Developing career counselling services in integrated spaces Erasmus Project

Project Title

Developing career counselling services in integrated spaces

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Recognition (non-formal and informal learning/credits); Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment

Project Summary

To meet the up skilling needs of practitioners of counselling for career guidance working in the Cités des métiers, the Cité des métiers International Network wanted to launch the project COCADE “DEveloping CAreer COunselling in integrated spaces”.
It is question of taking into account the evolution of the expectations and the needs of people received by the counsellors and other professionals working in the Cités des métiers and in similar places. The digital place in the society, the evolution of ways of working and professions by 2030 shows how important it will be for citizens to adapt their skills and their professional project throughout their life. It is precisely the issue reminded in the resolution of the Council of the European Union of 2004 regarding lifelong training and then New Skills agenda and lifelong guidance” directions published in 2016.

The main purposes of this project are to develop at national and European level the offer and quality of career guidance services in “integrated spaces”. It deals simultaneously with the profession of counselling and the animation of open-up partnership in integrated spaces.

“Integrated spaces” dedicated to lifelong career guidance are physical or digital spaces that gather different services and resources on lifelong career guidance. The professionals who work there come from education, training and employment sectors and business development; they come from public and also private organizations. Since 1993 with the opening of Cité des métiers of Paris la Villette, the “Cité des metiers” model is the only model to offer such a counselling approach even if similar experiences of one-stop shops for lifelong career guidance have been developed afterwards in other country such as Finland and Croatia.

To complete successfully this project of exchanges of practices, the Network mobilized 8 other partners presented in 5 European countries: France, Italy, Portugal, Denmark and Bulgaria. It could have counted on the support of external experts in Finland and Switzerland notably with the Agency for guidance, vocational training and continuing education – OFPC of the Canton of Geneva.

The project is based on an empirical approach including different steps: identification, analysis of the practices, development of teaching tools, experimentation then formalization of a non-formal validation process of acquired skills.
This project carried out from September 2017 to February 2019 has been particularly rich with the organisation of 4 training sessions (with 2 dedicated to experimentation of a training plan to the profession of counselling) and 6 transnational meetings with each time the opportunity to share practices between professionals.
More importantly, it allowed formalizing teaching devices such as the training plan and the repository of skills and design a vademecum of good practices of partnership management, a training module on line and a non-formal validation process of skills for learners. The Network called upon the experience of Learning Digital team to create a training platform on line via moodle.

In total more than 90 persons participated into the training actions: counsellors and other practitioners working in the Cités des métiers and other places, teachers/ trainers, new counsellors, people in charge of partnerships etc. All the learners have notably considered that the training have had a positive impact on their own practices and skills. The satisfaction rate is above 80 % for the participants of the training for the profession of counselling in integrated spaces.

All along the project, the participants feedbacks have been great and partners are eager to use the trainings’ inputs in the future: “What I am going to keep in mind after this project is the good teamwork, the highly motivated counsellors and the way of working together in a multi-partnership team”; “Our team has learned new concepts and plans to implement in future trainings”; “We use the project as a part of our teaching of classes”;

The results of the project will allow the Network to organize each year from 2019 training sessions for the professions of counselling for professionals that are eager to work in the Cités des métiers and in other integrated spaces. This project have also been an inspiration to launch new projects about the development of digital skills and the multi-partnership management for professionals in spaces dedicated to lifelong career guidance.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 182534,55 Eur

Project Coordinator

Réseau des Cités des métiers & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Cooperativa Orso s.c.s
• ETABLISSEMENT PUBLIC DU PALAIS DE LA DECOUVERTE ET DE LA CITE DES SCIENCES ET DE L’INDUSTRIE
• PROFESSIONSHOJSKOLEN UCC
• Cité des métiers de La réunion
• FONDATSIYA NA BIZNESA ZA OBRAZOVANI
• GIP CITE DES METIERS HAUTE NORMANDIE
• CAMARA MUNICIPAL DO PORTO