<< Background >>The motivation for the development of this project were meetings between the employees of our Career Office and our students from various fields. During these meetings, young people often admitted that they did not have any specific career plans. They were often students with good academic record, involved in the life of the university and acting as volunteers in various organizations. The biggest problem for them was that they came from small towns where there was no broader career prospect. An animator of the local environment seems to be an ideal profession for such people. This is how the idea of preparing a project was born, which would introduce young people to the profession of animator, which is currently not very popular in our country. Wanting to prepare materials for the project, we used the help of foreign partners and, after consultations, we decided to prepare a project aimed not only at young people in Poland.Needs that our project responds to:•young people involved in the life of their communities. Thanks to the materials developed as part of the project, people will gain knowledge about how they can transform their current activity into a profession, bringing not only satisfaction but also income. Thanks to practical information on the animator's work, they will receive tips on what exactly they can do to work even better. In addition, the project will satisfy their need to improve their competences and skills, it will indicate in which areas they should still train.•young people looking for their career path. There are a lot of young people rooted in the virtual world who, despite their high skills, do not really know what to do with their professional future. It is possible that the materials developed in the framework of the project (especially the O3 brochure) will help them decide what they would like to do in life and how to go about using their skills in a practical, useful and effective way.•organizations and institutions working with and for the benefit of local communities. Thanks to the project, they will gain knowledge about who the animator of the local environment is and how his work can support their activities.•Local communities from different regions. There are a lot of societies that would like to develop, but do not really know how to go about it. Thanks to the materials developed as part of the project, they will know that they can find people who will work for the development of these communities.<< Objectives >>The main goal of the project is to increase the knowledge and skills necessary to perform the profession of an animator of the local environment, as well as to increase the interest of young people in this profession, by developing a number of training and information materials targeted at young people in various EU countries.Detailed objectives:•Equipping young people who want to work as an animator of the local environment with tools enabling them to acquire knowledge and skills useful in working in this profession•increasing young people's awareness of the possibility of working as an animator of the local environment and the specificity of working in this profession•increased interest of young people in various EU countries in the profession of an animator of the local environment<< Implementation >>The activities within the project can be divided into two groups.The first of them are activities related to project management, ensuring the appropriate quality of project activities and the developed results, as well as activities related to disseminating information about the project, its assumptions, planned results, and finally disseminating the developed results.The second group of activities will be activities focused on the preparation of materials planned under the project. Here, the activities will depend on what we plan to achieve as part of a given result.O1 - Publication. In their activities, the partners will focus on preparing the content for individual chapters of the publication. At the beginning, the exact scope of the content that will be included in the publication will be determined, then the structure of individual chapters and the graphic design - thanks to this, the whole will be uniform. After that, each of the experts will prepare their part of the publication, and then the chief expert will put it together.O2 - online courses. Each of the partners will be actively involved in the development of both test questions (pre-tests and post-tests) as well as content for individual courses and webinar scenarios. After the content is prepared, the tests will be developed in an interactive form and the webinars will be recorded. The whole thing will then be assembled into courses. The next step will be to test the courses - in which experts from all partner organizations will be involved. After testing, the final version of the courses will be developed and posted on the project website.O3 will be prepared in the form of a brochure that will be prepared by all experts from the partner organizations. The first step will be to determine the exact content of the brochure and the layout of the individual chapters - so that the whole is consistent. When each of the partners has prepared their part of the brochure, the main expert will put it together, which will be consulted with young people - to check if it is understandable, attractive and useful for them. The final version will be posted on the project website.<< Results >>The results that we will develop as part of the project activities will serve this purpose.O1 – publication containing main information about the profession of local environment animator, with its description, list of skills needed in this job, concrete instructions about organization of work, as well as list of good practices with usage of non-standard training tools.O2 - A collection of training materials supporting the development of soft skills of people who want to work or work as animators of the local environment. The materials will consist of a series of thematic webinars on individual competences, as well as tests to check the knowledge of people participating in webinars (in the form of pre-tests and post-tests, both to be done by individuals and to be carried out by the institution). training)O3 - a brochure addressed to young people, containing basic information about what an animator of the local environment does, what competences should they have, where to get them, and therefore it is worth becoming interested in working in this profession.Apart from the quantifiable results, we hope that the project will also contribute to:•Change attitudes young people, representatives of local communities, local NGOs about importance of work of local animator in development of local communities•increasing professionalism in the performance of professional duties by people already working as local environment animators thanks to the possibility of improving their soft skills•increasing the standards of work of so far working local environment animators.•contribute to development of at least few local communities thanks to professional development of local environment animator.

