Evaluation of Tänk Om, local labourmarket development in Norrköping and Linköping.

Abstract

Tänk Om consists of four local labour market projects that are being developed in Norrköping and Linköping. Susanne Urban have in collaboration with Centrum för kommunstrategiska studier, CKS, been given the assignment to evaluate the project. The general aim of the project is to contribute to local development and to develope methods to assist long term unemployed to get into the labour market. The project is a three year long local development project in selected districts of the municipalities and is funded by European Social Fund for activity in the years 2008-2011.

Keywords:

Description

Tänk Om is an acronym for Swedish words for security, changed conditions, industry, knowledge and local development. The project consists of four local labourmarket development projects in four areas in Norrköping and Linköping. The areas are selected because of high level of unemployment and previous engagement in urban development programs. The activity is pursued mainly with daily meetings with a group of long-term unemployed and a project leader in local workshops, the participants also get opportunities to get practice on a workplace, a number of area based activities has also been performed.

The participants are assigned to the project by the local unemployment agency, the municipalities, and local public insurance office. The main goals for Tänk Om are, according to the application, to contribute to an increasing of the share of employed in the housing areas and to develop the local economy further.

The evaluation consists of four parts. The first part investigates the fulfillment of the quantitative goals and describes how the goals of the project have been changed during the time of the project. The second part is about how the project is organized and how collaboration between different actors has been working. The third part describes the project from the coworkers' perspective and the forth part from the participants' perspective. The role of the project for area-based development and the role of the project for local labour market policy are also discussed in the evaluation.

Reports have been presented for the project steering group and its coworkers every half year and a final report are due in autumn 2011.

Other Academic Output

2011 "Hur berikar ett projekt som Tänk Om områdesutveckling?" presentation på Seminarie kring områdesutveckling 4 mars. Linköping och Norrköpings kommun.