Wellness Instructor VET Course Erasmus Project

Project Title

Wellness Instructor VET Course

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

The WELVET project is based on transnational cooperation effort of VET providers and economic actors in the field of wellness tourism. The project’s main intellectual output, a C-VET course for the emerging “wellness instructor” job, is addressing a pressing need of the European wellness tourism industry, namely the lack of trained staff to deliver high quality customer service. The WELVET project will equip VET trainers with new framework of curricula, syllabus, framework of learning outcomes and accreditation concept for preparing current and future staff in the wellness tourism industry. This corresponds directly to two VET priorities of Erasmus+, KA2 – Strategic partnerships, related to enhancing access to training and qualifications for all through C-VET and strengthening key competences in VET curricula. The WELVET partnership is a joint effort of 7 organisations (2 associations, 3 VET providers and 2 SMEs) from 5 European countries, encompassing 4 main regions of Europe (South-Eastern, Central, North and Western). Implementation of the project activities lasted 24 months and the main activities are grouped into 5 work packages, covering all main processes such as management, research, development, testing, dissemination and exploitation.The WELVET course developed is equipped with a WELVET mobile learning app, which give opportunity to the learners to chose the time and place to go through the content of the training course. In addition, the app allow for constant updating of graduated learners on the new content to be produced in line with the always expanding skills requirements of the wellness industry.The WELVET project aims at decreasing the gap between existing and required skills by developing an innovative continuous course to lead to expanding existing vocational qualifications. The newly acquired knowledge, skills and competencies would lead to practicing the occupation of “wellness instructor” at European level. The main WELVET results and impact can be summarised as follows:- for VET trainers: increased knowledge as to wellness skills development process and especially the wellness instructor job specifics; improved training skills to deliver high quality VET through new content (wellness instructor) and digital tools (WELVET mobile app); improved self-esteem and self-belief as VET trainers; greater understanding of interconnections between vocational training and labour market demand. – for VET learners (current and future staff of the wellness industry): increased knowledge and skills to perform effectively as wellness instructors on national and European level; wellness mindset to ensure maintaining high-quality customer service; better employability in the tourism sector and more specifically the wellness segment. – for WELVET partners: increased volume of transnational cooperation and exchange of good practices; integration of the know-how exchanged and synthesized during the project lifecycle into their daily activities related to preparing trainers and learners for the wellness industry; positioning of partner organisations as a pioneers on European level in the provision of innovative and labour market-driven solutions in the field.- for other stakeholders: raised awareness as to the benefits of introducing VET courses to match growing staff and skills demand of expanding wellness industry; raised awareness of the need to ensure investments for equipping VET trainers with the respective set of skills and knowledge in the field; increased evidence base for policy making in the field of introducing new wellness occupations for VET provision; increased quality of VET provision for the wellness sector; increased synergies and links between education and business. The long-term impact of introducing more VET learning opportunities for the wellness industry is related to increased relevance of VET as a whole to the realities of current and future tendencies in development of European and international economy and tourism sector in particular.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 192736,08 Eur

Project Coordinator

SAMOKOV BOROVETS & Country: BG

Project Partners

• Balkan Cluster for Health, Wellness and SPA Tourism
• Federation of the Sports Pedagogues
• STEVENS & ASSOCIATES
• BEST INSTITUT FUR BERUFSBEZOGENE WEITERBILDUNG UND PERSONALTRAINING GMBH
• Kuressaare Ametikool
• Progress and knowledge Ltd