<< Background >>The new “Report on the gender perspective in the COVID-19 crisis and post-crisis period”, published by the EU Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, emphasizes “the need for retraining and upskilling programmes for women to take account of shifts in the labour market as a consequence of COVID-19“, stating the concern about higher crisis-related job losses in women-dominated professions and the expectation of prolonged recovery times in female-dominated sections compared to male-dominated ones (European Parliament 20.11.2020). The chair of the European parliament's committee on women's rights and gender equality put the situation in a nutshell: “the pandemic relentlessly discloses gender inequality in all its shapes and forms” – “the corona crisis is female” (Austrian MEP Evelyn Regner 2020). The recent UN Women data concludes that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, “women are losing their livelihoods faster because they are more exposed to hard-hit economic sectors” such as sales, cleaning occupations, nursing, educational sector, etc. (DGB-Index 2020). The HOPE project aims to address these inequalities by focussing on the needs of women with fewer opportunities (women with interrupted employment, with part-time work, those in charge of childcare/caring for others, victims of domestic and gender-based violence, women with low income, single or divorced women with children), who are especially affected by consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic (genanet – Coordination Centre Gender et al., 2020). The recent international survey “Career guidance policy and practice in the pandemic” published by Cedefop, European Commission, ETF, ICCDPP, ILO, OECD, and UNESCO (2020) confirms the importance of career guidance for recovery in post-COVID-19 times. Therefore, HOPE will also address the needs of counsellors in helping professions working in four project countries. Particularly those in three Balkan countries where counselling as a profession is not developed and formal education programs for counselling do not exist. Women with fewer opportunities are in a need of having their competences assessed in an effective and innovative way, to be empowered and to (re-)integrate into the labor market, educational or training opportunities. The process-based, individual and group counselling work during the HOPE project will enable women to connect with role models and access resources and opportunities more easily. With the support of counsellors, women will discover their strengths, gain self-confidence, and start their process of (re-)integration into the active society.<< Objectives >>The HOPE project aims to empower and guide women with fewer opportunities toward securing employment, education, or training, and successfully (re-)integrating them into social and economic systems, by offering high-quality counselling, competence assessment and career guidance to this target group. Counsellors in four project countries (Germany, Slovenia, Serbia, and North Macedonia) will be trained and given tools to use as they professionally support women in the process of identifying their competencies. All developed materials will be useful for existing and new counsellors as supplements in their practice. By training more counsellors and investing in the quality of their work and tools, HOPE will contribute to a more professional practice of Validation of Prior Learning (VPL) in the participating countries. HOPE will achieve this by creating a comprehensive report on needs of women with fewer opportunities in all four project countries, which will guide the creation of the Toolkit for Competence Assessment and Empowerment as well as the creation of the new ProfilPASS. The ProfilPASS is a biographic-systematic instrument for competence assessment and will be adopted on the needs of women with fewer opportunities. The goal is to distribute the Toolkit and the new ProfilPASS as widely as possible and make them useful and accessible for both women with fewer opportunities and counsellors in each partner country. To do so, associated partners will be contacted and engaged in implementation, dissemination, and promotion efforts. Additionally, HOPE aims to train 32 counsellors to use the project results (Toolkit for Competence Assessment and Empowerment, new ProfilPASS, manual for counsellors and curriculum) when working with women with fewer opportunities. During a testing phase, the goal is for 120 women from this group to have their competences assessed through counselling with the ProfilPASS, and to come one step closer to securing a job or other education or training opportunity. This process will be enhanced through individual and group counselling sessions, and participation in online platforms for exchange, or virtual roundtables.<< Implementation >>Firstly, a management plan will be set up in which the work packages, roles and responsibilities of the partners are summarized and organized in a systematic timeframe. Project results are based on activities subsumed in 10 work packages (WP), 7 of which are related to project results while 3 are transversal and are thus continuous tasks. WP1: Identification of needs is the first stage in which all partners will conduct research in their countries to gather information about the specific needs of women with fewer opportunities and create subsequent recommendations on what should be included in the HOPE Toolkit, including best practice examples for working with this target group. Information will be collected through desk research, focus groups and expert interviews. This approach will ensure a comprehensive and valid overview of the actual needs of the target group.WP2: Development of the Toolkit for Competence Assessment and Empowerment is the next activity in which all partners collect information about existing tools, resources, and services which counsellors and women with fewer opportunities can use in their countries. Tools will be screened using the criteria from the WP1 and the most suitable ones for the target group will be selected, described, and included in the final Toolkit.WP3: Adaptation of the ProfilPASS for the target group of women with fewer opportunities will be led by the DIE, the creator of the ProfilPASS. ProfilPASS, a biographical counselling method for competence assessment is seen as an important instrument in the VPL context due to its focus on informal learning. DIE will develop a concept with suggestions on how the tool and its elements can be adapted to best serve the needs of the target group. The concept will be discussed in the partnership so that all partners can contribute their expertise in working with the ProfilPASS. After several feedback and correction loops, the new ProfilPASS will be developed.WP4: Development of the manual for counsellors, WP5: Development of the curriculum for the training of counsellors and WP6: Training of counsellors from each partner country will be led by the Association Laris, whose staff have extensive experience in managing similar activities. All project partners will contribute to creating the manual for counsellors which will include information about approaches and techniques that are most useful for working with women with fewer opportunities. The curriculum and the manual will serve as a basis for the training for 32 counsellors. The training will be evaluated, and the results will provide valuable insights for further revising and optimizing the developed materials. WP7: Testing phase allow a total of 120 women to use the adapted ProfilPASS and the Toolkit with trained counsellors, and to engage in an online platform for exchange through national, virtual roundtables. The testing phase will be evaluated, and these results will also serve as a relevant indicator for the revision of the materials.Transversal work packages include WP8: Evaluation, WP9: Dissemination and valorization and WP10: Management. The evaluation strategy applied in this project is described separately and will be led by the Q&E Team. Dissemination and valorization include all activities maximizing the achievements of the project such as multiplier events, publications, involvement of important stakeholders in the project and presentations of the project results in the networks of associated and other partners.<< Results >>HOPE project results are divided into PR1: Toolkit for Competence Assessment and Empowerment and PR2: Accompanying Materials and Training for Counsellors.PR1: Toolkit for Competence Assessment and Empowerment will entail the creation of a comprehensive report on needs of women with fewer opportunities in all 4 countries, which will guide the next activities in the project. To create the Toolkit, all partners will conduct a thorough desk research in their countries and identify existing tools for competence assessment that might be suitable for the target group. The core of the Toolkit will be the new ProfilPASS, strongly focused on women with fewer opportunities. It will embody gender sensitive language, examples and testimonials of women serving as positive role-models who are self-reflective, eager to work on their professional portfolio and open to learning about employment, education, and training opportunities. Crucial chapters addressing most common activities of women cross-culturally, materials and exercises to use outside of counselling will be added. The main goal of working with the new ProfilPASS or its elements will be to empower women and spark the change, activate, and guide them towards employment, educational or training opportunities. For this, a database will be created, linking its users to resources and support systems in all partner countries. Newly created exercises and materials in the ProfilPASS for women with fewer opportunities will ensure a low threshold approach to them and will enrich the work of numerous existing counsellors Europe-wide. Through PR2: Accompanying Materials and Training for Counsellors, HOPE will support counsellors and ensure that they can make the most of their individual and group counselling work with the Toolkit and the new ProfilPASS. A manual will be developed for counsellors, which gives background information on the project, the target group, its needs, and specifics, and includes guidance on how the Toolkit and the ProfilPASS can be applied together with several approaches and techniques in the field. A training for counsellors from each partner country will be conducted and for this, a curriculum will be developed outlining the content of the training and suggesting methods and activities for the training delivery. It will contain explanations of the different tools in the Toolkit and instructions on how to use the Toolkit to document the competences of the target group. Finally, the Toolkit and the developed ProfilPASS will be applied in a testing phase in which overall 120 women with fewer opportunities from all partner countries in individual counselling, and even more women and relevant stakeholders in group settings. For this, 32 new counsellors will be trained and equipped through HOPE. All materials will be tested and evaluated in individual and group counselling settings. Group virtual sessions will be organized nationally, when women and other relevant stakeholders (e.g., representatives of businesses or employment centers) will come together at virtual roundtables to share their insights, connect with each other, and thus become more empowered to achieve their own goals set through counselling. HOPE will not only provide training, tools, and materials for counsellors, but will strongly focus on involving as many associated partners as possible and providing them with benefits, group counselling, access to referral mechanisms, additional resources, and support.

The European Union has the challenge to advance towards more responsible and impacting science, looking for innovative links between science and people. Making science more attractive for young people, enrolling citizens in research or promoting formal and informal scientific education are, for instance, some of the objectives under the Horizon 2020 programme. Likewise, the European reference framework points out the need of developing key competences for lifelong learning of the adult population including the knowledge of fundamental and scientific concepts, principles and methods. The European reference framework suggests that these knowledge and competences may make adult learners more critical and able to make complex assessments of situations in everyday life, for instance taking into account ethical issues when assessing the impact of technological progress in their families and communities.Based on the necessity to develop adult learners’ scientific knowledge, the ScienceLit project has developed a methodology for the transference of scientific knowledge to adults with low skills and in disadvantaged situations who participate in non-formal educational programmes. There are no current projects that provide scientific literacy to adult learners, especially to those who are low-educated or are at risk of social exclusion. For this reason, the specific objectives of the project are: - To facilitate the access to scientific knowledge to adult people, especially to those in an at-risk situation, providing them with the tools that they need for their scientific literacy; tools that enable them to understand, interpret and analyze the scientific knowledge independently and autonomously. - To develop the ScienceLit Interactive Guide to transfer scientific knowledge to adult people.- To connect European Science institutions with the Adult people at risk in order to contribute to set science closer to society. And to develop key competences (literacy, numeracy) by participating in Successful Educational Actions like Scientific Gatherings.The project is directed to four target groups. The main target group is adult learners with low skills and in disadvantaged situations, more concretely, adults above the age of 55 and young adults at risk of age 18 to 34. The project uses the dialogic communicative methodology that incorporates participants as part of the project team. This means that adult learners traditionally excluded from the areas of education and science have been key speakers and participants in the project. The other three target groups are: adult education educators, professionals and volunteers; adult education providers and schools; and public administration and decision makers.The key innovation of the project is that it applies a Successful Educational Action (SEA), an educational action that has been scientifically tested to always have effective results, to the field of science. The SEA used is the “dialogic gathering”. The first main output of the project, the ScienceLit Interactive Guide, explains how to implement “Scientific Dialogic Gatherings” so that they can be implemented in adult schools across Europe. It is available on the project website, which contains audiovisual materials on how to organize and participate in a scientific dialogic gathering. The third output is a training course for educators and volunteers on scientific dialogic gatherings.The ScienceLit project has been led by Agora (Spain), a community-based NGO with 30 years of experience in the implementation of SEAs. The team is also composed by two community-based organizations with a long tradition of work with vulnerable groups (Slovenia and Greece), a federation of centres of adult education with access to multiple centres, organizations, and public institutions at the European level (Spain), and a big research institution on adult education (Germany). The main results are the acquisition of basic competences by adult learners and the promotion of the independence and autonomy of vulnerable collectives of adults. This project opens a new line of work in adult education, in the field of Science Literacy.

Youth unemployment is a pressing issue in the EU and beyond. In 2016, more than 6.3 million young people (i.e. 15-24 years) were neither in employment nor in education or training (NEETs) in the EU. In some EU candidate countries, especially in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the proportion of NEETs is even higher, as it is in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Youth unemployment often affects the target group of vulnerable and disadvantaged young adults, including socially marginalized groups such as Roma. A major reason for unemployment in this group is that they are alienated or prevented from attending or finishing formal education. Thus, they often cannot provide a proof of their competences in the form of formal qualifications. It is particularly important for this group to have their informally and non-formally acquired competences assessed and recognized. This will help them find a job that best suits their competence profile and increase their self-esteem and empower them to take part (again) in the social and economic life.A main objective of CORE is therefore helping vulnerable and disadvantaged young adults find their way (back) into education and/or employment.For this, the ProfilPASS tool for competence assessment developed by the German Institute for Adult Education – Leibniz Center for Lifelong Learning will be adapted to the needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged young adults. The ProfilPASS has been the center of various EU projects and was translated and successfully implemented in several EU countries (including France, Ireland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Spain, Sweden, Slovenia, Serbia and Albania - for details, see www.profilpass-international.eu). In the most recent project SCOUT (2017-1-DE02-KA204-004194), the ProfilPASS in Simple Language, a version for new immigrants, was developed. The ProfilPASS starts from the assumption that every person has acquired skills throughout their lifetime but that they are often not aware of them. Work with the ProfilPASS helps in revealing and documenting hidden competences. CORE will adapt parts of the original ProfilPASS for Young People and develop additional material in order to meet the needs of disadvantaged and vulnerable young adults. Complementary to this, a toolkit will be developed in which already existing tools for competence assessment suitable for the target group will be collected in all partner countries and systematically compiled. The adapted ProfilPASS will form the core of this toolkit. The ProfilPASS is a self-evaluation tool helping people reflect on themselves which can be a challenging process. Therefore, the help by a professional counsellor is an essential precondition for working with the ProfilPASS successfully. CORE does justice to this by focusing on a second main objective, the development of counsellors’ competences. Through accompanying material to the toolkit and training, counsellors will be supported and professionalized in their work with vulnerable and disadvantaged young adults. As accompanying material, a manual for counsellors will be developed in which information and guidelines on working with the toolkit and the adapted ProfilPASS materials will be provided. A specialized training curriculum will be set up summarizing guidelines and content for a training of new counsellors on the basis of previous successful training design and delivery in countries of the former Yugoslavia. Overall, 15 new counsellors (3 in each partner country) will be trained for applying the toolkit and the adapted ProfilPASS materials.The trained counsellors will use the materials by conducting a competence assessment with overall 100 young adults (20 in each partner country) in a testing phase. The participants of the testing phase will benefit from the competence assessment and will be supported in finding a job or an educational program that suits their competence profile. Both the training and the testing phase will be evaluated and the results will be used for making final revisions to the project outputs. To sum up, CORE pursues two main objectives which will be achieved through the development of two intellectual outputs: the toolkit for competence assessment (incl. the adapted ProfilPASS materials) and the accompanying materials to the toolkit (manual and curriculum). These outputs will be made available as OER in all partner languages and in English ensuring that all interested stakeholders throughout Europe (and even worldwide) can use the products, also after the completion of the project. Disadvantaged and vulnerable young adults can benefit from professional competence assessment in a long term meaning that their (re-)integration into the labour market and into society is facilitated. Counsellors will be provided with useful tools and material for their work with this target group but also with other clients and their counselling work will be professionalized.

The professional development of staff in the adult education sector is one the key pillars of the ET 2020 strategy for the improvement of quality and efficiency of adult learning. In the adult learning sector, a high number of professionals, including teachers and trainers, come from other sectors and while they maybe experienced in their field of work, they often lack competences in adult learning. Addressing the issue of professional development of adult education staff, the development of a European Key Competence Framework for Adult Learning professionals was commissioned by the European Commission and developed by Research voor Beleid in 2010. The project DEMAL set out to further develop this framework with regard to two specific key competences: Design of adult learning activities, and Monitoring and Evaluation of adult learning activities. - Both Designing and Evaluation represent important tasks in the process of preparing and delivering high quality training for adults. However, existing in-service trainings in Europe have less focused the related competences, giving more attention to teaching skills in a narrower sense such as instruction or facilitation skills. This is why DEMAL has set out to address this gap. - The products which DEMAL has developed in two years include: - •detailed European reference competence profiles for the two selected key competences- •a blended in-service training course complete with learning resources for each competence; each course comprising an eLearning part over 8 weeks and a 1-week face-to-face workshops- •a validation framework to support the recognition of informally acquired skills and competences with regard to the professional tasks of designing and evaluating adult learning- •a web-based course-planning app to support both novice and experienced teachers of adults during the planning process and to enhance the quality of their course planning -The development of the competence profiles was based on an extensive desk research and literature review as well as on expert interviews in all partner countries. Besides a general definition of each key competence, the profiles included a detailed description of the steps and tasks linked to the activities of Design and Evaluation, as well as the skills knowledge and competences needed to perform these tasks. The training courses were developed on the basis of these profiles by transforming the profiles into units of learning outcomes. The eLearning serves to give a theoretical introduction to the topic. The workshops focus on putting theory into practice through role plays, case studies and various exercises. Both courses were piloted once during the lifetime of the project and the feedback was used to revise and finalise the curricula and learning resources in the last months of the project.-The validation framework is also based on the competence profiles. It provides templates and guidance for validating informally acquired relevant competences through three approaches: portfolio assessment, reflective self-assessment, and competence-based interviews.- The planning app includes a pool of method descriptions which can be selected purposefully by setting filters and defining criteria. The app also allows to build a full course time table with annotations. The app was tested and subsequently revised in various stages during the project, including an online-survey of test users and testing during the pilot courses. - The project activities and outputs were disseminated widely during the project. Potential beneficiaries were involved as test users and experts in the development of the products and their feedback was used to improve the products. To promote the project products, each partner organised, towards the end of the project, a multiplier event in their county with a European conference being organised in Germany.The project consortium included 6 partners from Germany, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Spain with an associated partner from Switzerland. Research institutes (DE, RO) worked together with training and consultancy providers (HU; GR; ES), each partner bringing specific expertise and resources to the project and benefitting in turn from the other partners’ contributions. - The feedback received by external stakeholders and users was very positive. The profiles as a theoretical input were seen as inspiring by experts concerned with curriculum development. The training courses and the app as practical resources met with high interest. The training providers in the partner consortium will continue to offer the courses and resources to their respective target groups. The Greek version of the eLearning course “Evaluation” was already opened during the project time and attracted more than 200 participants within one week. - All DEMAL products are available in all partner languages as well as in English and can be downloaded or accessed from the DEMAL homepage which will continue to operate.

