"EducADULTs is a strategic partnership with 3 partner countries: Slovenia (LUV) and Spain (CEPA Paulo Freire) centers for adults; together with the Czech Republic (GLAFKA) education advisory company. It was born from the analysis of needs of the 2 educational centers where the lack of motivation of students with learning difficulties and low qualifications is detected. Our students show a high risk of exclusion in society due to previous academic failure. Our students need strategies to improve their process of skills acquisition and an effective evaluation/assessment system.The selection of 2 faculty participants takes place through the Erasmus Project Team 2019. In our selection process, 14 students that show proactivity towards the tasks and have availability to travel will be selected. Their linguistic and cultural preparation will be taken into consideration, as well as their interest in attending the proposed meetings and their dedication to an audiovisual project that will be requested as a final test.The EducADULTs methodology is defined as ""pilot project"" of a group of 28 students and 4 Slovenian-Spanish teachers that tries to implement a series of improvement strategies to optimize adult education. This ""Slovenian-Spanish Pilot Team"" (14 students and 2 teachers per member) together with a Czech educational advisor (who is our third partner) will experience a series of activities before - during and after the mobilities.The activities (workshops, meetings, visits, debates) are aimed at improving the basic competencies of students, promoting the reach of adult education through motivation and designing new evaluation paths that allow us to obtain more positive results. The students and professors themselves will evaluate and evaluate the results of their experiences, report the feasibility, suitability and effectiveness of approaches, learning and methodologies in both institutions.There will be 3 mobilities:1.- Spain: 2 teachers and 14 Slovenian students will learn about our methodologies based on the acquisition of digital and linguistic competence in the foreign language of the CEPA Paulo Freire. They will also know our blog system.2.- Slovenia: 2 teachers and 14 Spanish students will perform observation in the classroom, learn about new educational approaches (Flipped Classroom) and hold workshops on culture and improvement for the acquisition of basic skills.3.- Czech Republic: 4 teachers advised by the Czech partner. With the reports of the 2 mobilities an exhaustive study will be made on the results obtained. This will be helped by the company GLAFKA, Luka Novotny as educational advisor and participant observer in the mobilities. Once the result has been refined, we will try to put into practice, in the short term, those positive strategies and methodologies that we will conclude and implement the measures and strategies in our own context.The results that we hope for are very positive, since they will help us deduce strategies to facilitate the acquisition of basic skills for students; we will also implement the evaluation system used to document results and improve them. All this will help us to have a more effective outreach and give adult education the good reputation it deserves.We will measure the impact, qualifying if we have achieved the objectives and, in turn, these have affected the different levels with lasting effect.- Better results in the final grades of the students.- Greater variety of teaching and assessment strategies to offer a more personalized teaching.- Students and teachers will be more motivated, with a stronger feeling of Europe belonging.We will ensure that these results will be used by other centers, disseminating our experiences periodically as we will use them constantly in our daily practice. The results will be published as the bimonthly and quarterly reports are made, as well as the final report.- Photos of the work carried out, before-during and after the mobilities will be published, with the consequent explanation of the objective pursued and the milestones achieved.- Dissemination in our social networks: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, EPALE and eTwinning, with videos and audiovisual material explaining the results and the impact obtained with each activity.- Participation in the local educational fair: Aula Fuenlabrada where we will inform potential students about our teaching strategies.- Dissemination in the written press and local radio of Fuenlabrada, to get the results of the Project to the Fuenlabreña population.- Good practices in CRIF or CTIF, where we will discuss the design, development and results of our activities."

"<< Background >>The key problem addressed by the project is filling an important gap, consisting in the lack of systemic solutions enabling companies to manage employee support in the area of mental health, and in this way - to take care of the mental condition of the staff, which has a direct impact on commitment or work effects. This gap is to be filled by creating a standard for the new professional role of ""Mental Health Leader"" – which is responsible for the coordination, professionalization and regularity of companies' activities in the field of mental health.<< Objectives >>The goal of the project is to create, test, implement in testing companies and promote a new professional role (function), referred to as ""Mental Health Leader"" (until 31.12.2022), operating in the fields of:•building systemic support for mental health in the organization,•coordination of activities - prevention / coping with a psychological crisis;•peer-supporting managers and employees;•promoting behaviors that help maintain good mental condition.<< Implementation >>Achieving goal will be possible by developing complementary solutions:•standard of the new role (professional profile);•description of the process of selecting (selecting) a new role;•recommendations on the implementation of the new role;•a detailed description of the development process (syllabus / training program + trainer manual);•practical tips for performing a new role (handbook);•enabling the promotion of a new role in the organization (educational and promotional materials).<< Results >>All results will be developed in close cooperation with the target group (design thinking and users experience methodology, consultation of each result), which guarantees their adequacy and increases sustainability.The immediate target group are working people who are ready to take on the role of MH Leader, as well as organizations employing them, under which the new role will be implemented. The constitution of the new role means that the project has an impact on a wider group of recipients - employees of the companies in which the Leader will operate, and organization of the business environment with which he will cooperate (NGOs, administration etc.). The project also has an overall impact on raising awareness of the importance of mental health in the workplace.The innovation of the project is to create a systemic, comprehensive solution developed in the ""ready to self-use"" formula that is extremely practical; is directly in line with the VET priorities, has a strong justification in research and market need (and is not available on the market) and whose importance was highlighted by the epidemiological crisis situation, gives the possibility of rapid implementation without the participation of external advisors; responds to the professional needs of employees and has a direct social impact - touching on a topic that is important from a professional and social point of view, which is at the forefront of the challenges facing Europe in connection with a) rapid increase in indicators regarding mental condition, b) breaking taboos around mental health;Thanks to complementary design solutions, it will be possible to achieve long-term results - creating a new professional role (ready for implementation in any organization), promoting the role of Mental Health Leader as a support tool in solving mental health problems and promoting / promoting mental health in the work environment, creating a standard for professional development and implementing a new role (educational materials) and increasing mental health awareness in companies.The project has pan-European significance, creates an easily transferable solution and fits in with VET's priorities regarding work-based and job-based learning."

