The idea of creating the Intercultural Centre for Vocational Counselling was established as a result of analysis of situation of migrants residing in Poland and analysis of consulting offer of non-governmental organisations and government agencies providing aid to foreigners. The analysis revealed that there was no comprehensive advice offer for immigrants - in most cases only legal advice was provided. On the basis of these analyses the first counselling centre that would provide culturally different clients with a comprehensive assistance – vocational, cultural, psychological and legal - was created (counselling of social workers in matters of accommodation and job search was added to the tasks of the counsellors in response to the needs communicated by the clients of the Centre).

Referring to the aforementioned need for comprehensive advisory services, the staff of the Centre established the following goals:

• support for the clients of the Centre in the area of broadly understood professional and social adaptation through occupational, legal, psychological, cultural and social counselling,
• creation of an effective model for consulting work with a client at the Centre and developing a concept of counselling for culturally different migrants, 
• identification and initiation of cooperation between institutions, which could provide clients of the Centre with assistance in the area of legal, social, psychological, cultural and occupational adaptation.

The Intercultural Centre for Vocational Counselling was one of the activities conducted within the Intercultural Centre for Occupational Adaptation administered by the University of Warsaw in 2006-2008.

The Intercultural Centre for Vocational Counselling consisted of:

• the career counsellor - working 32 hours a month,
• the psychologist /cultural advisor - working 42 hours a month,
• the legal adviser - working 42 hours a month,
• the social worker /assistant in the labor market - working 80 hours a month,
• the coordinator of Centre - full-time employee of the Intercultural Centre for Vocational Adaptation.

In May 2006 three consultants were employed at the Centre: a career counsellor, a psychologist and a lawyer. After first month of the functioning of the Centre a new function was introduced – the cultural counselling. This function was performed by the psychologist already employed at the Centre. This change was due to low interest in psychological help among clients of the Centre. It turned out that the decision was well-founded as clients of the Centre preferred to choose services of the cultural advisor than the psychologist. Later, as a result of the evaluation of activities of the Centre conducted among migrants a new person was employed at the Centre as a social worker/assistant at the labour market.

More than 400 foreigners were covered by the activities of the Intercultural Centre for Vocational Counselling. More than half were refugees. Most of them received advice relating to their occupational (219) and legal (123) problems.

Beneficiaries of the project evaluated legal and occupational advice given to them by the counsellors as very useful for solving their problems. They were more critical of psychological and cultural counselling.

52% foreigners surveyed after termination of the project claimed that counselling was helpful in job seeking, while for 17% of them it was even very helpful. More than 50% viewed occupational counselling as conducive to their integration, while in case of cultural counselling – only 30%.

As a result of the evaluation study, among others, the following recommendations were proposed: Consultations at the Centre should be available not only in morning hours, but also after 17:00 (in order to take into account needs of working migrants).

1. The Centre should additionally provide care for children of the clients.
2. Greater working time for occupational counsellor in relation to other advisers should be provided.
3. It is necessary to hire a person responsible for job placement at the Centre (it should not be one of the duties of the social worker, because it is one of the most important tasks of the Centre).
4. The beneficiaries of the Centre declared the need for assistance of staff of the Centre in access to medical services (e.g. through cooperation with a selected health care facility, which would have staff trained and prepared to work with people who represent other cultures).
5. All advisers at the Centre conducted consultations in Polish, Russian and English (a psychologist also in French), but in more complicated cases, particularly in case of psychological consultations, it is necessary to provide support of translators.

The project was addressed to the following groups of migrants residing legally in Poland, in Mazovia region:

• refugees (foreigners granted refugee status or permit for tolerated stay),
• repatriates (co-ethnics coming to Poland on privileged rules),
• other categories of immigrants.

The project was financed by the European Social Fund within the framework of EQUAL Community Initiative.