Europe has witnessed a significant rise in the number of immigrants and refugees in recent years. Immigrants are exposed to a great risk of social exclusion and poverty, especially as access to employment and education is often difficult for them. As a precondition for finding a way into employment and/or education, the immigrants’ competences and qualifications need to be recognized. However, according to the OECD (Migration Policy Debates, Dec. 2014), “qualifications and work experience from abroad, are widely undervalued”. The reason for this is that the immigrants’ work experience and qualifications were acquired in a different cultural and educational context which is often not acknowledged. Also, immigrants often cannot provide written proof for their qualifications. The recognition of informally and non-formally acquired competences is therefore pivotal for new immigrants.SCOUT aimed to facilitate the recognition of qualifications and competences of new immigrants by developing a set of tools for counsellors to assess and document those skills. Based on the analysis of competences and with the guidance of counsellors, new immigrants will more easily find their way into employment or education that suits their competences best. The global objective of SCOUT thus was to contribute to the “Europe 2020” strategy for an inclusive growth by enhancing labour market participation, skills acquisition, and the fight against poverty.The project was coordinated by the German Institute for Adult Education (DIE). The institute is the originator of the ProfilPASS and coordinates its application and further development in the context of the Service Unit ProfilPASS. The ProfilPASS is a tool for competence assessment developed by the DIE that has been successfully used and established nationwide and even internationally. In addition to the DIE, the project consortium consisted of another 5 partners from Austria, Sweden, Spain, Slovenia and Greece. The partner organizations are relevant actors in the field of adult education. They are active in the fields of education and training, counselling and in social and political development thus building a profound basis of expertise and networks for SCOUT.As a first step, an analysis of the status quo regarding competence assessment for new immigrants was conducted in all partner countries. Best practice examples and needs were identified and the results were compiled in a transnational report. The needs analysis informed the development of the SCOUT-toolkit. Here, a comprehensive research on tools for competence assessment for new immigrants was conducted in all partner countries. The tools were screened and 20 tools were finally selected and systematically compiled in the SCOUT-toolkit. As its core element, the ProfilPASS in Simple Language was developed. The ProfilPASS was specifically adapted in terms of language, content and layout to suit the needs and living realities of new immigrants. The ProfilPASS in Simple Language as an innovative tool was thus created. In addition, a manual for counsellors and a curriculum were developed. The manual provides guidelines and information for counsellors working with the SCOUT-toolkit. The curriculum serves as a basis for a training of counsellors.Overall 41 counsellors were trained in all partner countries. The training was evaluated and the results showed that the training and the SCOUT products were considered very valuable by the counsellors. The usability of the products was much appreciated. The training supported them in extending both their competences and their methodological repertoire with regard to competence assessment for new immigrants. Counsellors were thus successfully prepared for supporting new immigrants in finding a way into employment or education.Finally, a testing phase was conducted in which trained counsellors provided competence assessment for 125 new immigrants with the SCOUT-toolkit. The results were evaluated which showed that new immigrants profited from the testing phase in that it helped them find out about their competences, identify their short- and long-term goals and create a professional CV and cover letter. Overall, the majority of them confirmed that the competence assessment helped them in finding a suitable job, internship or educational program. Counsellors reported that they considered the developed materials very helpful and suitable for the target group.The SCOUT-toolkit and ProfilPASS in Simple Language can be expected to have a long-term benefit as they will remain available for counsellors to be used in counselling sessions with new immigrants. There are already specific training programs for counsellors working with the ProfilPASS in Simple Language which are which are offered independently from the project context. Also, the ProfilPASS in Simple Language is integrated into the overall ProfilPASS-system and will therefore in a long-term perspective be used by many counsellors.