Increasing numbers of students are at risk of dropping out from VET schools. Young people who leave education early lack skills and qualifications. They face a higher risk of unemployment, social exclusion and poverty. Also, the employment pattern of “a job for life” is gone due to global political, economic, social, and technological changes. The ongoing transforming nature of work, jobs and careers implies the continuous need for personal and professional development and the ability to adapt to the transformation of the workplace. Students need to acquire plenty of skills and competences, in order to be able to make career choices accurately and effectively and to meet the labour market’s demand. Students who are less knowledgeable about career most often choose a career that does not fit with their needs. The above statement is even more valid for VET students, who are very often focused mainly on acquiring a certain set of vocational competences, without paying much attention on nurturing their soft skills. Therefore it is important that all key VET stakeholders are involved in the process of improving VET students’ career management skills (CMS). Students need guidance in the course of study and training, and it is a huge responsibility for the vocational institution to provide them with relevant skills. To ensure their students’ have up to date knowledge and skills, VET teachers can no longer only teach vocational subjects without incorporating CMS within the curriculum. It is the teacher who are closer to students and have access to them on a daily basis, therefore they are in a perfect position to influence children’s choice of career as well as shape students’ attitude towards given profession. The main aim of the CARMA project is to empower teachers from partner countries and beyond to deliver career guidance and foster the development of career management skills among VET students in order to prevent early school leaving, increase motivation level, as well as employability. Our objectives: - to develop a manual for VET teachers to support VET learners in developing career management skills; - to improve VET teachers competencies in career guidance through training; - to engage VET students in pilot career guidance sessions with trained teachers;- to disseminate project results across teachers’ communities through multiplier events, online free access to the manual and an extensive dissemination;- to develop Policy recommendations targeting high level decision makers in the field of education and training. The project was a transnational cooperation of 5 institutions: oThe coordinator of the project was the Raabe Klett Kft. (HU), a publishing house and training institute in the field of education and training.oRaahe VET school (FI) provides qualified vocational upper secondary education and training at three different schools in Raahe region.oBKSZC Weiss Manfréd VET (HU) offers mainly electric electronic and IT studies.oBME University (HU): The Department of Technical Education within the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences prepares teachers for technical vocational training schools.oSelfinvest Ltd. (BG) is a private company. Their main goal is to provide high quality career guidance services to diverse target groups offering individual career consultations and group programs aiming to develop CMS among people from different ages. Our most important activities include:•3 Transnational Project meetings•Development of Manual for teachers•Testing and Piloting of Manual•Development of Policy Recommendations•Multiplier events: Workshop Sofia, Final conference Budapest•Dissemination including: promotion emails, online presence, newsletters, presentations, personal encountersResults:1. Career Management Training Manual for VET Teachers and Policy recommendations – 4 language versions (HU, FI, BG and EN)2. 10 school staff members from 2 partner schools trained in applying the manual 3. 100 students participated in pilot lessons4. 110 stakeholders from partner, other EU and non-EU countries informed of project results through 2 multipliers events in Budapest and Sofia.5. More than 5.000 individuals reached through disseminationImpact:VET teachers involved understand the importance of CMS and the role of teachers in it, have improved competencies to deliver it in the classroom and have a raised sensitivity to the prospects of students with various social background/motivation/capacities. The project created awareness among VET students who participated in the pilots of the need and importance of CMS, it improved understanding the connection of CMS with future employability, that not only professional skills are needed to establish a future career, but one has to have lots of different soft skills if they want to achieve something in life/profession.Longer term impact are expected in raising the quality and relevance of VET and employability of young people.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most commonly diagnosed neurodevelopmental disorders in children and young people. Children who struggle to manage their behaviour, pay attention, regulate their emotions, make friends, develop positive relationships with adults, and cope with the demands of traditional educational structures and practices are challenging to deal with for parents and teachers. However, these children do not present with these challenging behaviours intentionally. If these children do not learn skills to deal with their difficulties, then they are at risk for a range of negative outcomes. With the right kind of support, both at home and in school, children with ADHD can reach their potential and become contributing members of their communities. ADHD is a problem both for the children, their families and schools, but also the wider community and society. ADHD is very treatable; it is not associated with an inability to learn or with low intelligence.With our HELPING HAND project, we would like to empower teachers, equip them with the knowledge and tools, to be effective in supporting the needs of children with social, emotional, and/or behavioural developmental needs. Similarly, we would also like to support parents in understanding their child’s behaviour, and having the knowledge and skills to support their child developing skills to be successful in school and in life. Our guide for parents and teachers is providing them with the knowledge and skills needed to cope with a range of needs and difficulties.Our partnership united the efforts of 7 organisations of four European countries: Raabe Klett Educational Publishing House (HU), an education publishing company, Coventry University (UK), ELTE Bárczi, Faculty of Special Needs Education (HU), DE Hajdúböszörményi Gyakorló Óvodája, a tTraining Nnursery Sschool, Spojana Skola Komenskeho (SK) a kindergarten, Csipkerózsika Association (RO), an NGO for uniting kindergarten teachers and ADHD Foundation (HU), in a 26 months project dedicated to creating innovative tools for addressing