The employment rate of young people with disability is half the current rate among individuals of the same age in Europe. This deplorable state of affair is not in our view resulting solely from the tense economic situation. In hindsight it appears that granting young people with disability with a full-fledged access to education, training and employment has always been a problem for given member states of the European community.The European Union as well as member states have ratified the UN Convention of the right of persons with disabilities. This strong symbolic act is meant to convey the message that people with disability shall no longer be considered as an exception to the rule but rather as full-fledged citizens whose rights have to be promoted.This political act indicates that non-discrimination and promotion of fundamental rights are a common task. Politicians, economic actors, media and citizens alike are all responsible in this endeavor.Meanwhile the European Union and its member states are promoting through law and regulations that anyone from the northern to the southern part of the continent as well as from the western to the eastern part implement policies and strategies that aim at securing career paths.What is it all about?Access to employment is intricate especially for people with disability as redundancies, transitions between professional activities and unemployment, access to vocational training and returning to work can be hard to manage. Career paths have therefore to be secured.In order to do so, it requires to lay the ground for a realistic and above all lasting individual project, to identify the essential stages and to support the person.EASPD, EMPLEA, SCUOLA VIVA and L’ADAPT are complementary organizations considering their competencies and skills. They are bound together through their DNA contained in their institutional projects. We claim our commitment to translate into proposals and actions the principles enshrined in the international convention of the right of persons with disabilities.With this project we establish a link between implementing the rights of young people with disability and shaping strategies to secure career paths from skill developments to integration in work.Providing security for career paths and supporting employment is our first proposal. Indicators for monitoring and recording good practices will lead to editing two documents:- A guideline for providing security for career paths and supporting employment in Europe,- A training resource for professionals involved in these matters.Our second proposal is related to the training of 120 professionals from our national networks and beyond. We will spread information and good practices gathered through observation and edited in guides in order to support people with disability in work.Our third proposal is to extend to Europe the concept of the week for the employment of people with disability which has been carried in France for more than 18 years in a row. This event will become the European Disability Employment Week (EDEW)EDEW is a set of actions such as jobdatings, employment fora and handicafés carried with companies. They are aiming at facilitating the encounter between employers and job seekers with disability.EDEW is also consisting of streets actions in order to raise public awareness.We would also like to edit a guideline based upon the best practices of every partner involved in the European week for the employment with people with disability.This guideline will be used as a grid for the training of 100 activists: volunteers, employees, managers and so on.We aim at contributing to reassess the situation of young people with disability regarding their access to training and lasting employment.This European initiative will synthesize our skills and good practices and will disseminate them.We will review the programme on a yearly basis in order to evaluate our action. International conferences will be held in order to share our experiences. We will make sure that they are fully accessible.

The employment rate of young people with disability is half the current rate among individuals of the same age in Europe. This deplorable state of affair is not in our view resulting solely from the tense economic situation. In hindsight it appears that granting people with disability with a full-fledged access to education, training and employment has always been a problem for given member states of the European community. The European Union as well as member states have ratified the UN Convention of the right of persons with disabilities. This strong symbolic act is meant to convey the message that people with disability shall no longer be considered as an exception to the rule but rather as full-fledged citizens whose rights have to be promoted. This political act indicates that non-discrimination and promotion of fundamental rights are a common task. Politicians, economic actors, media and citizens alike are all responsible in this endeavor. Meanwhile the European Union and its member states are promoting through law and regulations that anyone from the northern to the southern part of the continent as well as from the western to the eastern part implement policies and strategies that aim at securing career paths. What is it all about? Access to employment is intricate especially for people with disability as redundancies, transitions between professional activities and unemployment, access to vocational training and returning to work can be hard to manage. Career paths have therefore to be secured. In order to do so, it requires to lay the ground for a realistic and above all lasting individual project, to identify the essential stages and to support the person. Securing career path, promoting supported employment, promoting the European Disability Empolyment week (EDEW), is the way we choose to sensibilise and act on/with entreprises and society. We want to act and measure. It is the reason why we promote in this program not only actions but the way to produce evaluation of what have been clearly done on the ground. EASPD, EMPLEA, SCUOLA VIVA and L’ADAPT are complementary organizations considering their competencies and skills. They are bound together through their DNA contained in their institutional projects. We claim our commitment to translate into proposals and actions the principles enshrined in the international convention of the right of persons with disabilities. The have been the promotors of DESC1. Our prposition is to go by DESC 2 a step beyond with those same organisations and their partners. With this project we establish a link between implementing the rights of young people with disability , the economical reality, the state of