<< Background >>The context from which the idea for the project EupTrain emerged, came from common identified needs of European organizations in the field of adult education in terms of personnel development. Trainers of low-skilled adults (EQF level 1&2) are confronted with various issues working with this target group across Europe. This was identified through a series of surveys which were developed and conducted in the participating educational organizations and was based on qualitative interviews. The interviewees were qualified trainers of low skilled adults, who shared their experiences working with this target group in terms of their daily personal and professional struggles they experience during the training. From this a questionnaire was developed and completed by 85 trainers for adult education (working in the partner organizations) in order to assess the situation in the participating countries. The questionnaire results showed the need for transnational knowledge exchange of methods especially suitable for the group of low-skilled adults as for example in terms of group dynamics or conflict management.<< Objectives >>The objective of EUpTrain was to create a transnational network between Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Italy, Portugal, Greece and Romania in order to share Europe-wide knowledge between organizations specialized in adult education through exchange of experts and the development of a sustainable handbook comprising transnational good practices and methods for trainers working with low-skilled adults. The target group of this project were trainers of low-skilled adults, with at least 2 years of working experience (certified language trainers AND a) trainers in adult education OR b) trainers in cultural integration and orientation OR c) trainers for basic skills). EUpTrain implementation was carried out in a spirit of professionalism, open communication and trust between partners, with a strong commitment to cooperation, knowledge-exchange, well-defined roles and responsibilities related to the division of tasks. All requirements for monitoring, evaluation and feedback were taken care of to ensure the quality of the final results and partnership.<< Implementation >>EUpTrain activities included:= 3 transnational project meetings (first 1 online due to COVID 19, 2 on site) attended by a total of 23 experts (up to 15 trainers (possible as it was online) and 8 project managers)= one knowledge exchange workshop with the main goal to filter out examples of good practices from all participating organizations and to show international differences, new opportunities, new ways of work and different methodologies in training of low-skilled adults (19 trainers and 8 project managers with pedagogical background)= based on the workshop results: creation of a handbook (translated to all partner languages and English) containing 16 best practices, 2 from each country, and 8 methodologies<< Results >>The results of EUpTrain are a 40-page long handbook (translated into 8 languages, 7 national languages and English) containing the results of knowledge-exchange activities, specifically a collection of concrete examples of international best practice examples and methodologies for trainers working with low-skilled adults. This varied collection of best practices and methodologies is making the project results valuable for other European countries as well. The handbook is accessible online and free of charge for all partners and other organizations. Through the dissemination of the handbook, trainers who work with low-skilled adults in all of Europe who are not participating in this project, also benefit from the project results and are be able to increase their knowledge and expertise. Additionally, the creation of a transnational network between the partner organizations ensures the sustainability of the project results. The overall aim of the project was to promote networking and synergy-creation on European level and to increase the knowledge exchange and the collaboration of trainers working with low-skilled adults and of organizations in the field of adult education in Europe. The mid-term impact was to establish synergies and to build bridges between these different organizations with the resulting long-term impact to contribute in this way to increase the education level and therefore lower the unemployment rates of low-skilled adults in Europe.

EU remains among the most popular destinations for migrants, asylum seekers & refugees (EU Commission, 2017) and Teachers’ are not prepared for the new paradigm of a Europe that is becoming increasingly diverse. By one hand, European classrooms are becoming more and more diverse, but by the other, teacher profession remains largely homogenous and teachers lack experience in diverse schooling environments. Teachers have difficulties managing classrooms and this is a fact. These difficulties have not only direct impact on their level of satisfaction (and consequently affects negatively the quality of the education offered) but also impacts on pupils educational achievement (that, at long-term, results in ESL, school-prison pipeline and society alienation). INN2DIVERSITY project focus on 1) preparing teachers for diversity and strengthening healthy relationships by providing to teachers a new non-formal process that stimulate their active engagement in career-long competence development; 2) diminish the application of measures/policies as suspension because suspension rates themselves are predictive of drop-out rates.Concerning the needs of the targeted group - teachers and pupils - INTO2DIVERSITY proposes a new methodology – mentoring – as a system level approach to empower teachers with managing diversity in classroom strategies & tools to better engage students & transforming teaching in a healthy profession.INN2DIVERSITY project has 2 main goals: 1) to reinforce competencies of the teachers to deal with complex classroom realities to better manage diversity and keeping students with disruptive behavior and disruptive academic engagement engaged during classroom time, by empowering them with the necessary competencies (based on the Framework of teacher competences for engaging with diversity promoted by the European Commission in 2017) to improve positive relationships between them and this students2) to create a mentoring model to support schools to transfer and replicate the good practices managing diversity and complex classrooms, and doing so offering them an additional tool to improve teacher’s levels of satisfaction in the classroom; reduce disparities in learning The project foresees the following objectives: 