One of the current needs of the labour market in what qualified staff is concerned is the sector of Personal Caregiver/Geriatrics Technician. It is a fact that the world’s population is ageing. According to the United Nations, ‘virtually every country in the world is experiencing growth in the number and proportion of older persons in their population. Population ageing is poised to become one of the most significant social transformations of the XXI century, with implications for nearly all sectors of society, including labour and financial markets, the demand for goods and services, such as housing, transportation and social protection, as well as family structures and intergenerational ties’. On the other hand, there are many learners in VET, mainly in services sector, who have Special Needs or learning difficulties and that do not fit in the formal learning approach. They need to be prepared to integrate the labour market and answer their needs. It is thus the mission of VET schools to do this bridge and prepare all learners without exception to the current employment needs. Working with elderly people demands not only qualified people but specially caring and dedicated staff. So, this partnership is willing to help this target group integrating successfully in the labour market, enhancing their competences and skills and making them able to answer the needs of Day/Elderly Centres and contributing for their social and professional inclusion. Tackling with SEN individuals and individuals with learning difficulties and enhancing their competences and skills also means fighting poverty, social exclusion, racism and discrimination, and promoting social justice and gender equality. It provides a very strong basis to improve the socio-economic situation of many disadvantage people contributing better, at the same time, to the social, cultural and economic development of the community and country.Thus, it is not only about educating people in the identified sector, but also about empowering them to attain a better life for themselves and the society as a whole.The objective of this Project is to help transform groups of social and economic disadvantage (SEN and/or with learning difficulties students) into autonomous, useful people by providing a full range of innovative, appropriate and accessible Personal Care Assistance/Geriatrics education resources that can also be easily used in e-learning approach and to promote social inclusion and employability. The partnership will thus develop: Resources: a suite of appropriate learning resources that build literacy and technical competences related to the Sector of Personal Caregivers / Geriatrics Technician in 4 main areas - Diet & Nutrition; Basic health care; Community and social intervention; Animation activities - for the SEN or/and Learning Difficulties VET students, to include:•IO1: A set of 25 micro learning courses/curricula with a gamification strategy dealing with the above mentioned Geriatrics main areas, 2-6 for each selected theme (depending on the number of competences in each) for the development of competences in the respective professional area. It will include the e-curriculum, e-guidelines and e-contents (mainly e-presentations of easy understanding for each learning unit, according to the target group specificities). •IO2: A collection of 25 themed tutorial videos (2-4) for each selected theme, will be produced and upload in Youtube and in IO5 for viewing and use in the class or at home; they will support IO1. •IO3: a compendium of 25 inclusive web-quest challenge-based educational resources, (4-6) for each selected theme; they will support IO1. •IO4: a series of workshop lesson plans and tip sheets according to the curriculum /training programme designed in IO1. They will include concepts analysis, best practices and will play a crucial role in the understanding of the methodology and approaches used. They will allow the building of necessary skills to e- and bi-learning approaches, to understand Micro Learning Methodology, to learn how to develop and use the challenge-based educational resources and to create own challenge-based inclusive WebQuests.•IO5: A Bespoke Platform with a gamification methodology based on objectives and learning results achievement. It will contain at least the same number of games as the number of micro learning courses and will support IO1. It will be also developed and populated with all the innovative learning resources mentioned in the previous outputs. A short-training event for teachers/trainers so they can facilitate and manage the e-learning model developed, specially focused on micro-learning methodology, gamification strategies and webquests, as these are still quite new tools in pedagogical approaches. All resources developed will be in on-line formats in 5 partner languages and made available to all interested parties, with the open access requirements of the ERASMUS+ programme.

