COmpetence Oriented COUnselling for cognitively impaired persons Erasmus Project

Project Title

COmpetence Oriented COUnselling for cognitively impaired persons

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Recognition (non-formal and informal learning/credits); Pedagogy and didactics; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

According to the UN Disability Rights Convention, people with disabilities have a right to employment and to related counselling programs. Their right for participating in education and lifelong learning is also established. However, people with cognitive impairments still face barriers regarding their participation in educational programs and in the labour market. Reducing these barriers and supporting these people in getting access to the labour market and to lifelong learning is an essential, Europe-wide task. A transnational cooperation will contribute significantly to this task through learning from shared experiences and the exchange of good practices as the basis for innovation. One of the barriers for cognitively impaired people regarding access to the labour market is that qualifications provided in formal educational settings (schools etc.) mostly build on cognitive work. Accordingly, it is sometimes hard for people with cognitive impairments to acquire these qualifications. This makes it essential to make their informally and non-formally acquired skills and competences visible, especially as some of these competences are both desired and required on the labour market. Also, people with cognitive impairments often struggle with anxiety or depression over their work performance and it is of great relevance to help them learn about what they are capable of and boost their self-confidence.
Against this background, COOCOU aims to help cognitively impaired persons find out about their competences, boost their self-confidence, support their empowerment and support them in finding a job or educational measure that suits their competence profile and interests, i.e. support their social and economic inclusion.
For this,COOCOU builds on the ProfilPASS, a tool for competence assessment established by German Institute for Adult Education.The ProfilPASS is based on the assumption that every person has acquired various competences throughout their lifetime but is often not aware of it. Work with the ProfilPASS helps in revealing and documenting hidden competences. In previous EU projects, the ProfilPASS was further developed, translated and successfully implemented in a number of EU countries (inc. France, Ireland, Bosnia, Greece, Spain, Sweden, Slovenia, Serbia for details see www.profilpass-international.eu). In the most recent project SCOUT 2017-1-DE02-KA204-004194, the ProfilPASS in Simple Language, a ProfilPASS version for new immigrants, was developed. For COOCOU, the original ProfilPASS will be adapted to the needs of cognitively impaired persons, i.e. a Barrier-free ProfilPASS will be created. In addition, a toolkit will be created in which other already existing tools for competence assessment from all partner countries suitable for people with cognitive impairments will be compiled.
As the ProfilPASS is a self-evaluation tool helping people to reflect on themselves, this can be a challenging process, especially for people with cognitive impairments. It is essential that these people are accompanied in this process by competent counsellors. Hence, the second central objective pursued by COOCOU is the support and training of counsellors working with cognitively impaired persons. A manual for counsellors will be developed providing guidelines on how the toolkit and the Barrier-free ProfilPASS to their best. A curriculum will be set up as a basis for the training of counsellors. Overall 30 counsellors (5 per country) will be trained for using the toolkit and the Barrier-free ProfilPASS with cognitively impaired persons.
Finally, the toolkit and the Barrier-free ProfilPASS will be applied in a testing phase in all partner countries. Overall 60 people with cognitive impairments will profit from a competence assessment. Both the training for counsellors and the testing phase will be evaluated and the results will be used for revising the materials.
Consequently, the main objectives of this project will be realized through the development of two intellectual outputs: toolkit for competence assessment (inc. Barrier-free ProfilPASS) and reference material for the toolkit (manual for counsellors, curriculum). All outputs will be made available as OER in all partner languages and in English ensuring that they can be used freely by any interested stakeholders, also beyond the duration of the project. People with cognitive impairments and their counsellors can make use of the toolkit which will help the cognitively impaired persons find out about and receive a documentation of their competences. Finding a suitable employment or training and getting access to the labour market will therefore be significantly facilitated and in the long term, social and economic inclusion for this target group is promoted. Simultaneously, counsellors will be professionalized in their work with cognitively impaired persons and the reference material will enrich and support their work with the toolkit and the Barrier-free ProfilPASS.

Project Website

http://coocou.profilpass-international.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 294884,75 Eur

Project Coordinator

Deutsches Institut fuer Erwachsenenbildung eV Leibniz-Zentrum für Lebenslanges Lernen & Country: DE

Project Partners

• SWIDEAS AB
• Andragoski zavod Ljudska univerza Velenje
• DAFNI KENTRO EPAGGELMATIKIS KATARTISIS
• DIE BERATER UNTERNEHMENSBERATUNGS GESELLSCHAFT MBH
• FORMACION PARA EL DESARROLLO E INSERCION, SOCIEDAD LIMITADA