The municipality of Härnösand, like other municipalities, faces very significant challenges in terms of its competence supply. There is today a social paradox where those who work are burned out while those who are outside the labour market feel bad and end up in exclusion. There is therefore a great need to recruit additional staff with the right skills in both childcare and care. At the same time, Härnösand Municipality has the highest unemployment rate in Västernorrland County. According to the Employment Service’s statistics, the share of unemployed persons registered in the municipality was 8.5%, compared to 5.8% in the county as a whole in July 2023. The share of registered unemployed women was 8.6% and that of registered unemployed men 8.4%, i.e. roughly at the same level. Among registered unemployed foreign-born persons, the unemployment rate in the same month was even higher at 24.1% compared with 17.7% in the county as a whole. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an urgent need for new employees in care and childcare, while the jobseekers who were available did not always meet the skills requirements. This meant that employees were sometimes hired who lacked training, had incorrect training or insufficient knowledge of the Swedish language. These employees thus need to develop skills both in terms of professional skills and knowledge of the Swedish language. Some have too low or incorrect competence or are too weak to actually meet the municipality's competence requirements. This leads to quality deficiencies that need to be addressed. The right skills and good knowledge of the Swedish language are important in working with children, the elderly and people with disabilities to create safety and patient safety. However, the employees have the competence to speak to foreign-born children and users in their own language, which is in demand as a result of the increased diversity in Swedish society. It is therefore important to strengthen the skills of these employees so that they can remain in the municipality and become long-term permanent staff and increase continuity. Härnösand municipality therefore needs to develop, test and quality assure a model for developing and maintaining its employees in the municipality's operations, thereby securing the municipality's competence supply and ensuring a quality public service for citizens. We want to do this by improving the skills of employees who currently lack sufficient skills and/or languages to work in health and social care, functional support or preschool in order to retain them as employees and increase their employment rates. The project will therefore develop shorter educational pathways for nursing assistants, assistant nurses and nannies, where language development and vocational training are combined and based on the employees' individual needs and conditions. Since the target group has often tried to study at SFI before but is stuck in their language development or has not been able to complete vocational studies before, the project will use personalised alternative learning methods with more practical learning methods, adapted study pace, smaller groups and increased support from vocational and language supervisors. A mapping of the employees' needs for accessibility will also be done when enrolling in the project.