Improving the Information Access of Migrant Mothers to Integration Services in Finland: An Exploratory Research Through Design Study

Abstract

The number of people with foreign backgrounds has been increasing in Finland in recent years, and many of these migrants encounter challenges in their integration into Finnish society, such as fewer opportunities for employment, language barriers, and discrimination, with migrant women being at a bigger disadvantage. Despite Finland’s public institutions offering various services to ease these challenges, the recent trends in digitalization have affected migrants’ ability to utilize the services. Moreover, many migrants lack knowledge about the services and systems providing information about them. An upcoming law is shifting the responsibility of providing integration services from the national government to the municipalities. It also mandates that municipalities draw up a document providing information about early integration services and the actors involved. Our thesis is situated in the Trust M project, which aims to create trustworthy services for migrants. The main collaborator of the project is the City of Espoo, which aims to be Finland’s best integrator, going beyond what is required by the law and seeking novel ways to improve the integration journey of migrants. This can be considered a wicked problem for reasons including the changing landscape of laws, conflicting metrics for integration, and the great diversity of migrants in terms of background, integration timeline, and personal life situations. This thesis explores ways of improving migrants’ access to information about services via the Research Through Design (RtD) approach as a suitable method for wicked problems. The objectives are: 1) Understanding the current landscape of integration services in Finland and the City of Espoo, and 2) Identifying the possible approaches to enhance migrants’ access to information regarding services. By using RtD, we explored the preferred future state of the integration service ecosystem while taking an agnostic position toward technology, considering the challenges associated with digitalization. Following the participatory design ethos, we involved migrant mothers and stakeholders, conducting interviews and workshops. At the midpoint of our research, the findings led to the reframing of the problem from creating new service guides (service manuals) for migrants to amplifying the existing ones, as many remain underused. Two design concepts emerged from this reframing: the service amplifier, seeking to increase the reach of existing manuals, and the meta-service manual, aiming to provide structural knowledge. Through a process of making and critiquing, these concepts were embodied into three artifacts placed in a box and delivered to migrant mothers. After a week, feedback was collected to explore the participants’ lived experiences. The results are presented in an annotated portfolio, highlighting four design tensions. This portfolio can guide future design work and be expanded with new artifacts and dimensions to enhance migrants’ access to information regarding services.