<< Background >>During implementation of one of our national projects addressed to seniors (Senior in Action), we had the opportunity to establish contact with a fairly large group of seniors. During the talks with them, it turned out that in Poland there is quite a big problem with professionalism among people who care for seniors, both privately and in nursing homes. By professionalism, we understand soft skills, not specific hard skills. Seniors often emphasized that caregivers lack the appropriate approach, commitment, empathy, and the ability to communicate with an older person.We have consulted this topic with partners with whom we implement other projects. It turned out that the situation is also similar in many other countries.Many EU countries are aging and the process is progressing fairly quickly. This process goes hand in hand with the weakening of family ties, which unfortunately results in the younger generations being reluctant to take care of seniors.The demand for paid care for the elderly will therefore increase in importance in the coming years. Along with this demand, the requirements for people working as carers of seniors will also increase. Today's generations of seniors pay more and more attention to the way they are cared for and to the soft skills possessed by caregivers.We want our project to meet these issues.On the one hand, we want to make all interested parties aware of the importance of having appropriate soft skills for people who care for seniors. In our publication, we want to emphasize the importance of having appropriate soft skills on the professionalism of caregivers. On the other hand, we want to enable the caregivers and the people who train them to develop these competences, which are undoubtedly the most important in the carer's work.One of our results will also be a knowledge base containing basic information on the formal requirements and working conditions of senior caregivers in different countries. The database will be a response to another noticed problem - the lack of sufficient information for people who would like to work as a carer for seniors abroad. Our database will make it easier for them to obtain the information they need to choose the country in which these people would like to work.We hope that our project will contribute to the improvement of the situation on the market of care services for seniors<< Objectives >>The main goal of the project is to increase the knowledge and skills necessary to perform the profession of caregiver for seniors, as well as to increase the interest of young people in this profession, by developing a number of training and information materials targeted at young people in various EU countries.Detailed objectives:•Providing young people who want to work as a caregiver for seniors or who work in this profession with tools enabling them to improve skills useful at work as a carer for seniors•increasing the efficiency and attractiveness of educating caregivers of seniors by indicating good practices in the field of non-standard methods of education and training of carers of seniors•increasing the awareness of young people about the education path and formal requirements regarding work for a caregiver of seniors in various EU countries<< Implementation >>All our activities will be focused on the preparation of planned results. Of course, at the same time, we will carry out all activities related to project management, ensuring the appropriate quality of project activities and the developed results, as well as disseminating information about our work and materials that we will develop.Activities that we plan as part of the preparation of individual results:O1 –Publication. At the beginning of activities aimed at developing this result, the partners will jointly decide on the exact division of responsibilities - i.e. which expert will be responsible for the preparation of specific content. Each of the partners will appoint an expert who will be responsible for the work on a selected part of the publication (as well as for conducting research aimed at preparing the content), evaluating the content prepared by other experts, and translating the finished publication into their native language. At a later date, each partner will also be responsible for disseminating the publication to their respective target groups in their country.O 2 – online courses. The first step will be for the partners to develop a list of questions that will be included in the tests measuring the level of skills before and after the completion of the prepared courses. The package leader will, of course, supervise the work of the experts, however, it is important that all experts actively participate in the preparation of the tests. The lead expert will prepare the final version of the questions and a description of the results and feedback for the people who will use the tests.In the next step, the package leader will present the other experts with the template for the webinar scenario and the sample text for the course. Of course, other experts will also be actively involved in this stage.The partners will also divide the materials to be prepared. Each of the experts will develop the selected part, and the lead expert will be responsible for ensuring that the final shape of the materials is uniform and consistent.In the last step, each of the partners will organize a short testing of selected elements of materials (those prepared by their experts) among a selected group of 10 people. Based on this testing, the final version of the materials will be developed, which each partner will translate into their own language.O3 – Database. At the beginning of the activities leading to the development of materials under O2, the partners share the responsibilities so that each of them will be responsible for analyzing the situation in several countries and preparing some of the materials. After the first version of the materials has been developed, each of the partners will organize a short testing - send a link to the test version of the materials to friendly institutions and experts for evaluation of the prepared content. It is important that people outside the project team can make an independent assessment of the suitability, reliability, attractiveness and understandability of the materials that will be widely available.<< Results >>As part of the project activities, it is planned to develop 3 main intellectual outputs:•O1 – publication/report containing 3 main chapters. 