placement practices with migrants, and the experience of training in their professional career. Afterward, is being conducted verification of their training needs following the identification of the strengths and weaknesses on which it is desirable to intervene. Therefore, after sharing the main and most critical training needs, in agreement with supervisors and coordinators, a training model was proposed. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, training activities have suffered a significant delay. The training course with operators is currently underway. At the end of this activity, there will be a follow-up through interviews and focus groups to evaluate the feedback of the learners. The ultimate phase of the project, which provides the return and dissemination of data, is planned for the end of 2021.

The general picture that emerges from the analysis of the interviews and focus groups defines some rather complex thematic and problematic issues. Were intercepted some critical issues transversally common to most of the operators involved in the investigation. These significant elements are because of the absence of a scientific methodological framework on which to build guidance actions and specifically with migrants. For this reason, the research wants to contribute to the promotion of good practices through the achievement of three principal purposes: 1. exploring the operators’ problems, competences and the critical weakness in their career and vocational guidance practices 2. designing training courses for guidance operators focused on migrants’ needs; 2. promoting networks between welcoming systems, guidance services, job-placement services; 3. implement a vocational guidance model for migrants based on scientific validated tools.

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