"<< Background >>The World Health Organization takes a broad view of health, stating that ""health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity"". In doing so, it draws attention to the need to view health as the outcome of influences in addition to biomedical health care and management. Such a view is equally applicable to people with intellectual disabilities.World Health Organization, International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disabilities (IASSID) and Inclusion International (II) prepared a summative report on healthy ageing for adults with intellectual disabilities. In this report [1], Disadvantaged subgroups of ageing adults with intellectual disabilities are at particular risk. In many nations, older adults with severe and profound impairments are disregarded or institutionalized. Housing is often inadequate and health provision neglected. Older adults with mild impairments are often marginalized and not provided with minimal supports needed to be productive members of their societies. Rehabilitative services, vocational opportunities, and quality old-age services are not provided. In many nations, older women with intellectual disabilities experience challenges that are particular to their sex. Their specific needs are often overlooked or dismissed. Older adults with co-morbid conditions experience particular problems and their compound physical and/or mental health conditions not addressed.Nations vary in their recognition of and provision for adults with intellectual disabilities. In many cultures, persons with disabilities may not hold a valued status in societal terms.Consequently, they may have reduced access to the basic necessities of life, including housing, work opportunities, nutrition, and health care, which are associated with ageing in good health. Barriers to the acceptance of persons with intellectual disabilities can include prejudicial beliefs about the nature and causes of disability, poorly organized services or a lack of government policies favouring supports for persons with disabilities, inadequate health and social services, and poorly trained professionals or practitioners. Poor health status and unfavourable economic conditions affecting the entire national population may also be barriers. Such barriers can be overcome with enlightened public policies, educated professionals and carers, determined advocacy, and other special compensatory efforts.Older persons must be full participants in the development process and also share in its benefits. No individual should be denied the opportunity to benefit from development. Likeother people, older people with intellectual disability may have significant physical health needs, reflecting the social and economic circumstances which have shaped their daily lives. Environments that foster healthy social relationships, trust, economic security, sustainable development and other factors related to advancing the health and well-being of citizens have been identified by governments as priorities. Healthier communities with greater social cohesion produce healthier citizens. Further, the effect is cumulative and lifelong, with good health in childhood affecting and contributing to good health in older age. The UN International Plan of Action on Ageing asserts that each country must respond to demographic trends and the resulting changes ""in the context of its own traditions, structures, and cultural values . . ."" [2]. This view is equally applicable to older people with intellectual disabilities. Focusing on ageing and intellectual disability implies that all policies affecting people with intellectual disabilities are developed in such a way as to maintain, if not improve, their situation as they age.Resources:1: https://www.who.int/mental_health/media/en/20.pdf2: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/documents/ageing/MIPAA/political-declaration-en.pdf<< Objectives >>In 1991, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the United Nations Principles for Older Persons (resolution 46/91), the eighteen principles of which fall into five clusters concerning their status:1. Independence2. Participation3. Care4. Self-fulfillment5. DignityThe population of older adults in the European Union is increasing during the last 20 years. Increasing age is but one of many factors associated with disparities in health access and outcomes, lower socioeconomic status, geographic proximity to health professionals, and having a disability. Moreover, within the population of those with disabilities, persons with intellectual disabilities (ID) are further disadvantaged. The potential synergistic effect of increasing age with concomitant membership in a vulnerable population increases the risk of experiencing poor health [1].Owing to marked increases in life expectancy for individuals with ID in recent decades, the life expectancy of adults with mild ID is rapidly approaching near parity with the general population. Persons with moderate or severe ID now routinely live into their late 60s and late 50s, respectively [2]. Furthermore, older adults with Down syndrome are consistently living beyond their late 50s, with sporadic reports of individuals living to their 70s and even early 80s. Consequently, the relatively rapid increase in a new population of ageing adults with complex medical and mental health problems has resulted in inadequate geriatric health care provision [3].""Training of family members and guardians for the inclusion of ageing adults with disabilities"" project will aim to develop non-formal education materials for family members and legal