Development of effective coping strategies for VET trainers to provide reliable training to learners affected by psychological disorders Erasmus Project

Project Title

Development of effective coping strategies for VET trainers to provide reliable training to learners affected by psychological disorders

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Access for disadvantaged; Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

A psychological disorder (anxiety, depression, suicide tendencies, depersonalization, derealisation and self-harm, hallucinations, trauma and stressor-related disorders) is a pattern of behavioral or psychological symptoms that impact multiple life areas and create distress for the person experiencing these symptoms (American Psychiatric Association). “5 of 10 of the most serious diseases of the 21th century concern psychological disorders: schizophrenia, addictions, depressions, obsessive-compulsive disorders. They are one of the primary causes for long-term health disease, disability and sick leave in Europe (source: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Mental_health_and_related_issues_statistics). In countries such as Turkey, Bulgaria and Spain the percentage of people aged between 16-29 is progressively increasing in the past years due to different type of political and/or financial crises.

Regardless of the severity of his/her problem, most of the times a person affected by a psychological disorder faces learning difficulties and needs special support throughout his/her training period. However, a big number of trainers do not have enough experience and skills to deal with behavioural attitudes of people with psychological disorders (source: EUFAMI). As a consequence, they are not always able to adopt the proper attitudes or to adapt their tools/methods to the needs of these people. This situation produces a sense of powerless and a lot of frustration in the trainers; besides, it undermines the success of the training and trainers’ transition to work.

This project traind and allowed trainers to raise their awareness about the behaviour and learning problems that such learners may experience in order to implement relevant coping strategies to ensure their full inclusion into the VET learning process and to avoid any possible dropout because not adapted learning strategies have been applied. Together with professionals (P2) and inclusion pedagogical university (P3), we equiped VET trainers with knowledge, skills and competences to implement strategies towards career development and social inclusion of disadvantaged learners.

The project partners achieved this goal through the development of 3 intellectual outputs:
IO1: Manual for VET trainers dealing with learners affected by psychological disorders aiming at raising awareness on behavioral characteristics of psychological disorders and related learning difficulties
IO2: Handbook with coping strategies for VET trainers to provide reliable training to learners affected by psychological disorders
IO3: Policy recommendation guideline for improving vocational training of people affected by psychological disorders

The main results of the project lead to:
– Significant improvements in the way VET staff (especially trainers) deals with people affected by psychological disorders (more confidence, adapted posture, more effective training strategies etc.)
– Increased collaboration between VET structures and other players working in the field of psychological disorders
– The emergence of a constructive debate on the topic of better understanding/supporting VET learners with psychological disorders in the VET sector, at the scale of the partner organizations, but also at regional, national and European level.

The provided coping strategies and better understanding of the learning difficulties that learners with psychological disorders experienced, provided better opportunities to reduce the educational drop out and potentially unemployment as a coincidence.

Bringing this project at a TRANSNATIONAL level allowed partners to:
– Exchange experience and practices with other VET structures and any other actor active in the social and professional integration of people affected by psychological disorders/disability;
– Equip VET trainers to better understand the learning difficulties that their disadvantaged learners expressed and enable them to implement coping strategies as part of development of new training approaches for people affected by psychological disorders
– Allow different European actors to sit around the same table and engage an open and critical discussion on this issue.

From 3 countries (TR, ES and BG) the partners are:
P1: Leading regional educational directorate responsible for all educational units (schools, centers etc.) on the territory of Istanbul region
P2: National umbrella organisation of psychologists, educators and social workers that are supporting people with disabilities and their parents from Bulgaria
P3: Leading inclusive education university with dedicated department working directly with parents of people with disabilities from Spain
P4: VET school from Istanbul area that is training students with psychological disorders and would like to further train their staff to equip with necessarily knowledge and skills

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 124863,08 Eur

Project Coordinator

ISTANBUL MILLI EGITIM MUDURLUGU & Country: TR

Project Partners

• Kartaltepe Mesleki ve Teknik Anadolu Lisesi
• SDRUZENIJE NA NA RABOTESHTITE S HORA S UVREZHDANIYA
• UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID