"The project "" Migration: Europe’s Challenge for the 21st Century "" initially brought together 6 schools of 6 different countries: Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Poland and Sweden. The choice of these schools allowed to approach the topic under a different point of view and brought to the project a know-how and/or additional insights related to their geographical situation.The coordinator is German. Eventually Sweden left the project before it even started, leaving the partners with trouble to deal with. It was necessary to find a solution to fill the void left by Sweden: Belgium replaced Sweden in the organization of the 1st transnational meeting and the management of the IT aspect (training and management of the website).The topic of this project is seriously anchored in the current events. As the project was set up in 2014-2015 we were far from imagining the extent of their evolution . And as the project ends, we are very aware that we are nowhere near close to ending the debate.The purpose of this project was to raise awareness and to encourage our people (students, parents, teachers) and their entourage (families, friends, ..) to reflect on the matter of migration from different angle (human, social and political). Subject covered involved economic and climatic migrations, refugees, the history and the study of the migratory flow, the questions of immigration and emigration, problems of integration, ...We consider that our young people have to take their place and play an active role in Europe by being aware of the difficulties and issues of tomorrow related to this big question that is migration. We wanted them to reflect on how to integrate migrants - whatever the underlying reason - at their home, at their school, in their village or city, in their country, here in Europe. ""We are all migrants"", one way or another, was one of the first observations.The subject allowed to set up numerous and varied learnings as well as developing transverse skills:- Practice of the languages (English mainly but also French, Dutch, German, Spanish, Italian and even Polish)- Use of the new technologies and computing tools (website, ICTS- Educational learnings: conceive and realize a survey, analyze and present the results of a survey, make a video movie, produce and present a Power Point slidedeck, realize and present an interview, analyze and present statistics...- Education in the media: reading and analysis of the press and the social networks- Creation of a multilingual glossary (6 languages) and a bibliography- Creation and management of a websiteDuring the 2 years of the project, numerous activities to implement all these learnings were organized in every school - also obviously during the mobilities (weeks of project). Each school was given very specific tasks to complete.On the other hand, every school was in charge of the organization of a meeting (that is transnational or week of project) namely (in the chronological order):· Belgium: 1st transnational meeting (in November, 2016): schedule of the project, the distribution of the tasks + training(formation) ""web site"" and education in the media· Italy: 1st week of project (in January-February, 2017): workshop ""movie"" + thematic visits· Spain: 2nd transnational meeting (in May, 2017): interim report + workshop ""inquiries""· Poland: 2nd week of project (in October, 2017): workshop ""power-point"" + thematic visits· Belgium: 3rd week of project (in March, 2018): workshops "" analyze inquiries and statistics "", presentation of the conclusions of the various studies carried out during the project + thematic visits· Germany: 3rd transnational meeting (in September, 2018): final report + work on the web siteDuring these mobility weeks, every school organized an evening event accessible to the general public: round table with local politicians, round table with actors from the NGO’s, the conference-testimony of actors on the ground, …Every school organised the work differently. In general in every school a core unit was created to function as embassador of the project at each school.The mobilities (transnational meetings and project weeks) also allowed our pupils (and our guides) to acquire social skills, more flexibility, more autonomy while discovering new lifestyles, “integrating” themselves in one European family, a city and a school.As we are nearing the end of this project, we are still very active. In fact we remain aware that there are many things to do to find solutions to this tricky problem. The subject remains sensitive and we shall continue to handle it without financing."

"Learning mental health knowledge and skills will be an essential component of VET in the future since the number of students with mental health challenges is increasing rapidly. Cedefop (2016) has identified students with multiple disadvantage, possibly facing health and psycho-social issues one of the major groups in danger of drop-out. However, vocational education and training in Europe can have a positive effect on mental well-being. Promoting Mental well-being in VET was a Strategic Partnership project which was based on developing pedagogical innovation and the exchange of good practice in mental health promotion, focusing on teachers, tutors, directors and students in VET. In addition the target group included in-company trainers. The priorities and objectives of the project were:a) Reinforcing and establishing a pro-active and preventive view to the concept of mental well-beingb) Developing material promoting mental health c) Piloting and testing new materiald) Translation of mental health promotion in VET through websitese) Planning the training program for the development of competence in mental health promotion in colleges and internship companiesThe project consortium consisted of four VET colleges in Finland, Spain, Denmark and the Netherlands, one higher education college in Lithuania, one expert association focusing in the promotion mental health and well-being issues in Finland and one umbrella organisation for VET in Belgium in order to ensure proper dissemination of the project outcomes. The project activities were carried out according to the project plan. The materials, tools and the training programme were structured around five themes: 1) mental well-being as a resource, 2) self-knowledge, 3) emotions and interaction, 4) coping skills and 5) the learning community. The project consortium piloted and evaluated the new material and the training courses. Meetings focused on training the new methods to other participants and sharing the existing best practices in partner organizations. The theoretical background of each new theme was introduced by a short lecture and a review on the topic. After the theory session the theme and best practices were practiced through functional activities. The choice of the best practices shared were always agreed upon during the previous meeting. The partners translated practices and introduced them in the meetings. There were 3-4 best practices presented at each meeting. The practices were introduced in a functional way by using learning-by-doing methods in order to participants to get idea how they work. After the meeting each presented practice was evaluated. Each organization also piloted the shared practices with their students or staff members. After each pilot, practices were evaluated by the participants (students, staff). Evaluation data was collected from the people who used the material and attended the training programme. The evaluation report describes the findings of the evaluation. One of the key components in the project was to share good practice and learn from each other - how mental well-being and mental health issues were being dealt in VET and how the issue could be further promoted in VET.The teaching staff in all the participating VET colleges were aware of the project through internal dissemination. The awareness of the importance of mental well-being in connection with study success increased. The gained skills in mental well-being promotion can be used in teaching and guidance work in classrooms and distance education, work mentoring and other cooperation. The students have more understanding on their own mental capacity and how to promote it. Unfortunately the project was unable to get the in-company trainers to participate the training sessions. However, the trained teaching staff that is involved in companies through students' on-the-job learning periods, is able to promote the ideas of mental well-being through their discussions and visits in the work places. All the produced tools and materials are freely available in the project blog http://mewebeinvet.blogspot.fi/. The project highlights the importance of the approach that includes everyone to support students’ mental well-being. The ""whole college"" approach provides a simple, low cost way of promoting mental health."