<< 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.

Research has shown that the engineers of the 21st century have to possess more than just state of the art technical knowledge and skills. According to research they will have to be able to tackle complex problems, think outside the box, understand not only the individual technical details, but the overall picture, work in interdisciplinary teams, be creative and innovative, so that they can apply the knowledge in new and exciting ways, manage, motivate and inspire people, adapt to changes. This is not only known from studies and projections, but also from the needs analysis and the feedback from the employers of the graduates of the HE institutions involved. Research and needs analysis of the partner organisations also shows that the educators are not well informed, nor equipped with the competences to successfully implement innovative pedagogies, such as the FCA (Flipped classroom approach), which could allow the use of learning approaches to foster the above mentioned competences, nor is the adoption of the FCA from other fields and levels of education easily and successfully made without analysis of the special needs of the courses, the students and the educators. Needs analysis also showed that the educators also lack the knowledge and information about ICT tools available to support the development of efficient blended learning approaches, including e-content development, learning management systems, opportunities of innovative technologies, like augmented reality. The project PolyFlip aims to build on good practice examples in other disciplines and levels of education, current research findings on this topic and adapt and implement the flipped classroom approach (FCA), to enable and encourage active, student centred and collaborative learning in (Polymer technology) engineering programs. By developing, adapting, piloting, promoting and disseminating the developed concept, e-materials, trainings and case studies, it aims to improve the motivation and the competences of the educators and foster the faster uptake of FCA in partner and other HE institutions, other STEM fields and other countries. This will also raise the competences of the HE institutions to successfully implement other blended learning techniques, which has in light of the COVIS 19 epidemic, found to be very important and challenging.The consortium consists of three HEI with Polymer Technology courses (from Slovenia, Austria and Hungary) and two partners with experiences and know-how in FCA design and implementation, as well as design and implementation of trainings in this topic and in ICT tools available for designing quality e-content and learning paths (from Slovenia and Belgium). The project will deliver and disseminate the following outputs: a new FCA concept for HE science and engineering courses, on-line FCA training course and description, evaluation and dissemination of case studies implemented during the time of the project and presented in the Case study Report. The intellectual outputs will not only be available to partner organisations, but will be disseminated via the project webpage and social media activities as well as at several multiplier events (in all partner countries) to other HEIs and other education institutions as well. They will be available in English, Slovene, German, Dutch and Hungarian, not only fort he duration of the project, but also after its complition. Furthermore the project includes a FCA face to face training, where the involved educators from partner HE institutions will be facilitated in designing the FCA in their courses, including the design of the e-content. The participants will then pilotly implement the courses, which will be presented in the Case study report.With dissemination activities of the project outcomes, educators from other HEIs in partner and nonpartner countries and consequently their students, will benefit as well. With the described, evaluated and presented case studies of the FCA implementation in a variety of very different science and engineering courses and in all partner languages, the educators will be able to relate to the pilot implementation and their outcomes, use the developed freely available tools, which will foster the faster and successful uptake of this innovative pedagogy. This is very important since research has shown that the engineering HE programs are lagging behind other disciplines and levels of education in implementing the FCA approach and that for the approach to yield the desired outcomes, a very important prerequisite is motivating and equipping the educators with the mindset and the didactical, pedagogical and technical skills.Their will be positive impact on research results as well, since most of the research on FCA has been done outside EU and very little research has been done on the HE level and focusing on the impact on educators and not only students.

<< Objectives >>The 3L Mindset project aims at provoking a positive shift in the mindset of lower skilled adult immigrants with regards to adult education. We want to lower the barriers for this target group for participation in education by tackling the situation from both sides; the educational institutions and the teachers on one end and the actual lower skilled immigrant adult on the other. Ultimately we want to foster both successful up-skilling of the target group and higher levels of social inclusion.<< Implementation >>All partners will collaborate to create high quality project results that will lead to awareness of educational institutions on the problems of adult immigrants in education, up-skilling of teachers and a mind shift in lower skilled adults with regards to life long learning. We will do so by co-creation under a highly structured work plan. We will meet regularly, both online and face to face, and will dedicate our own resources also to dissemination of the project to create a high level impact.<< Results >>During the project we will produce a policy report with research based information on the problems of accessibility to adult education for lower skilled immigrants as well as booklet with tips and guidance for schools and teachers. We will also produce a teacher training program where teachers of adult education will train to become educational coaches with a guide on how to adapt their course curriculum. This will be accompanied by a coaching tool box as well as a motivational youtube channel.