guardians for the achievement of secure ageing and empowerment of full and effective participation in social life. Because the social inclusion of ageing adults with disabilities is still a pending and not fully achieved policy of the European Union.Concreate objectives of the project are:- Develop a toolkit on how to train parents and legal guardians of ageing adults with disabilities- Develop a parental education guidebook to encourage and support parents, family members and legal guardians of ageing adults with intellectual disabilities- Create educational spot videos for families- Design a comprehensive online resource with a categorized database- Prepare a policy recommendation report about the process of problem-solving related to provided services for ageing adults with disabilitiesResources:1: Havercamp SM, Scandlin D, Roth M. Health disparities among adults with developmental disabilities,. Public Health Rep. 2004;119(4):418-426152197992: Bittles AH, and others. The influence of intellectual disability on life expectancy. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2002;57(7): M470-M472120848113: Janicki MP, and others. Mortality and morbidity among older adults with intellectual disability: health services considerations. Disabil Rehabil. 1999;21(5-6):284-29410381241<< Implementation >>Main activities are:1. Preparation of the bilateral agreements between the project coordinator and each partner organization 2. Monitoring all project activities3. Managing the pre-defined work plan and the deadline for all tasks4. Managing the administrative and financial report process for every 6 months5. Organization of TPMs6. Preparation of the minutes of TPMs and updating the action plan 7. Preparation of an effective communication strategy8. Creation of a Cloud Drive file sharing platform9. Preparation of financial and management reports for every 6 months10. Preparation of the dissemination plan and dissemination report with evidence for every 6 months11. Creation of the final dissemination report 12. Preparation of an internal quality evaluation plan and internal quality evaluation surveys 13. Creation of the final quality evaluation report 14. Designing paper brochure of project results and other dissemination materials15. Setting up advisory board per country with experts 16. Creation of the project web platform 17. Preparation of a sustainability plan and template 18. Preparation of the sustainability report of the project 19. Production of the toolkit on how to train parents and legal guardians of ageing adults with disabilities (R1)20. Production of the parental education guidebook (R2)21. Production of the educational spot videos for families (R3)22. Production of the online learning HUB for family members of ageing adults with disabilities (R4)23. Production of the policy recommendation report (R5)24. Arrangement of pilot training activities with target groups (use produced project results in pilot training)25. Arrangement of the multiplier event ""Seminar: Active Ageing and Wellbeing for People with Disabilities"" in each partner country 26. Arrangement of the multiplier event ""Final Conference: Inclusion of ageing adults with disabilities""27. Preparation of the progress, interim and final report of the project<< Results >>Outcomes of the project are:- Toolkit on how to train parents and legal guardians of ageing adults with disabilities- Parental education guidebook- Educational spot videos for families- Online learning HUB for family members of ageing adults with disabilities- Policy recommendation report- Project website- Paper brochuresTotally 240 people will be trained in the project's target group. These are:- Parents of ageing adults with disabilities > 120 (20 people in each partner country)- Family members of ageing adults with disabilities > 60 (10 people in each partner country)- Guardians of ageing adults with disabilities > 60 (10 people in each partner country)Expected results of the project on participants are:- Increased knowledge, competence, and skills of the trainers/experts.- Increased knowledge, competence, and skills of family members and legal guardians of ageing adults with disabilities.- A greater understanding of the challenges and changes in cognitive capacities; physical abilities; social support networks; physical health of ageing adults with intellectual disabilities.- Increased knowledge, competence, and skills of parents, family members and legal guardians of ageing adults with intellectual disabilities for positive reinforcement, a strong sense of self-worth, confidence.- Increased ability to handle stress, limitations, changes in cognitive capacities, physical abilities; social support networks; physical health of ageing adults with intellectual disabilities.- A greater understanding of facing and overcoming challenges; knowing how to ask for help and professional support.- Increased knowledge, competence, and skills of parents, family members and legal guardians of ageing adults with intellectual disabilities for positive reinforcement, a strong sense of self-worth, confidence.- Increased ability to handle stress, limitations, changes in cognitive capacities, physical abilities; social support networks; physical health of ageing adults with intellectual disabilities.- A greater understanding of facing and overcoming challenges; knowing how to ask for help and professional support.- Increased knowledge, competence, behaviour, and skills of parents, family members and legal guardians of ageing adults with intellectual disabilities by using online learning HUB.- A greater understanding of the policy-based solutions that the project provided on ""elderly care"" and ""intellectual disability"".- Increased awareness of the lack of supportive services for parents, family members and legal guardians of ageing adults with disabilities.- Increased knowledge our the effectiveness and relevance of the project with reached goals, developed project results and gathered feedback.Outcomes of the PMI activities are: - Project management guideline- Effective communication strategy - Dissemination plan - Dissemination report - Internal quality evaluation plan - Quality evaluation report - Paper brochure of project results - Dissemination materials - Advisory board meeting reports- Multilingual web platform - Sustainability plan- Sustainability report - Progress/interim and final report of the project"

