What can a development project gain from a Nordic conference on children growing up in migrant families? At the Integration Norden Conference in November 2025, researchers and practitioners from across the Nordic countries shared insights on wellbeing, language, and belonging among second-generation migrants (i.e. children born in the host country to migrant parents). Members of the VOIKO project team participated to explore how those findings can strengthen early childhood education and care (ECEC) and family engagement.

Why the conference mattered

An increasing number of children and young people in the Nordics are growing up with migrant parents. To address this, Integration Norden organised a conference (24–25.11.2025) that brought together professionals from across the region to share research findings and real-life experiences, and explore the policy implications for education, employment, and the sense of belonging in society (Nordic Welfare Centre 2025). Our Empowering and Inclusive Language Learning (VOIKO) project team participated in the conference to learn the latest insights on the importance of wellbeing, integration and language learning for migrant children and their families. While integration is a widely debated concept beyond the scope of this article, at the conference it was seen through the lenses of inclusion, sense of belonging, and social participation with critical and analytical views.

Key lessons for the VOIKO project

We learned that VOIKO’s research and solutions are not only relevant but also urgently needed. Continuous contact and engagement with target groups and stakeholders are essential for creating impact. Therefore, in many cases, door-to-door work is needed to reach participants. While our main target group is the ECEC centre staff, interventions and impact cannot be conducted or estimated without multilingual children and their parents. Hence, to reach parents through our project activities, it is essential that we are visible in participating ECEC centres. By doing that, we engage directly with parents to explain the purpose of the project and its relevance for their children. For instance, we have done so by participating in a cultural event organised at one nursery, which we reported in Leminen, Rivera-Macias & Yang (2025). Already then, we noticed the importance of developing connections with parents and children alike by talking and showcasing a bit of what we do in the project. One project from the city of Vantaa, VAMU (Vanhemmat mukaan kouluun ja työelämään, Parents taking part in school and work life) has been working with parents by connecting them with the school and eventually the work life (Vantaa 2025). Through her presentation about VAMU, Sari Svensson shared that inviting parents to get to know more about Finnish schools, helps them develop a sense of belonging to the Finnish society.

Furthermore, it is vital to continue raising awareness about the importance of multilingualism and home languages, as it does not hinder the learning of Finnish but, on the contrary, supports it (Cenoz 2013; Cenoz & Gorter 2022). Multilingualism and the use of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire should be more visible not only in ECEC centres, but also in schools and, on a larger scale, in services. As one keynote speaker at the conference stated, there should be more tolerance and patience towards developing proficiency in the Nordic languages. For instance, a parent might speak with a limited proficiency, mixing Finnish and English and using even a mobile translation application, and it should be accepted. Active work to create a sense of belonging for children and parents often takes place through small, everyday actions. These can be greetings in the home languages and making languages visible in ECEC centres – a practice we have observed in a couple of ECEC centres, which we now promote through VOIKO.

Engaging parents and families

We also learned that one way to promote inclusion of migrant families is to increase involvement of fathers in childcare. There might be distrust towards the system, lack of insight into children’s needs and a lack of opportunities for fathers to talk with other fathers about father-related issues. To benchmark such activity, in Denmark, the Baba association (Fonden for Socialt Ansvar 2026; Naseem, 2025) involves peer-to-peer support and volunteers, involving local participant groups of fathers with migrant background.

In the Finnish ECEC settings, Rautpiha ECEC centre in Vantaa has organised a Father’s day event, where fathers could have breakfast, participate in play, and meet each other. VOIKO is aiming to participate in Mother’s and Father’s day as well as other events of ECEC centres in the greater Helsinki area and Vihti. The VAMU project mentioned above, has involved migrant parents in ECEC and school activities, thereby helping them strengthen their language skills. Parents have had the opportunity to participate in ECEC groups or primary school teaching once or twice a week. By participating in basic education and ECEC, parents have learned Finnish through daily interaction with both children and adults. According to the project staff, this has increased parents’ understanding of their field and the significance of the work. The ability to support one’s child in schooling is strengthened. Under the guidance of a coach, parents learn Finnish through activities and get to know the area, its services, Finnish society and culture, and the education system. This is important, since interventions targeting adult migrants can have positive effects on their children (Pesola, 2025).

An important lesson the VOIKO team learned from the Baba Association and Parenting in Sweden program (Devgun, 2025) was the importance of cultural mediators in engaging multilingual families and building trust. According to the European Migration Network, a cultural mediator is ‘a professional who facilitates the communication (including interpretation) between people speaking different languages and with different cultural backgrounds’ (EMN 2025). Multinational ECEC staff are therefore essential in building trust, engaging with parents, and supporting multilingualism in the ECEC context.

Why language matters and VOIKO is timely

Finally, interventions and methods developed in VOIKO are particularly timely. Recent findings show that gaps in reading scores between native-born children with native-born parents and those with migrant parents are large in all Nordic countries. In Finland, these gaps are the largest among the comparison countries. Disparities in mathematics are less marked, suggesting language plays an important role (Farchy, Demidova & Huerta, 2025). Early years education is an excellent opportunity to develop local language proficiency while maintaining home language skills, thereby supporting integration of multilingualism to everyday life. We need to foster the understanding that languages do not contest each other but can complement their development. VOIKO combines the good practices and tools related to language learning in the ECEC settings and estimates the impact of these methods to bring back to the field evidence-based, easy-to-use practices.

This publication is part of the VOIKO project (2025–2027), funded by the European Social Fund (ESF+), coordinated by Laurea University of Applied Sciences. The project aims to develop tools that support multilingualism for use by early childhood education professionals. The University of Helsinki is also participating in the project.

References

• Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. 2022. Pedagogical Translanguaging. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Devgun, L. 2025. Parenting in Sweden: Parenting support programme. Paper presented at How Is the Second Generation Doing? Promoting Integration of Migrants and Their Families in the Nordic Countries, Helsinki, Finland, 24–25 November 2025.
• EMN. 2025. EMN Asylum and Migration glossary. Accessed 27 January 2026.
• Farchy, E., Demidova, A. & Huerta, M. 2025. State of immigrant integration in the Nordic countries. Paper presented at How Is the Second Generation Doing? Promoting Integration of Migrants and Their Families in the Nordic Countries, Helsinki, Finland, 24–25 November 2025.
• Fonden for Socialt Ansvar. 2026. Baba. Accessed 7 January 2026.
• Leminen, A., Rivera-Macias, B. & Yang, Y. 2025. Strengthening Co-operation with Multilingual Parents: Building Trust Takes Time and Requires Listening. Laurea Journal. Accessed 10 December 2025.
• Naseem, A. I. 2025. Baba – Strengthening the role of fathers. Paper presented at How Is the Second Generation Doing? Promoting Integration of Migrants and Their Families in the Nordic Countries, Helsinki, Finland, 24–25 November 2025.
• Nordic Welfare Centre. 2025. How is the Second Generation Doing? Promoting Integration of Migrants and their Families in the Nordic Countries. Accessed 10 December 2025.
• Pesola, H. 2025. Effects of an integration policy on the next generation. Paper presented at How Is the Second Generation Doing? Promoting Integration of Migrants and Their Families in the Nordic Countries, Helsinki, Finland, 24–25 November 2025. The City of Vantaa. 2025. Vanhemmat mukaan kouluun ja työelämään. Accessed 10 December 2025.