Designing quality and training tools for competenc..
Designing quality and training tools for competence profile of supported employment specialists
Start date: Sep 1, 2015,
End date: Aug 31, 2018
PROJECT
FINISHED
The European Disability Strategy (EDS) 2010-2020, “A renewed Commitment to a Barrier-Free Europe”, (European Commission, Brussel, Nov. 2010) defined employment and accessibility of labor market as one of the 8 areas of action. On this basis member states are required to offer accessibility to the labor market for people with disabilities and provide support structures for this target group to be able to earn their living on the open labour market. Some of the European member states have introduced the concept of Supported Employment coming from North America during the late 1980s slowly into their systems discovering the power and effectiveness of this approach in ensuring accessibility and equal opportunities on the job market.
People with disabilities (PwD) are the most disadvantaged group with regards to employment. Currently in Turkey they are 8,5 million and only 15% are employment compared with the national average of over 80%. In Bulgaria their number is about 227000 and more than 60% of them are employment. In Slovenia they are around 850000 and only 16% are unemployed and in Portugal people with disabilities represent 8,2% of total population and unemployment rate 9,5%.
It is one of the key areas of both European Disability Strategy 2010-2020 and Europe 2020 to allow full accessibility to education as well as to the labour market for people with disabilities. In many European countries and beyond accessibility to the labour market is still not given because of the lack of suitable and powerful implemented support concepts.
Supported employment (SE) approach defined as a method of working with disabled people and other disadvantaged groups to access and maintain paid employment in the open labour market. This identification is as very beneficial to the PwD and it gives clear quality improvement of the accessibility to the labour market for those targets.
"Tools for SE Specialist Project" will develop of dedicated VET programme for training of job coachers of people with disabilities which does not exist so far in Europe as officially accredited job profile.
The project project will continue supporting the inclusion of the supported employment approach in Slovenia and Portugal, but also in new countries such as Bulgaria and Turkey where this will be done for the first time by developing EQAVET system for recognition, validation and accreditation of their knowledge, skills and competencies.
Those learning outcomes will be in connection with the dedicated unique ECVET training programme for SE providers which will cover:
- Disability awareness
- Acquisition of key and transversal competencies
- Application of interactive technologies and methods in coaching process
- Mainstreaming and digital technologies usage by people with disabilities
- Supported employment basis
- Pre employment support agenda
- Dedicated training materials (for people with disabilities job seekers) related to all aspects of seeking employment:
- preparing for interview
- completion job applications
- disclosure of disability
- presenting a professional appearance
- analyzing strengths and weaknesses
- accessing further help and resources
- Career guidance and labour market methods
Tools for SE Specialist Project" VET programme will be accredited by the national body which will happened for the first time in Europe in that field. This training programme will be followed by piloting implementation phase as well as will establish a network between employers of people with disabilities that will complete a memorandum of understanding for the further exploitation of the project outputs.
Impact of the project reflects to the labour market engagement and work towards removing unemployed people from incapacity benefits, state or charitable support, enabling full workplace inclusion and career enhancement. Llong term impact of the project will increase the employment rates of people with disabilities who are currently inactive in the labour market and have low or no work experience or vocational training. This will lead to greater independence and financial security, allowing them to become fully active members of society in general and ultimately to an improved economy. From other hand the SE providers will have the ability after official accreditation to increase the opportunities for their sustainable employment by providing this very innovative expertise which does not exist both on National and EU levels.
Project partners are higher education institution, vocational/employment rehabilitation centre, consultant works on analysis of VET systems and employment system analysis, nongovernmental organization directly works for people with different type and stage of disabilities, public body preparing training programs, conduction of researches on employment, social security, labour market studies, nongovernmental organization promotes and protects rights of people with disabilities.
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