ABLE4WORK Erasmus Project

Project Title

ABLE4WORK

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 : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Open and distance learning; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment

Project Summary

Context and background:
In August 2020 over 3 million young persons (under 25) were unemployed, reflecting a youth unemployment rate of 17.6% (Eurostat Aug.2020). According to the OECD this figure is likely to rise up to 30% due to the economic crisis triggered by the COVID19 pandemic.
This reinforces the already existing shortcomings of the Youth Guarantee and Youth Employment Initiatives which helped to reduce youth unemployment since the 2009 economic crisis, but are often not sufficiently adapted to the needs of those facing multiple barriers, such as poverty, social exclusion, disability and discrimination. One of the main concerns of youth workers is how to reduce drop-out rates of those hard-to-reach target groups of NEETs. Another concern is the lack of digital tools to support continued contact between youth worker and NEETs.

Objectives:
The main objective of the project is to improve the implementation of the insertion itineraries in which young people participate, who are often from demographic groups with some situation of social vulnerability such as youth from disadvantaged backgrounds, newly arrived immigrants with difficulties for cultural and linguistic adaptation, ethnic minorities, youth with economic difficulties, and other problems that may lead to social exclusion.
As a response to the shortcomings of the current youth programmes, the looming increase of youth unemployment, the connected social exclusion of the most vulnerable youth and the need for more innovative digital practices in youth services, the partnership proposes to develop the digital Able4work App that facilitates the mentoring, guidance and contact between youth workers and NEETs and is a support tool to adapt more efficiently to the target groups’ needs. The COVID19 crisis makes this tool even more necessary as the current situation often restricts personal contacts and face-2-face support, leaving the most vulnerable youth on their own in an exceedingly difficult situation.

The project directs its work at the following two Target Groups:
– Target Group A: youth workers who work as mentors/trainers with disadvantaged youths and NEETs, performing socio-labour integration programmes and offer support, advice, guidance and training for vulnerable youth
– Target Group B: youth between 18-35 years that are unemployed or NEETs, and are in some situation of social vulnerability

Number and profile of participants:
The Able4work project gathers a consortium of partners who work within the framework of these Youth employment initiatives and have witnessed first-hand the shortcomings of the Youth support programmes. It brings together 6 partners from the 5 EU Member States Spain, Germany, Sweden, Poland and Greece. These represent a mix of NGOs, SMEs and a vocational school, who all contribute complementary skills to the project, such as youth counselling and mentoring, training youth, developing employment support tools, and ICT skills.
Description of activities:
A Needs Analysis in preparation of the project application had responses from 385 youths and 150 youth workers who confirm the need, interest and positive attitudes of the target groups towards the proposed Able4work Toolkit.
The innovative element of the Able4work App is to digitalize, virtualize and gamify the personalised itinerary of support programmes of the Youth Guarantee and the Youth Employment Initiatives aimed at unemployed youths or NEETs, when normally these itineraries are only related to a personal face-to-face follow-up of each case.

Methodology:
Able4work App will be translating the phases of the itinerary into a set of digital “tests” and stages where the young person can follow the story to find schedules, opportunities, self-evaluation, resources and support in a digital and virtual game format which evokes additional motivation of the youth and enhances the success in the achievement of the itineraries.
This will be achieved in a set of tasks where the partners jointly develop the outputs, but each bring in their special expertise.

Results and impact:
The envisaged impact of the Able4work Toolkit is to continuously engage vulnerable youth into their preparation and training for a successful integration into work or training and thereby enhancing their chances of success and social integration. This will improve social services especially in difficult situations such as the restrictions of the COVID19 pandemic.

Longer term benefits:
The ABLE4WORK tools have the potential of being established as viable tools for employment itineraries, being used by public services in general across the EU.
The long term plan sees the ABLE4WORK tools fully integrated in the different EU Youth Guarantee programs, working fully complementary to EURES and the Public Employment Service Network and thereby supporting EU policies and catering for all unemployed people and vulnerable social groups with a useful toolset for their placement in the labour market.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 221440 Eur

Project Coordinator

Asociación para el Estudio y Promoción del Bienestar Social & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Multitude i Gävle AB
• Werkstatt-Berufskolleg Unna
• Sea Teach S.L.
• DANMAR COMPUTERS SP ZOO
• Knowl Social Enterprise for Education and Lifelong Learning