Career cOnsulting and Mentoring skills caPAcity building for youth workerS working with NEETS Erasmus Project

Project Title

Career cOnsulting and Mentoring skills caPAcity building for youth workerS working with NEETS

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 youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

According to the last research of Eurostat concerning the share of NEETs conducted in 2018, 9 countries are experiencing unemployment rates higher than the average for Europe (17,2 %) among which Spain (20,8%), Greece (28,8%), Bulgaria (18,1%), Romania (21,4%) and France (18,2%). In order to tackle this issue, the youth worker role was recognized on European level and its positive impact that it has on the social integration, active citizenship and the employability of NEETs. However, the conducted research for the current project proposal preparation showed that most of the youth workers supporting NEETs have motivation and ambition to guide and advice inactive young people in the process of their education and labour market integration, but not all of them understand the importance of career counselling and mentoring skills which are a key ingredient for every supporting and social role. In addition, a few initiatives on European level were found in relation to the competences that a youth worker supporting NEETs should have and develop.

In this context, the primary objective of the COMPASS project is to recognise and improve youth work and its impact on NEETs education and labour market inclusion, and develop a competence-based training explicitly targeting youth workers’ soft skills development based on a tailor-made competence model that encompasses the specific knowledge, skills and attitudes required for effective career counselling and mentoring process of NEETs. The target group are youth workers (community mediators, roma mediators, social workers, career counsellors, etc. between the age of 18-29) who work directly with NEETs and are aiming to support them in the education and labour market integration process that leads in the long-run into lower unemployment levels among NEETs. Another long-term benefit will be the increased quality of European youth work with NEETs and improved recognition of skills of European youth educators.

The project aims at 120 youth workers to be trained in providing effective career counselling and mentoring support to young unemployed and NEETs; have 150 registered users (youth workers and NEETs) on the NEETs activation gamified platform and inform more than 500 stakeholders about the project results and main outputs.

The concrete project results in terms of intellectual outputs are:
• IO1: Competence framework and assessment methodology for youth workers
• IO2: Youth workers training programme
• IO3: COMPASS Implementation programme
• IO4: NEETs activation gamified platform

The direct results that COMPASS aims to achieve are:
• Online questionnaire with 180 participants – youth workers in the 6 partner countries
• Interviews/focus groups with 30 participants – youth workers in the 6 partner countries
• 1 Youth worker competence framework with max. 6 competences in the 6 partner languages and EN
• 1 competence assessment methodology, translated in 6 partner languages and EN
• 1 training curriculum consisting of 6 training topics based on the 6 competences in the Youth worker competence framework
• 1 Training programme for youth workers in the 6 partner languages and EN
• Between 3-6 F2F workshops with 20 youth workers in every partner country, 120 youth workers in total
• At least 30 competence assessment reports for at least 30 youth workers in the 6 partner countries
• 1 NEETs activation gamified platform with motivational content in 6 partners languages and EN with 150 registered users (youth workers and NEETs) for all partner countries
• 6 COMPASS launch events with 15 participants per partner country, in total 90 participants – youth workers and relevant stakeholders
• Final conference for dissemination of the project results in Greece – altogether 45 national participants

In order to ensure the qualitative and quantitative project results achievement, the COMPASS Methodology applied in the current project, has the following key principles in its core:
• Holistic approach using a rich variety of activities offered by Erasmus+ in order to meet in a holistic way the needs of the target group
• Distribution of tasks according to the areas of expertise of each partner
• Orientation towards Competence Oriented Learning
• Promotion of Validation of Formal and Informal Learning

The desired short-term impact of COMPASS is by developing competence-based training for youth workers that develops their skills for effective support of NEETs, to make an important step towards building a pattern of professionalizing youth work. In the mid-term, establish synergies and bridges between local and national youth organisations and Youth Guarantee actors that will make the most out of this dynamic and multiply its effect at the local, national, European levels. The ultimate long-term impact is to contribute in this way to the decrease of youth unemployment rates in EU.

Project Website

https://www.compass-eu.org/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 158820,88 Eur

Project Coordinator

CATRO BULGARIA & Country: BG

Project Partners

• ACCION LABORAL PLATAFORMA PARA LA IMPLANTACION DE PROGRAMAS DE INCLUSION LABORAL EN COLECTIVOS DESFAVORECIDOS
• Österreichische Jungarbeiterbewegung, ÖJAB
• PANEPISTIMIO THESSALIAS
• PISTES SOLIDAIRES
• S.C. PREDICT CSD CONSULTING S.R.L.