CONTEXT LEAD!, specific LEArning Disorders no more! is a project aimed at increasing SOCIAL INCLUSION starting with school education and decreasing Early School Leaving (ESL) empowering students with the right competences. Indeed the project wants to identify and defeat the barriers that students with Specific Learning Disabilities meet at school when they start writing and reading. EUROPE 2020 Strategy wants to reduce ESL to less 10 % around EUROPE, and, according to EUROSTAT (Disability statistics - access to education and training), 1 out of 4 people in EUROPE who faces BASIC ACTIVITY DIFFICULTIES, leaves the school prematurely. According to EPALE (JULY 2017) there were around 35.67 million students with such disabilities, 13.88 million coming from PRIMARY SCHOOL and 21.700.000 from secondary school. OBJECTIVELEAD! wants to empower and support students (9-14 years old) in developing the right competences about the ADAPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES and their use thanks to the support of an INNOVATIVE PLATFORM, MY SKILLS. The learning material will be validated according to the EUROPEAN GUIDELINES OF THE VALIDATION OF NON-FORMAL AND INFORMAL LEARNING (CEDEFOP) and, at the end of the learning path, students will have the chance to get the EUROPEAN ADATPITVE TOOL LICENCE. TARGET GROUPThe DIRECT TARGET GROUP of the project is represented by students with SPECIFIC LEARNING DIFFICULTIES (SLD) with age range 9-14 years old. The INDIRECT TARGET GROUP is instead composed by teachers, headmasters, tutors and trainers and all the school and no school staff dealing with students with Specific Learning Disorders. In pointing out the this target group, families have to be considered as indirect beneficiaries of the project due to the fact that they will exploit project results with their children. ACTIVITIESIn order to reach its objective, LEAD! wants to promote forefront knowledge regarding the adaptive technologies (and their use) and create the EUROPEAN ADAPTIVE TOOL LICENCE targeting students with LSD (age 9-14). Students with SEN (SPECIFIC EDUCATIONAL NEEDS), which include students with Learning Specific Disorders, indeed have a higher probability to leave school prematurely compared to those students without disabilities ((Early School Leaving and Learners with Disabilities and/or Special Educational Needs, European Agency for special needs and inclusive education, 2017). To reach its objective, LEAD! will develop and adapt to distant learning a training course targeting the adaptive technologies which it will adapted to MY SKYLLS PLATFORM. At the end of the learning path, students can award the EUROPEAN ADAPTING TOOL LICENCE which it will support them to ACQUIRE the NECESSARY learning competences and, on the other side, it will be the quality LABEL that it will certify to the teachers that the students are ABLE TO USE THE ADAPTIVE TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGIES.

"More and more people and organisations are becoming aware of the educational value of volunteering, and of validation opportunities for the voluntary sector. However, ther use and impact is largely unknown. Furthermore the risk of reinventing the wheel by setting up new projects is evident, and on the other hand, there are ‘’missing links’’e.g. in connecting the validation methods with the European Guidelines or instruments like the European Qualification Framework for Validation or in forms of volunteering that are not recognised. The Improving Validation in the Voluntary Sector (ImproVal) project was set out to tackle this problem. The group of five European organisations put together their past and present expertise on skills recognition and validation in the voluntary sector. By bringing together existing information and collecting new data, ImproVal project created an online compendium, a synthesis, a study and policy recommendations for advancing the understanding on validating volunteers' skills.We engaged over 80 representatives from voluntary organisations, volunteers and validation experts in our study on experiences in using tools designed for validating volunteers' skills. Through the webinars and workshops we reached about 100 stakeholders live at local, national and European level, and webinar recordings and videos reached 270 views. Over the 26 months of ImproVal project, we- created a ""volunteering validation compendium"", an online collection of 45 validation tools in 22 languages from EU member states- created a synthesis of the validation tools (46 tools) by analysing their pedagogical principles and other essential dimensions- conducted a study among volunteers and organisations who have participated in validation processes about the impact of validation, combining quantitative data by questionnaires and qualitative data through group interviews- produced an article based on the study and translated the summary to five languages (DE, FI, FR, NL, SK)- produced recommendations for policy makers and organisations interested in validation on basis of the synthesis and study- composed an annex to the policy recommendations, which connects numbers of executed validation projects in different EU member states to national policies of validation and volunteering- engaged stakeholders in a dialogue on validation by using webinars and facilitated workshops, thus raising their awareness and interest in advancing validation. As a result:- Participating organisations have learned to adapt their validation policies and gained new methods as well as reached an overview about existing instruments to validate skills and competencies acquired in field of volunteering- There is an increased understanding of the value of competencies gained by volunteering and volunteering in general among participating organisations and various stakeholders, such as voluntary organisations, educational institutions and policy makers- Various organisations have been informed about the project outcomes, and in the future they will be able to use and adapt existing tools in their validation activities and avoid putting time and effort into creating something that already exists and to focus on more innovative projects- Policy developments can be detected at micro level at some educational institutions in them opening up more to validating informally learning outcomes, and beyond individual institutions in policy recommendations at local, regional and even national and European levels. In the long term, the project benefits a wide number of individual volunteers who will have better access to validation opportunities, thus increasing motivation for learning and employability, and also voluntary organisations through access to methods and tools, educational institutions through an understanding on learning by volunteering and validation which give them the ability to guide their learners more smoothly though formal education, and employers and policy makers by increasing their awareness of the educational value of volunteering and their ability to design policies that advance the use of validation."

