A Structured Internship Programme to Aid the Professionalization of Skilled and Unemployed Young People with the Aim of Securing Employment Erasmus Project

Project Title

A Structured Internship Programme to Aid the Professionalization of Skilled and Unemployed Young People with the Aim of Securing Employment

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 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment

Project Summary

The YouthEmploy project provides a response to the EU wide crisis of youth unemployment through the development and introduction of an innovative cloud-based framework to support VET and FET providers, employers and unemployed young people to undertake and validate relevant and practical work experience and by so doing prevent and break the cycle of structural employment and lost generation effect threatening young people today. Young people face major barriers to entry to the work force such as having to compete with experienced workers in an over-supplied labour market making it more difficult to obtain employment. Employers prefer to recruit people with a demonstrable track record, so how can young unemployed people gain experience if they are not given the chance to work in the first place? The aim of the project is to assist these people who have qualifications but lack practical experience to undertake relevant work experience and professional development which is supported, captured and validated in order to enhance their prospects of entering employment and commencing their careers. The target groups are unemployed young people, VET and guidance providers and employers.
The main project activities were:
a) Development of an innovative internship framework incorporating a cloud-based Skills Assessment Log Book (Template) which facilitates the intern, the VET and FET provider/ career guidance practitioner and the employer to track progress, capture and validate the application of learning, the skills acquired and personal / professional growth.
b) Establishment of synergies and strengthening links between VET and employers by improving the relevance of education provision – through harmonising the integration of technical / academic learning with the practical application in the workplace.
c) Development of a Best Practice Code for Internship Programmes outlining the Key Elements of a good internship programme including the importance of appropriate induction, the role of Mentoring and the necessity of structured validation of the applied learning in the workplace to support the effective progression and career development of participants.
The main project outcomes were:
1. YouthEmploy Internship Framework – a cloud based platform which is accessible to the intern, employer and education provider.
2. YouthEmployPass – a structured comprehensive reference populated by the employer.
3. YouthEmploy Employment Support Toolkit – set of paper and online based resources to help interns with their continued job search and professional development.
4. Online YouthEmploy Careers Marketplace – employers have access to a cloud based recruitment tool containing the EmployPass and CVs of all interns.
5. Report for policy makers on the value and benefits of the YouthEmploy Model.
Impact:
The project consortium brought together the experience of organisations from countries with high youth unemployment such as Spain 53.6%, UK 30%, Ireland 26% and Belgium 24.1%.
The methodology adopted incorporated a research phase which reviewed intern programmes and policies across 10 European countries. This helped to inform the development of the tools and the piloting phase which involved 77 young people and 36 employers. Thus the project had the opportunity not only to develop its results but also to pilot them and to demonstrate their effectiveness. The impact was substantial because the need it addressed is both very widespread and difficult for policy makers to solve. The impact was measured both quantitatively and qualitatively with the use of surveys, phone and face to face interviews. Feedback and input was assimilated from all of the stakeholders both in development, testing and evaluating stages. The results of the piloting based on the feedback from the participants is presented in the external evaluation report and overall this was very positive.
The consortium has excellent access to networks of employers, VET and FET providers and EU networks. The project consortium expects very important longer term benefits as it will demonstrate how synergies and links between VET and employers can lead to greater efficiency and effectiveness and assist both sectors in achieving their objectives – VET will produce candidates with more relevant and practical skills and employers will be experiencing new recruits who can ‘hit the ground running’.
If not tackled, the youth unemployment crisis will become a tragedy not just for individual young people themselves, but for their communities, their countries and the EU as a whole. Past recessions have shown us that long term unemployment at a young age leaves permanent scars and leads to a ‘lost generation’ effect as employers opt to employ newer graduates rather than the young long term unemployed when economic growth resume. Youth Employ project is one of the tools that can help to tackle the youth unemployment crisis. The project enables young unemployed people not only to get

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 251368,91 Eur

Project Coordinator

Fast Track into Information Technology Ltd. & Country: IE

Project Partners

• FUNDACION TECNALIA RESEARCH & INNOVATION
• Viesoji istaiga Baltijos edukaciniu technologiju institutas
• BUSINESS IN THE COMMUNITY
• Interface3