ISPAW or Implementing Social Pathways to ameliorate the situation of wandering homeless persons

ISPAW is a Grundtvig Learning Partnerhsip whose aim is to transfer competences as well as to exchange professional methods helping social structures to welcome and to accompany homeless persons. The targets are associations or institutions which accommodate and coach youth suffering from family breakdown, on the way to marginalization and without a real home. The partnership gathers partners from France, Italy, Latvia,  Romania and Poland. 

The coordinator is a French association, SAUVEGARDE 56- SOS Accueil - CHRS Mosaïk (Lorient, Brittany, France). Other partner are Radar B (France), Centre for European Studies and Initiatives (Palermo, Sicily, Italy), ASSOCIATION FOR EDUCATION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (Calarasi, Romania), Association Positive Mind (Tukums, Latvia), DANMAR COMPUTERS (Rzeszow, Poland). 

OBJECTIVES

The main objective is to find out how to ameliorate the modalities of accompaniment and accommodation. The special objective is to adapt tools used to implement the social inclusion of young homeless persons. To achieve those aims we need to collect good practices and to exchange about it, but also to transfer the relevant ones which are not very wellknown. 

KICK OFF

Till now we have started the project by a first meeting in Tukums, Latvia. We have started the research and realize the disparities in terms of social policies,targets, concepts in the countries participating to the project. We focused on some terms to be better defined and understood by all partners, like Social inclusion, homeless, street persons, to be on the street, networks. A workshop was held in Tukums allowing the participants to exchange and to better understand each other. It is obvious that the target is not exactly the same in all EU countries. Nevertheless, there are obvious common points: for instance the age ó they are youngsters (from 13 to 30), they are living on the street, sometimes in shelters or in squats /slums (with families); they are also outsiders of the society.  

We have decided to deepen our understanding of the main concepts and to collect the best practices from each country. In Tukums, all partners presented their activities, the social context of the countries and tried to integrate the recent development of the financial crisis in their reflexion. 

NEXT MEETING

The next step will be in May. We'll have our second meeting in Rzeszow, Poland. We plan to process the joint analysis of the results of the comparative study and good practice through the PEST and SWOT tools, to visit  a social support structure (with possible interaction between social workers and ISPAW Partners), to present and to discuss  various dissemination tools, and to prepare future projects. 

DISCLAIMER: This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein

VOIP, A VET PROJECT FOR PERSONS OVER 50

VOIP means VET for Over 50 Employees through MultI-Feature Platform. This project funded by the EU Commission under the framework of the Leonardo da Vinci Transfer of Innovation programme has started in November 2009. We had our first meeting in Rzeszow (Poland) and since November we have worked hard to achieve the results of the project. 

Till now a survey to study the preferences and needs of employers related to their employees over 50 has been conducted in the countries of the partnership: Poland, Bulgaria, France, Italy and Spain. The aim of the survey is to obtain required knowledge in the field of demanded characteristics and skills in which employees over 50 should be equipped. The knowledge will enable us to prepare reliable scope of methodology of trainings dedicated to the group mentioned above. Providing potential employees with arguments, which are demanded by employers, seems to be beneficial to both sides. 300 persons have been surveyed in the 5 countries, 150 employees (or future employees aged 50 and more) and 150 employers or persons in charge of human resources in all size companies. The next meeting will take place from 22nd to 23rd of April in Palermo (Sicily). It will allow us to present the national research results, to develop the needs analysis as well as to prepare the transfer of the RAVT training model. VOIP will also develop a multi-feature e-platform and learning materials targeted to persons over 50.

Please note that this project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein

MODEVAL AND THE RECOGNITION OF INFORMAL LEARNING

Grundtvig, a decade of European innovation in adult learning

In January, we had the opportunity to present the results of Modeval at the conference «Grundtvig, a decade of European innovation in adult learning. The presentation was made in the workshop "Recognition of non-formal and informal learning: towards innovative changes in formal educational systems ". The Modeval system of evaluation and training of adults is designed not only as a remedy but as a complete system linked to individual development and place in the social system. We have stressed that the assessment should enable trainers to develop training courses available to adults struggling with basic skills. An important issue that concerned the validation is how to integrate this system and these results in the process of formal recognition. We insisted on the necessity for policy makers to put into place ambitious policies on adult education, but also to harmonize the educational processes in the EU and to consider the dual approach Bottom Up and Top Down.

