Designing quality and training tools for competence profile of supported employment specialists Erasmus Project

Project Title

Designing quality and training tools for competence profile of supported employment specialists

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Access for disadvantaged; Recognition, transparency, certification

Project Summary

Context/background of the project;
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 unemployed. 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.

Objectives:
-To conduct a needs analysis to determine the SE providers training needs for providing high quality services to their clients with disabilities (Intellectual Output1)
-To create a EQAVET system for recognition, validation and certification of SE providers (Intellectual Output 2)
-Developing an instructions guide for the system of competencies monitoring in the SE service (Intellectual Output 3)
-To provide a dedicated VET programme for training of supported employment specialists that provide services to people with disabilities which does not exist so far in Europe as officially accredited job profile.The project supports the inclusion of the supported employment approach in Slovenia and Portugal, but also in new countries such as Bulgaria and Turkey where this was done for the first time by developing EQAVET system for recognition, validation and accreditation of SE Specialists’ knowledge, skills and competencies.The learning outcomes of the training program developed is in connection with the dedicated unique ECVET training programme for SE providers which covers disability awareness, acquisition of key and transversal competencies, application of interactive technologies and methods in coaching process, supported employment basis, pre employment support agenda, career counselling etc.(Intellectual Output 4)
-To make pilot studies for our training program and to write a usability report. (Intellectual Output 5)
-To set up an online learning system for “Tools for SE Specialist” (Intellectual Output 6)

Number and profile of participating organisations;
The project is completed by 5 partner organizations. The coordinating organization was İstanbul Medeniyet University. The other partners were Marie Curie Associatio from Bulgaria, University Rehabilitation Institute from Republic of Slovenia, Consultis from Portugal and CASGEM (a government organization) from Turkey.
Brief Descrition of the Activities Completed:
We conducted a training needs analysis in 4 countries. We conducted surveys to determine the needs of the people working with PwDs and supported employment providers. Total number of 232 people participated in the survey from four countries. The participants were including people working in VET Centers, employers that have employees with disabilities, people working in NGOs related with PwDs, service providers, and people working in the public bodies providing services to PwDs.
We prepared an EQAVET system for recognition, validation and certification of SE providers. This tool could be used also by external bodies (VET centres, VET training providers, third sector organizations, employers etc.) for a “third part” monitoring of the acquired competencies. This system enables the delivering of a Declaration of the competencies acquired during the SE service.
We prepared a 6 modul training program .”Tools for SE Specialist” VET training programme for supported employment providers which is also available as an open online course, based on the needs analysis conducted at the beginning of the project and revised by the piloting phase. We prepared two books in Turkish (Annex 1) and in English (Annex 2) for the professionals providing support

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 243542,73 Eur

Project Coordinator

ISTANBUL MEDENIYET UNIVERSITY & Country: TR

Project Partners

• Consultis – Consultoria Empresarial, Unipessoal Lda.
• UNIVERZITETNI REHABILITACIJSKI INSTITUT REPUBLIKE SLOVENIJE-SOCA
• MARIE CURIE ASSOCIATION – MCA
• Calisma ve Sosyal Guvenlik Egitim ve Arastirma Merkezi
• Uluslarasi Bilim, Inovasyon, Teknoloji ve Egitimi Destekleme Dernegi