play of the labour market but also the necessary need of change in the way to move and act for the service providers. Our proposition is based on three axes First Axe : To experiment on the ground 150 career path and supported emplyoment. To create an evaluation method. To produce each years, results, analysis and success stories. To associate 40 partners to realise those career path. To work with 40 entreprises. As a matter of fact, 120 professionals from our national networks have been trained during DESC 1 to securing path careers and supported employment. We expect to train 40 more professionnals. Second axe : To associate partners who work in the field of health, culture, citizenship, housing, etc... This way we want to promote a global approach to secure career paths. We want to create a good practices guide to develop sustainablity and awardness in the paractices of those partners. We expect to train 40 of them to securing career path and supported employment. Third axe : To produce a method to support the sustenaible implementation of EDEW in the networks at a national level for the members of the consortium and their partners (funders, politics, entreprises , civil society, associations). We want to measure the efficiency and the quality of the networks we will contribute to create. We will promote sensibilisation actions about EDEW in each country wich is apart of this program. For each axe a delivrable. Each delivrable will propose an analysis method and a measure of the results This European initiative will synthesize our skills and good practices and will disseminate them. We will review the programme on a yearly basis in order to evaluate our action. International conferences will be held in order to share our experiences. We will make sure that they are fully accessible.

What we want to buildThere is a strong need for a comprehensive E-Portfolio for people with disabilities to present themselves at the labour market in a better way. It comes with an intelligent Learning Management System (LMS), that will able them to alter their E-Portfolio at all time, everywhere and in the way they want it.To use that E-Portfolio effectively, we will build a platform, especially for hiring employers and people with disabilities, to find each other.Of course, there will be an extensive manual and a special training course to use it properly.ContextMany people with a disability still have no, or strongly reduced, entrance to the open labour market. It doesn’t seem to be the unwillingness of organizations, but rather their ignorance of the possibilities and the incapability of the people to present themselves in a proper way.One of the most important reasons why people with a disability fail to find a suitable job, is that they don’t know how to present themselves to be eligible for the jobs (that even sometimes are especially created for this target group).What we wantWouldn’t it be wonderful when:- people with disabilities would have the same confidence in finding jobs as people who do not have that extra handicap?- jobseekers with disabilities and employers would find each other as easy as it happens at the ‘normal’ labour market?- employers would have the real picture of people with disabilities, as people who can contribute as well as people without the extra handicap?We work togetherThere are six partners spread over Europe, with the same dream to enhance the position of people with disabilities at the common labour market.PHH Academie and ISAS from The Netherlands, EASPD from Belgium, Atempo from Austria, BCLL from Bulgaria and Viva Onlus from Italia. A strong team with all the competencies we need in this project. And if we need extra hands or brains, we have an extensive network.The Intellectual Output of SEE 2020We will build what is needed:1.An E-Portfolio framework which consists of two parts:a.Personal profile model: this includes all relevant information of the person with a disability;b.Several scripts for recording all relevant information needed to prove skills and competences for different types of disabilities. This makes the E-portfolio way more extensive than a regular CV.2.Based on the output of 1a (dynamic interactive E-portfolio) a tool (manual) will be developed for organizations that are involved in supporting people with disabilities to enter the open labour market.3.A training module for the use of the E-portfolio for professionals working in the area of supporting people with disabilities. The training module will be made available through real life teaching program and as an E-learning program.4.A Learning Management System (LMS). The digital combination of Supported Employment and the E-portfolio framework, makes it possible that all relevant new information (e.g. their latest acquired skills and competences) can be added everywhere and at all time by the people themselves and/or their jobcoaches. This makes the individual E-portfolio constantly up to date. This is of great importance since people in these positions often keep learning and improving themselves.5.A platform for jobseekers and employers, where they can find each other. Employers can upload their vacancies and jobseekers with a disability, can apply for the vacancies that they are qualified for, with their E-Portfolio. The platform forces the employers to put the vacancies in a way that every jobseeker can immediately check if that position is possible for him/her. The platform is only available for jobseekers with a disability! The platform will be web-based and accessible with an app.The way we workWorking with many partners asks for a strict way of working. We will establish a Management Board Committee with all partners. Every partner will be responsible for one of the IO’s and will appoint a Product Manager, who will meet digitally every month at the ‘Monthly Monday Morning Meeting’. Every Quarter they all will send in their progress reports and every six month there will be a Trans-national meeting in one of the countries of the partners. At these meetings our Associated partners are also welcome.What we want to achieveWe dream of a world where people with disabilities have the same chances and possibilities as people without them. The E-Portfolio will definitely help them in this dream, as will the ‘recruiters’ Platform. It is especially made for them to meet hiring employers.In the long runWe hope and expect that this system will enhance the position of people with disabilities at the common labour market. It will improve the self-esteem of people with disabilities to enter the labour market and it will open the eyes of employers to see a whole new group of skilled workers. And that will happen all over Europe because we will promote it actively.