The Lisbon objectives and Modeval

The European Union has recently published a paper related to the achievement of the Lisbon objectives in relation to benchmarks. It is interesting to note that since 2000 the educational performance has greatly improved in many areas. Somehow the EU is closer to its goal of becoming a knowledge society extremely powerful. Nevertheless there are still gray areas and some benchmarks that may never be reached, especially regarding the low levels of qualification and skills of reading and writing. For example, the percentage of poor readers is increasing in many European countries with extremely large values for some of them. This situation reinforces the need for efficient tools for evaluation of knowledge and skills to baseline levels, and especially to train teachers so they can act at the operational level, with people in difficulty. Otherwise it seems obvious that the goals of democratic participation and citizenship may well remain a dead letter for many of our fellow Europeans. The approach Modeval2 focuses on the real world in its social dimension of literacy. The results provided by PISA2006 strengthen us in this determination Far from a "politically correct” approach of illiteracy, we must develop tools that enable actors to act on what is often called the" social divide "

PEER LEARNING ACTIVITY on BASIC SKILLS

The 24th of March in Oslo, we have been invited by the EU Commission to have a reflexion about how to integrate the skills acquired in an informal way into formalized evaluation processes. In our speech the following issues have been considered: Knowledge, skills, competences, attitudes, capabilities, key competences, validation, certification, recognition, social inclusion and work inclusion as well as the public concerned and the concept of literacy. It was a good opportunity to disseminate the proejct and to remind the main principles of adult education including a real andragogical approach. We have told the participants that according to the Modeval philosophy, recognition is the main element of validation of skills and that literacy fundamentals are not the same for all persons. We have provided some suggestions to stake holders and to the EU Commission and we hope to be heard:

• To be aware of the contradiction between the need of a Bottom-Up approach to achieve the LLL objective and the reality of a Top-Down approach which is currently destroying the andragogical approach because of its technical answer to human/learning process
• To be aware of the contradiction between the need of a Bottom-Up approach to achieve the LLL objective and the reality of a Top-Down approach which is currently destroying the andragogical approach because of its technical answer to human/learning process
• To create LLL structures in the EU countries able to apply the Grundtvig and Liberal education principles
• To train the trainers and to provide them a EU recognition

MOLEYA A EUROPEAN PROJECT ABOUT MOTIVATION

Mid march we have participated to a European trainers meeting in Jena. Trainers from 8 EU countries could participate and exchange about their practices in motivating young learners. The results of a survey carried out by the Moleya team has been presented as well as other aspects of training and the development of the knowledge society for all. There was an important participation from the Roma Community (Bulgaria and Romania). Several aspects has been presented like the cognitive processes in literacy learning (a Keynote speech by Professor Angel Marzo of the University of Barcelona), an approach of the target by Jo Booth from Niace, and the findings of Moleya by Mr Francis LAVEAUX. The trainers could deepen their knowledge in the field by exchanging in several workshop whose topics were "Embedded learning", "Active Learning – literacy and numeracy", "Personal learning and Thinking Skills: Moving from learner dependency to learner autonomy", "How to reach young adults? Advertisement in basic education". Participants were also allowed to exchange in a less formal way by participating to a social activity, a transnational Bowling carried out the 2nd evening. The results of the conference will be published soon on the Moleya website. The motivation guide will be available next September.
For more info please go to www.moleya.eu

NEW PROJECTS

Now Radar B is involved in several European projects:


Modeval2 a Leonardo da Vinci project whose aim is to build up a training of trainers in the field of evaluatin of basic skills.
Don't hesitate to visit it at www.modeval.org
We also implement a project dedicated to transfer competences as well as to exchange professional methods helping social structures to welcome and to accompany homeless persons. It is a Grudtvig Learning Partnership called ISPAW. It means "Implementing Social Pathways to ameliorate the situation of wandering homeless persons".
Till now there was a first meeeting in Tukums Latvia last November. The partnership is composed by partners from France, Romania, Latvia, Italy, Bulgaria. The next meeting will take place in Pland in May 2010.
As a partner and evaluator of the project, we are invovled in another project Leonardo da Vinci related to VET FOR OVER 50 EMPLOYEES THROUGH MULTIFEATURE PLATFORM. VOIP is managed by a Polish company, DANMAR.
Have a look on the VOIP website www.voip-project.eu/
So Radar B is increasing its competences, specializing itself in Training design and evaluation of projects.In the close future we plan to apply for new transnational projects under the framework of LLP or other EU programmes.
We also plan to organize training of trainers, using the Ceppac3 modules (just discover them at www.ceppac.eu
Recently there was a presentation of the Modeval project and its future in Brussels for the 10th birthday of the Grundtvig programme.