BACKGROUND & CHALLENGESTaMPADA focused on the need of Adult Education Providers (hereinafter AEPs) to track lifelong and lifewide progress pathways of disadvantaged learners. In fact, it was often noted and observed that life basic skills and competences growth from learners, coming from disadvantaged settings, were granted no validation with counter effect on learners’ personal up skilling and on AEP’s effort to link their informal learning with formal education and employment routes. Having the above-mentioned in mind, TaMPADA developed a toolkit for measuring learners’ lifelong and lifewide progress. Finally, considering the fact that adult learners from disadvantaged settings is difficult to reach and measure the project developed an ICT web-based tool and community inter-institutional synergies with intermediary organizations. This is what TaMPADA attempted to achieve throughout its life span. OBJECTIVES TaMPADA achievements: - Developed an ICT and community-based outreach framework and monitoring toolkit for AEP’s to enhance learners centered approached to quality assurance: tampadadigitaltool.eu in 5 languages. - Anchored this framework to both evolving and emerging quality assurance practices in adult education in the EU.- Yielded benefits for public authorities and AEPs from the exchange of good practices and the promotion and harmonization of tracking and monitoring procedures. THE TaMPADA PARTNERSHIPThe partnership comprised of 5 partners with complementary skills and long experience and expertise on adult education. DACES, AZM and Folkuniveritetet have a long-standing engagement with marginalized and socially disadvantaged learners and played an important role in adult education since they represent networks of learning centers regionally and nationally.LLLP leveraged the communication of TaMPADA framework EU wide and ensured maximum dissemination and impact across adult education networks, policy – making and implementation circles.PROMEA brought significant expertise on ICT-based methodology and tool development, contributed to increasing the framework’s tracking and monitoring potential for impact and sustainability by mobilizing and developing digital resources for use by AEPs. ACTIVITIES & METHODOLOGYThe TaMPADA partnership successfully explored indicators and identified those affecting disadvantaged learners’ lifelong and lifewide progress. Also, partners developed a methodology for AEPs to use open data resources at regional, national and EU level. In addition, the partnership developed a monitoring tool for monitoring disadvantaged learners’ lifelong and lifewide progress combing results from surveys and other public datasets. Moreover, the partnership developed a framework addressed to AEPs, which covers two dimensions: web-based and communities (inter-institutional) synergies. Finally, the partnership developed an ICT based monitoring toolkit to be used independently and/or in the context of inter-institutional community synergies (tampadadigitaltool.eu), which was validated by AEPs and at a later stage the partnership also produced a policy recommendations paper. RESULTS & IMPACTThe TaMPADA consortium:- Raised awareness and improved partners and other AEPs networks’ capacity for learner-centered approach and long-term impact assessment.-Increased AEPs capacity to provide quality assured skills and uplifted competences of disadvantaged adult learners to respond better to their personal and societal needs.-Increased visibility and transparency of tracking and monitoring practices by developing the ICT web-based tool and evidence collection framework available to all AEPs.-Extended networks and synergies among AE stakeholders, AEPs, community organizations and authorities by producing the operational framework for inter-institutional synergies.-Strengthened links between informal and formal education pathways - Organized 11 information days to promote project results, gathering 368 participants. POST-PROJECT SUSTAINABILITYThe TaMPADA partners managed to promote the use of TaMPADA web-based toolkit, extended strategy and recommendations to AEPs and community education providers. Additionally, up took and diffused project materials to relevant regulating authorities and networks of AEPs across the EU and finally managed to advance national strategies by supporting, refining and harmonizing tracking and monitoring initiatives set forth by TaMPADA.