effectively behavioural disorders and attention deficit at Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) level.In our project, we -developed a multilingual digital manual for teachers (Hungarian, English, Romanian, Slovak);-developed a multilingual digital guide for parents (HU, ENG, RO, SLO);-developed a multilingual collection of practical ideas mainly for kindergarten teachers (HU, ENG, RO, SLO); -conducted a research process that can serve for further reference and resource;-conducted 1 thematic international training (Joint Staff Training) for 12 participants, including teachers and education experts in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC);-conducted 3 local training for teachers, 3 open days for parents and 6 Focus Groups (reaching more than 200 stakeholders) and piloting, reaching possible more than 700 children;-we promoted the project’s outcomes through an ongoing and extensive dissemination campaign;-we collected evidence-base for future national educational reforms. The main target groups and the impact the project had:Kindergarten Teachers-Improved knowledge and competence base on how to recognise, address and support children with ADHD and their parents in mainstream ECEC;-Enhanced skill base to apply innovative methods to support the teaching process in kindergartens to ensure inclusive education and care; -Expanded professional development opportunities to match current needs of the society.Parents-Increased awareness of what behavioural disorders and attention deficit (ADHD) are and how to cope with these through active collaboration with kindergarten teachers and applying appropriate strategies to foster children’s personal development;-Improved capacities to recognize behavioural disorders and organize daily activities appropriately to ensure supportive environment for children’s successful personal and educational development.We are also hoping that the HELPING HAND project will contribute to increasing the quality of ECEC services and to fostering inclusion through the invaluable alliances we made through the project.

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) provides the basis of lifelong learning and has become a policy priority in most European countries. Research, conducted by the OECD and the European Commission, recognises that ECEC brings a wide range of benefits, such as better child well-being and learning outcomes, social and economic benefits, reduction of poverty and better social and economic development for society at large. In 2012, the OECD produced “Country-policy profiles” focusing on issues related to quality of ECEC in various countries. These reports point to areas for further reflection on current policy initiatives. With regard to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, similar areas for improvement have been identified:-improving alignment with primary schooling;-improving communication skills of staff for effective implementation and dissemination of the curriculum.The Good Start to School project (GSS) combined the efforts of 9 organisations from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary to create an innovative toolkit, which will contribute to increasing ECEC teachers’ competencies to evaluate and address adequately children’s level of skills and maturity prior to entering into primary school education, thus ensuring a smooth transition. Furthermore, the project tried to actively involve parents in the process in order to guarantee that all key stakeholders, directly responsible for the child’s wellbeing and attainment, were adequately engaged and contribute for increasing the quality of ECEC. The overall duration of the project was planned for 33 months, which will be followed by additional activities to ensure sustainability of results.The project defined the following specific objectives:- to design, develop, test and validate an innovative toolkit for evaluation of needed learning & development areas of children in preschool education level, which involves active communication between teachers and parents;- to train teachers how to apply the GSS toolkit and provide feedback to parents with regard to children’s attainment level and areas for further development.- to inform and guide parents on what they need to do in order to support their child during educational process.The consortium consisted of 3 enterprises active in the field of school education, 1 university and 5 education institutions providing pre-school education and care, thus ensuring that the GSS outputs will be designed, developed, tested, validated and disseminated through international cooperation, involving the key actors able to contribute to increasing the overall quality of Early Childhood Education and Care. The project proposed a comprehensive approach to address children's, teachers' and parents' needs, by developing a toolkit of instruments and methods.GSS Toolkit includes:PREDICT – the diagnostic and evaluation tool is intended for the continuous recording and evaluation of the education progress of the child in kindergarten.METHODOLOGY FOR TEACHERS – introduces PREDICT, including instructions on how to work with this tool, generally diagnostic methods, examples from practice.METHODOLOGY FOR PARENTS – introduces how kindergarten teachers work with children on their social-emotional development using the PREDICT toll, and how beneficial good-quality communication between the kindergarten and the parents is for the development of the child.ELECTRONIC FORM OF THE PREDICT TOOL – allows for simple visualization of the measured results, and for a clear and easy-to-follow presentation of the results for the individual child, as well as for the entire class.The main project activities were tasks aimed at creating a GSS toolkit: designing, developing, testing and validating, production parts of project outputs - translations, layout setting, typesetting, expert reviews, proofreading, printing).Further activities were 4 international project meetings, 2 short-term international teaching/training activities, 3 international dissemination events and other extensive dissemination activities (several meetings with stakeholders, teacher training, further project and intellectual outputs promotion).The main GSS results and impact is summarised as follows:-For CHILDREN: improved level of key competencies, as well as skills and areas development to facilitate smooth transitions between education levels. -For TEACHERS: increased level of knowledge in pedagogic diagnostics area and competencies to evaluate children’s skills and competencies; increased level of competencies to address skills gaps; improved communication skills; raised professional profile to deliver high quality teaching and adopt new methods and tools;-For PARENTS: increased awareness about their own child’s development, needs and expectations for level of maturity at entry stage; opportunity to be proactive in their children’s everyday life; increased level of influence on the process of education.