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Together Old and Young: Practitioners Learning and Upscaling Skills
Start date: Nov 1, 2016, End date: Oct 31, 2018 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Population ageing in Europe will continue with accelerating pace in the next decades. This trend requires societal adaptations regarding education and training, work, family life and social protection. One such adaption is intergenerational learning (IGL), which brings people from different generations together, to share activities, learn and understand each other better. Together Old and Young Project or TOY (www.toyproject.net) (2012-2014) was unique amongst European IGL projects with its focus on including children in the early childhood years (0-10 years) in IGL activities with older adults (65 +). TOY research and pilot actions demonstrated that intergenerational facilitators are crucial to the success of intergenerational projects and initiatives. However, to date IGL involving the youngest and oldest members of our society is not a strategy or approach or formally recognized and validated in adult education, nor in pre-service and continuing professional development (CPD) of professionals working with these age groups. Neither is this kind of IGL recognized in the field of Lifelong Learning. The objectives of the TOY-PLUS project are to develop, test and disseminate an innovative online curriculum and methodology in IG work for practitioners in early childhood education and care (ECEC), social care and community work. Specific modules in the curriculum will focus on including newly arrived and resident migrants and Roma in IG practice, as a means of fostering intercultural dialogue, participation and social inclusion. We also will develop and test an IG certificate of quality (TOY Quality Stamp) with agreed standards for local authorities and educational institutions. TOY-PLUS will forge a cross-sectoral and a community approach stimulating collaborations across the fields of adult education and training, health, community development, ECEC and care for older people.Participants in TOY-PLUS will be ECEC and Social Care practitioners and community development workers from 5 countries: Italy, Ireland, Slovenia, Spain and the UK. They will participate in a multi-faceted training and education experience which will incorporate workshops, international training involving study visits, joint reflection and exchange of good practice in IGL, piloting of a massive open online course (MOOC) and creating a peer learning community for IGL. At the end of the project the TOY-PLUS MOOC will be publicly available on open online learning platforms. Other participants in TOY-PLUS will be staff of local authorities and ECEC, and Social Care services, young children (0-10 years) and older adults (65 years +) all of whom will participate in the development and testing of a TOY Quality Stamp. The TOY Quality Stamp will be awarded to local authorities and service providers meeting the quality standards in IGL. The impact of TOY-PLUS will be that ECEC and Social Care practitioners will develop skills and competences to deliver successful IGL activities involving young children and older adults, paying particular attention to social integration and intercultural dialogue. IGL will be a powerful tool to foster inclusion of migrant and Roma children and older adults. The TOY-PLUS MOOC, designed to reach hundreds of practitioners internationally from 2018, will result in increased skills to develop, manage, deliver and monitor IGL practices Europe- and even world-wide. The TOY Quality Stamp process combined with the TOY-PLUS training will result in improved quality of IGL practice. Finally, researchers and trainers in partner organisations will become experts in designing and implementing accessible and flexible training curricula for practitioners in IGL. They will also be competent in developing content for digitalization in massive open online courses. We also expect synergies and cooperation between the partner organisations with respect to cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary adult online education in general, and in IGL in particular.

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