Measurement of nowadays advanced Listening-Skills attitudes Erasmus Project

Project Title

Measurement of nowadays advanced Listening-Skills attitudes

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: Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

In all European Member States there are telephone or Internet-based crisis helplines for people in need, with suicidal intentions, diverse mental health problems and many life-limiting problems. The task of crisis services is to accompany those people, to provide contact or relationship, to relieve them emotionally, to give orientation and, if necessary, to absorb suicidal crises. Most crisis services work with volunteers who are carefully prepared for this responsible activity for months.

According to the International Association of Telephone Emergency Services (IFOTES), there are about 350 crisis centers in Europe with over 20,000 volunteers providing emergency assistance day and night in over 4 million telephone calls and over 100.000 internet contacts. 2-3 thousand volunteers have to be trained every year to keep the crisis helpline around the clock. The recruitment of volunteers is complex and costly and ongoing training is needed. The core competence for crisis support is listening.

Against this background, 9 partners from 6 EU Member States have joined in an interdisciplinary consortium with the aim to expand the existing knowledge about listening skills more individually, to study the architecture of listening, to measure the competences of human beings and their ability to heart-listen, and to give new attitudes about the technique and art of competent listening.
The Strategic Partnership consist of 6 Telephone Emergency Services (TES) from DE, IT, HU, FR, NL, ES, one research center specialised in emotional and mental health (DE), a training provider and consultancy in the field of social skills, skills assessment and vocational guidance (IT) and a developer of digital platform solutions (DE).

The main outcome of the project will be the MonaLiSa testing and learning instrument which allows people to measure their individual listening skills competence (questionnaire) and they will get support to improve listening by using individually suggested learning nuggets on the base of the test. The learning- instrument will be created as a Web-Application that can be connected to different Webpages of institutes which promote listening skills and emotional support in Europe and it will be translated in seven languages (English, German, Italian, Hungarian, French, Spanish, Dutch).

It will be an open digital educational resource that enables lifelong learning in the field of soft skill competences. It will help people to develop individual competences in listening, social competence and dialogue competence internationally.

The proposal aims at making lifelong learning and mobility a reality, by creating flexible learning pathways and addressing adult learners which can be involved at different stage of their life encouraging international mobility and networking. The proposal will thus pave the way to the EU 2020 target of raising adult education attainment, by making it more attractive with new cross-sectoral subject topics of current international relevance and by encouraging CSO capacity building and the acquisition of key competences through innovative adult education.

This project is christened by the acronym “MonaLiSa”: Measurement of nowadays advanced Listening-Skills attitudes. Mona Lisa smiles as an emotionally balanced and Listening-Skills competent person, she is internationally known and this year is the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonorado da Vinci, who spent several months doing mathematical and physical research in libraries and among scholars. Here he had been appointed as a consultant regarding some architectural difficulties in the construction of a cathedral. With the studies on body proportions and faces and anatomical studies, he wanted to “get to know the inside of the person” exactly.
With the Erasmus+ project MonaLiSa we want to study the architecture of listening to measure the competences of human being and it’s ability to heart-listen, and we want to give new attitudes about the technique and art of competent listening.

Project Website

https://www.listening-skills.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 243202,16 Eur

Project Coordinator

IFOTES Europe e.V. & Country: DE

Project Partners

• SOS Amitié France
• De Luisterlijn
• Westcode GmbH
• UNIVERSITATSKLINIKUM HEIDELBERG
• ASOCIACION INTERNACIONAL DEL TELEFONO DE LA ESPERANZA
• Telefono Amico Italia
• Studio Rucli