1st one containing information about what soft skills a caregiver of seniors should have and why they are so important. 2nd chapter containing a specific list of soft skills that are most desirable in senior caregivers. 3rd chapter containing a set of good practices in the use of non-standard tools for the development of soft skills among people participating in courses preparing for the profession of caregiver for seniors. •O2 A set of training materials supporting the development of soft skills of people who want to work or work as carers of the elderly. The materials will consist of a series of thematic webinars on individual competences, as well as tests to check the knowledge of people participating in webinars (in the form of pre-tests and post-tests, both to be done by individual people, and to be carried out by training institution)•O3 - materials containing information on the path of education of carers of elderly people in various EU countries, as well as a list of formal requirements in individual EU countries that should be met by people who want to work as carers of the elderly peopleApart from the quantifiable results, we hope that the project will also contribute to:•Change attitudes both training institutions offering training for seniors’ caregivers as well as seniors’ caregivers themselves about importance of having high level of soft skills while working with seniors•increasing professionalism in the performance of professional duties by caregivers of seniors thanks to the possibility of improving their soft skills•increasing the professional mobility of caregivers of seniors by gaining access to information on the formal requirements and working conditions of a caregiver of seniors in various EU countries•increasing the standards of care for seniors thanks to the greater soft skills of the caregivers•making the training offer for carers of seniors more attractive was preceded by adding elements shaping soft competences

Population ageing is one of the greatest social and economic challenges facing the EU. Projections foresee a growing number and share of elderly persons (aged 65 and over), with a particularly rapid increase in the number of very old persons (aged 85 and over). Due to changes in age demography and growing number of seniors, the demand for qualified caregivers will be increasing parallely. This trend is reflected to some respect in the educational offer of different institutions, like VET schools, educational centers, adult education institutions. However, all of them are focused on development of professional competences of caregivers and forget about fostering soft skills development, which in case of caregivers are crucial. Today, about 60% of care in the EU is provided by informal carers. Nevertheless, even caregivers who went through formal education path present major shortages in a soft skills. Preliminary, on the base of the desk research, the following soft skills were identified as the crucial ones while working with seniors: 1) communication skills 2) being a good listener 3) empathy 4) patience 5) 6) assertiveness 7) keen observation skills 8) being able to empower and motivate 9) ‘thick skin’ skills.Unfortunately, caregivers are not equipped with sufficient level of soft skills and have no knowledge and awareness of their importance, while other stakeholders like owners of residential/care/nursing houses and seniors themselves more often appreciate caregivers with appropriate personal approach. This approach has the reflection in seniors wellbeing which as now one of EU strategies priority. The competition on a labour market leads us to a situation when unskilled personnel will not be employed.For the purpose of project realisation following target groups were identified:•formal and informal caregivers of seniors working as a freelancers or working in nursing/care/residential homes, day care centers. This usually includes professional staff like nurses, physiotherapists, speech therapists and caregivers with no medical background.•People working in centres of culture or senior clubs who are responsible for organising the free time for seniors. Sometimes in these places work professional animators or therapists, but very often those people had no professional background•Seniors, adult residents of nursing/care/residential homes, day care centres; those who use assistants for living.•Participants of centres of cultures and senior clubs.•Owners of nursing/care/residential homes and day care centres and people responsible for HR policy, stakeholders, decision-makers in the field of senior care.The partnership of Here4U project aim at: •increasing the level of seniors` caregivers soft skills •improvement of competences, linked to their professional practices•empowering seniors` caregivers •improvement of the level of seniors` service highlighting the emotional and psychological aspect of seniors` care •fostering relation between caregiver and senior•improvement of seniors` wellbeing•increasing participation and learning performance of seniors For that reason partnership plan at creating the following outputs:•IO1 – Diagnostic Tool for Assesment of Soft Skills – the purpose is to develop and test a multidimensional ICT tool and to identify areas of improvement. It will be a standardized tool prepared according to the psychometric approach. After completion of the questionnaire, every user gets an automatic report which includes the results of the assessment. •IO2 - E-learning platform fostering soft skills improvement – developed in the latest standards (HTML5, CSS3) and will follow the “Progressive web application” guidelines. This means that the platform will be fully responsive so that it can be accessed by any device (including mobile devices). Beside this it will be installable as a mobile application on a every mobile device and it will behave as an app.•IO3 Online course empowering seniors`caregivers – digital guides and materials on increasing their level of crucial soft skills necessary to work with seniors (identified in details in IO1), as well as fostering relation between caregiver and senior and improving seniors` wellbeing by the usage of scenarios and video tutorials ready for immediate implementation while working with seniors.•IO4 Advocacy document - the collection of best practices and recommendations gathered and adjusted relatively to the concept of the project and disseminated widely amongst the places where the caregivers work, as well as at decision making level.