Good quality Early Childhood Education and Care (henceforth ECEC) has a beneficial influence on children's later school careers, especially when they have disadvantaged backgrounds. But the ECEC sector is not highly valued in society. Furthermore, the instruction quality in European ECEC settings is moderate-to-low, and vulnerable in settings with many disadvantaged children. Professionals struggle to respond to the challenges of diversity, and often do not focus on children's competences to cope with diversity. Although there is a growing research base on what works to improve these issues, those research insights are not fully known to the ECEC community and not yet adopted in practice on a large scale. This project aimed to improve the bridge between research and practice by launching a blog in each partner country for ECEC professionals and other stakeholders. Central topics were the societal value of ECEC, ECEC for disadvantaged children, high process quality, valuing diversity, and teaching children competences to deal with diversity. Bloggers were teacher educators and researchers, who strengthened their pivotal role between research and practice. They made scientific research accessible and attractive to ECEC teachers, reflected on current practices and innovations, and stimulated ECEC teachers to adopt an inquisitive and innovative attitude in their own classroom practice. Bidirectional communication between the professionals and the bloggers was improved by the invitation of guest bloggers, by addressing the needs of the professionals in the blog posts, by the organization of multiplier events with ample room for discussion, and the integration in social media communities that foster discussion. Based on the professionals' preference to discuss relevant topics within their own teams, the blog messages contained reflective questions, and advice was given to use the blogs during team professionalization.Apart from these national blogs, we set up a European blog in English with the same scope, but a different target group. Here ECEC experts, such as teacher educators, researchers, policymakers, and senior teachers with a good command of English, were targeted. Blog messages from the European blog were translated and adapted to the national blogs, and vice versa, to raise the visibility of ongoing research and innovation in the European context. This European blog was helpful to reach the field of ECEC in other European countries and to ensure strong connections and collaboration between the national blogs.The quality of the blogs was monitored following the development of guidebooks with quality guidelines and procedures, and improved by means of PDCA-cycles including focus groups, data analysis, an online questionnaire, and professionalization of the bloggers. These guidebooks help establish and maintain high-quality blogs after the end of the project. Furthermore, the guidebooks may inspire similar initiatives in other countries. To this end, we presented the outcomes of the project at national and international conferences. Leaflets were developed to support guest bloggers and blog readers to use the blog in their teams. Other project activities aimed at the further dissemination of the blogs. Apart from traditional dissemination activities, we made extensive and smart use of social media. For example, existing large Facebook communities of ECEC professionals were addressed. Popular YouTube videos featuring young children were integrated in the blog posts. Reference to the blogs on existing websites, blogs, and professional magazines was fostered. During the COVID19 pandemic, project partners discovered webinars were good means to disseminate the blogs and increase discussion and exchange about the blog themes. Between September 2019 and August 2020 we had over 280.000 visitors of the blogs altogether, including ECEC teachers, teacher educators, researchers, and policymakers.Based on the Internet survey conducted within the last months of the project, we know that this project strengthened ECEC teachers' and teacher educators' research-based insights in the central topics of the project, increased awareness of social inclusion, increased a positive attitude towards research and innovation, and strengthened the open learning community of ECEC teacher educators, teachers, researchers, and policymakers. Blog readers used insights from the blogs in their own practice. In the end, this project will lead to innovations in ECEC settings and professionalization initiatives that will infuse insights from research and innovation in the partner countries concerning our central topics. We expect the European blog to be an effective tool to spread research-based insights at an international level and increase international awareness of European expertise in the field of ECEC.

Discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression continue to be a worrying reality at the European level (EU LGBT Survey, 2013; Eurobarometer on Discrimination, 2015). Despite the progress made to guarantee equal rights and protection of the LGBTQI+ community, European education systems continue to face the pending challenge of guaranteeing inclusiveness and equity at all levels. Higher education institutions have still much progress to make in this regard (Council of Europe, 2011). HEI4Diversity aims to map the existing actions and resources in higher education institutions in different European countries, to create a European network for the exchange of practices related to the inclusion of the LGBTQI+ community in higher education, and to design and develop a digital training course aimed at building capacities among different agents of the university community, regarding the prevention of any form of homophobic and transphobic violence, harassment or discrimination. The Strategic partnership will involve the participation of higher education institutions from different European countries, as well as NGO and other organisations advocating for LGBT Rights at the EU level. The project will contribute to build capacities among the higher education institutions involved, regarding the protection, support and prevention of any form of violence faced by the LGBTQI+ community, from the training and exchange of practices, and will foster the design and further implementation of protocols that allow more effective forms of action, thus contributing to the creation of more inclusive higher education institutions. Likewise, the planned activities will favour the effective collaboration between diverse educational and social stakeholders, fostering a closer connection between higher education institutions and their surrounding communities. Ultimately, the project aims to give a boost to higher education universities to become inclusive communities that guarantee LGBTQI+’s students learning and development.

Project title: 'The Intercutural Teachers' Competences in Multicultural Cities Warsaw-Berlin'Programme: ERASMUS+, Action KA2 Strategic Partnerships for School Education - Exchanges of PracticesTarget groups: teachers, pupils, students of pedagogical faculties.Project Duration: 1st of September, 2016 – 31st of August, 2018 Applicant Organisation: Miasto Stołeczne Warszawa - Biuro Edukacji (City of Warsaw, Education Department). The project is implemented in a range of the exchange of good practices in cooperation with Senatsverwaltung für Bildung, Jugend und Wissenschaft Berlin (Senate of Berlin).Partner Organisations: schools from both partner regions on three levels of education system (primary schools, lower secondary schools and upper secondary schools), pedagogical university, in-service teacher training centre and non-governmental organisations.The objectives of the project: Target group 'Teachers':preparing teachers for effective work with pupils, including: development of cultural and intercultural competences; raising competences with regards to methods of pedagogical work in a multicultural classroom, accounting for cultural differences and similarities; raising competences with regards to didactic work, including improving skills of modifying curricula including intercultural content; updating a system of support for teachers working in multicultural schools/classrooms.Target group 'Students of pedagogical faculties':preparation for work in a multicultural classroom/school, including: development of cultural and intercultural competences; sensitizing students to the cultural context of the student, including cultural differences appearing in a shifting school environment.Target group 'Pupils':preparation for life in a changing society, including fostering attitudes of openness, tolerance and social commitment and involving them in the integration process of migrant pupils; creation of favourable conditions for development and education in a multicultural classroom; introduction of a peer tutoring model - peer assistance in entering a new school environment.The results of the project:- the development of the model of assessment of foreign/refugee students, taking account of the language barrier,- introduction of a peer tutoring model - peer assistance in entering a new school environment, - development of tools supporting teachers working with migrant pupils, such as: 'Good Practice Guidance on the methods and tools of working in intercultural school addressed to headteachers and teachers',- updating the assumptions of a model system of support for teachers working in multicultural schools/classrooms (teacher networking) – among others, the appointment of the Warsaw - Berlin Network of Teacher Working with Migrant Pupils,- exchange of good practices in a range of a model of cooperation between a school and an NGO,- updating the assumptions of a model of educating future teachers including intercultural education and its dissamination,- use of social campaigns in the scope of multiculturalism, as a model for social dialogue.The main adopted methods of implementing project activities are: the exchange of good practices, including use of the 'job shadowing', the development of tools supporting teachers working with migrant pupils, the dissemination of materials through the e-learning, eTwinning type platform and through the partner institutions' websites. All above-mentioned project results will bring a long-term impact on all participating institutions and the target audiencies of the dissemination activities implementing on a regional, national and European level.