"One in six people in the EU has a disability, representing 80 million people who, as a result are often prevented from fully and equally participating in society and contributing to the economy. In 2006, the U.N. published the Convention on the Rights of Persons with a Disability (UNCRPD). This universal, legally binding standard recognised that every person must be empowered to participate in society and live life to their fullest potential. This was the ethos that drove this project from its conception right through to its completion. A recently published study on 'Culture, Cities and Identity in Europe” (2016) by the EESC recognises that culture is a tool for integration and inclusiveness for people who have ""special needs"". The partners that came together to drive this project are all exemplars in their own countries for taking actions to ensure that people with disabilities (PWD) are given the opportunities to explore and fulfill their potential in the arts. They all share the vision that the arts is an important means of inclusion and expression for people with disabilities. The Council of Europe’s Disability Action Plan, the EU Disability Strategy 2010-2020, The Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the EU Convention on Human Rights also gave a framework for this project. The consortium was made up of six partners from four European Countries all of whom brought a complementary skill set that was essential to the delivery of this project, most of whom also had significant experience in delivering European Project work. The organisations these partners came from were EASPD, ENCC, L’ADAPT, Scuolo Viva and CIT. The Project took place over 24 months, with 5 Transnational Meetings, 2 multiplier events and one Teacher/Training Learning (TTL) event resulting in 4 outputs. At the time of application we had proposed to complete 5 outputs, however one of these was not approved.Our aim was to innovate and implement joint initiatives with PWD, promoting cooperation, peer learning and exchanges of experience at a European level, with a focus on the horizontal priority of social inclusion for adult learners with a disability. It also prioritised extending and developing educators' competences and improved and extended the supply of high quality learning opportunities tailored to the needs of the individual. This project developed innovative outputs to support all stakeholders to develop a more integrated, inclusive Europe. The project has achieved its objectives of improving and increasing awareness of obligations, rights, policy, law and practice. It addressed the identified gaps by improving access to education and connecting learners with more opportunities. The project addressed these priorities in three key areas:1) Information and Research:This was done through the collation of general text and accessible information on European policy, law, frameworks and examples of good practice on inclusive arts education at an EU level (3.2 IO2 Development of good practices Guidelines). This resulted in the development of Good Practice Guidelines for arts organisations, arts educators, cultural centres and service providers. Signatories to these guidelines were acknowledged with an ""accreditation logo"" (1.1.2 CIAE Certification). The accreditation process was overseen by three of our partner organisations post project completion.2) Publication and Dissemination This was done through the population and development of a newly created Knowledge Centre on Inclusive Arts in the D-Lot platform (3.3 IO3 Development of Knowledge Centre) which was a pre-existing accessible platform that is maintained by EASPD, the dissemination of Good Practice Guidelines through D-Lot and other existing networks and the development of an EASY READ TOOLKIT to support access and engagement of PWD.3) Innovation and ParticipationThis was done through the development of the EASY READ Toolkit (3.4 IO4 Development of Easy Read Toolkit) which supported the connection between PWD, educators, arts organisations, service providers and cultural centres. This helped bridge the gap between education and employment. This project led to improved opportunities for adult learners with disabilities, improved diversity of those engaging with arts education leading to further diversity and opportunity in the workplace. The project was an innovative, transversal and integrated approach to addressing social inclusion, enhancing access, participation and learning performance of disadvantaged learners."