The “Inclusion Box” project aims at ensuring more inclusive education and training organisations, more inclusive education approaches and actions, through a capacity building process to better face and respond to current and future societal challenges.The project consists of an interdisciplinary, bottom-up process, involving key stakeholders in the design of innovative training resources collected in an online platform with the goal of supporting the digital transition, access and participation in learning processes and inclusion and diversity strategies in the sector. These are key issues the consortium will work on to foster inclusive and innovative management methods and pedagogical approaches among educational staff and managers. Partner organisations will: identify inspiring practices on these three main areas, disseminate these practices through online and in-person training and exploit them through further training and educative actions in different contexts.The consortium involves 5 partner organisations, ensuring impact from the international to the local level through their extensive network of members and partners in several EU and non-EU countries. The primary target group of the project are the adult educators and staff working in the education and training sector; this group includes different profiles: managers, officers, volunteers, educators and trainers.The project is structured in 6 work packages. Thanks to their pan European membership, the training and project results will be utilised by national, regional and local educational providers. The new pedagogical approaches implemented within their target groups, the alternative management strategies put into practice in their inclusive education initiatives and the participatory methods applied, will all make educational staff and managers of Civil Society Organisations more aware and willing to practice inclusive educational approaches also at internal level.

"In the recent years, regional, national and European policies have stressed out the crucial need to increase cooperation and synergy research between stakeholders in the fields of education, training, employment and entrepreneurship, in order to deliver better services in lifelong guidance. To do so, the Cités des métiers International Network (RICDM) wants to launch a new project in strategic partnerships about the development of “multi-partnership management” in Cités des métiers and other lifelong career guidance centres. Indeed, we need to go further than the traditional fields, as publics’ needs are evolving and the lifelong career guidance approach is not addressed enough. In that sense, the project would be a continuation of the European project COCADE ""DEveloping CAreer COunselling services in integrated spaces"", during which good practices within lifelong guidance services were shared. The Keep In Pact project “Keep INnovation in multi PArtnership CooperaTion in lifelong guidance services” led by RICDM will gather 6 organisations working the fields of education, vocational training and employment; covering 5 countries. The other partners of the consortium are Universcience-Cité des métiers de Paris (FR), Learningdigital (IT), Municipio do Porto-Cidade das Profissoes (PT), the Agency for Science and Higher Education (Croatia) and the LifeLong Learning Platform (BE).Main purposes of the project are to :-up-skill the ""multi-partnership management"" function among professionals working in lifelong career guidance services,-develop an innovative ecosystem approach of multi partnership management This would lead to the adaptation of services to the needs/expectations of clients and increase the use of the digital in lifelong career guidance services, while building-up new multi partnership cooperation in the field. Also, the projects aims at the gathering of different actors to provide lifelong career guidance services, the mutual added value among stakeholders, and the contribution to local and regional public policies to reach consistency of initiatives among stakeholders.The partners aim at the fulfilment of these objectives thanks to the innovative tools and contents that will be implemented, as the topic has never been addressed yet : learning materials, virtual reality, a repository of skills for the non-formal competences validation process of the partnership management function, etc…The project will be organised in particular around 4 activities of intellectual production :-A practice analysis regarding stakeholders cooperation in lifelong career guidance,-A toolkit for mutual learning and training activities -The non formal validation of skills,-The building of a European Community of practitioners.The project includes as well 2 training activities for trainers, 2 dissemination events, and 5 transnational meetings.For activities such as intellectual outputs, project committee and training sessions, the consortium’s partners have identified two target groups: -a first target composed of around 30 professionals among partners’ staff with a diversity of profiles such as partnership managers, directors, career counsellors, facilitators, teachers/trainers, project officer, communication assistant, etc.-A second target group will be gathered during the dissemination events, with participants such as policy makers, representatives of companies, clients or end-users of services and citizens. A total of 170 persons is expected: 70 in the first event and 100 in the second one.Around 50 other external participants are expected during the project, including experts working in the fields of education, training, employment and entrepreneurships policy; and staff of local partners among Cités des métiers via the RICDM and CISOK centres via AZVO.The project will have longer term benefits, in that sense that the practices and the tools will be carried out and useful after its end, as they will be transferable to other territories and countries, in order to sustain lifelong guidance services partnerships. Then, the contents and outcomes of the project will be useful for the European community of practitioners created. Finally, the attractiveness of already existing lifelong guidance structures such as Cités des métiers and one-stop shops centres such as CISOK centres in Croatia and Ohjaamo in Finland will be increased, as they will benefit from a better services quality and offer for their clients following the project. In addition, as the LLLP is involved in the Europass Revision Advisory group, the project could have an impact on this Europass revision and thus help Euroguidance improve their work."