Appearance Matters - optimising the outcomes for v..
Appearance Matters - optimising the outcomes for vocational guidance counselling and vocational training
Start date: Nov 1, 2012,
One in five people have a disfigurement and for many, this ‘difference’ negatively impacts self esteem and social functioning. They, and many others who do not (in their own eyes, or in the view of others) conform to societal norms or ideals of appearance, can experience distress, stigma and discrimination. People who are distressed about their appearance can be affected in numerous ways. In large scale studies, appearance dissatisfaction has been cited as a principal component and predictor of lowered self esteem, emotional distress, negative health behaviours and poor educational outcomes and may unintentionally contribute to social exclusion and discrimination. If service providers have limited understanding and experience with this topic and how it influences the individual, they will fail to achieve optimal outcomes and unintentionally create a barrier that leads to further social exclusion.This project will create an awareness of the role of disfigurement and/or appearance-related distress can play in guidance counselling and vocational training outcomes. It will also promote a social dialogue among practitioners and consequently increase their awareness of how to detect, address and ameliorate appearance-related distress, discrimination and stigma. This will be achieved through the design and making freely available a training programme, in the form of a curriculum and associated reading materials, tools and methods. These will be made available as a web resource and a Good Practice Guide, published in all the project languages. Through our dissemination and exploitation strategies, we will reach a large number of practitioners across Europe. The ultimate beneficiaries are individuals with disfigurement and/or appearance dissatisfaction whose needs will more effectively be met in the context of vocational training. This intervention will improve their employment prospects with the added bonus of improving their psychological wellbeing and social functioning
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