1)to develop, transfer & implement through transnational cooperation an innovative training curricula on diversity and disruptive classroom behaviors management2)to identify the suitable profile & personal skills to manage students with disruptive behaviour3)increase teachers motivation & satisfaction of students’ daily work in school thus contributing to increasing their teaching quality & introducing a virtuous cycle between students’ school achievement & teachers job satisfaction4)design a mentoring model to empower teachers and schools with the suitable methods, knowledge & skills to deal with daily difficulties at work & to manage students with disruptive behaviours5) evaluate peer-mentoring effectiveness as an in-service only focused on professional development to promote positive relationships between teachers & disruptive studentsDuring 3 years, INN2DIVERSITY partners will build a set of Intellectual Outputs, namely: O1 - Report on programmes and measures to support the development of diversity and disruptive classroom behaviors management competences in teacher’s continuous professional enhancement IO2.Training curricula on diversity and disruptive classroom behaviors management IO3.Mentors’ Coordinators and Mentors profile IO4. Courses Curricula for Mentor’s Coordinators and MentorsIO5. Mentoring programme for effective inclusionINN2DIVERSITY will try to target all interested parties that have personal, professional, civic, or financial interest or concern. It includes town council networks, education ministry decision makers, school administrators, school board members, teachers, students, parents, families, community members, local business leaders, non-profit association and NGO’s, advocacy groups. These stakeholders will be personally involved in activities related with validation workshops, open seminars and multiplier events After the project completion is expected _increased awareness of schools on the needed to put efforts to invest on the qualification of their teachers and to adapt the profession to a continuously changing educational environment;_teachers more motivated and satisfied due the investment on their needs of deal with diversity in the classroom_new and tailor-made tool that will allow teachers to self-evaluate themselves and generate awareness on needs of self-development, flexibility and adaptation to new realities _a mentoring process that can be individually fine-tuning to mentors and mentees_pupils with the sense of being valued by their diversity

The Mentoring Pathways Towards Employment project (MPATH) project was a 2-year project (2015-2017) funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union and established a partnership of 6 non-profit organisations from across Europe, focusing on creating a mentoring model to help 1st job seekers, low skilled and long term unemployed workers to enter in the labour market and maintain theirs job place.MPATH project had the following goals:1.To develop new, innovative and multidisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning in context of career guidance in labour market2.To identify the suitable profile and competencies to support or perform mentoring programs within companies3.To create a Mentoring model to improve competencies, namely with low skilled and long term unemployed workers, to enter in the labour market and to maintain their job place; 4.To pilot a mentoring model to support small and medium companies and non-profit organisations (SME/O’s) For accomplishing of them, 8 intellectual outputs were developed in order to create a package of tools and guidelines to support SME/Os to implement a mentoring model that can be seen in 5 languages: English, Romanian, Portuguese, Greek, and Hungarian, all of them uploaded on https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/projects/:1.Evidence review on labour market and job place retention measures: a desk research study intended to identify good practices and active measures using mentoring to retain long term unemployed; this study was presented in different conferences and shared with stakeholders among SME/Os across Europe2.Mentoring Coordinators and Mentors’ profile and competences tool: based on previous findings of MOMIE and MEGAN project was created a profile framework on the competences that coordinators and mentors must have in order to perform their role successfully; an online tool was created to support the use of the framework and all partners tested it during some staff training events with mentors and coordinators.3.Mentees’ performance profile and competences tool: based on the new skills needed for the future jobs and the main employability skills, a profile of mentees was created alongside with an online tool.4.Low skilled and long term unemployed mentoring model: to support the homogeneity and robustness of the mentoring programmes implemented, a mentoring model was created including a process map, some guidelines and procedures for all the steps, and a pack of templates to provide evidence on the mentoring process; all partners used the forms and they were satisfied with the model/ programme, although the experiences were very different in each country.5.Course for Mentoring Coordinators: a training course for coordinators to prepare coordinators on basic skills about mentoring, how to implement a mentoring programme and how to support mentors; 6.Train the mentors’ course: the course for mentors followed the line as for the coordinators; most mentors felt that it was important to cover the theoretical information, but add the practical part and group activities; partners took the opportunity of staff training events to share some activities and show how to promote mentors’ skills7.E-learning Training Course: to promote digital learning, the partnership used an e-learning course based on a LMS platform; due to lack of funding it’s mainly a repository of information, but partners felt it was positive to have a common accessible point; all partners used a LMS Guide with basic instructions on how to use the platform8.Mentoring model to support SME/O’s workers’ retention: As the final output, the partnership proposed a guide/ manual to support SME/Os to implement a mentoring model; it was based on the mentoring model piloted, with added value of facts and figures from the partners’ experiences in MPATHMPATH set up in the application key performance indicators:•No of mentor's coordinators = 34/ Goal was 32•No of mentors = 51/ Goal was 32•No of mentees = 70/ Goal was 64•No of Course for mentor's coordinators delivered = 5/ Goal was 4•No of Train the mentors’ course delivered = 5/ Goal was 4•No of mentoring processes = 50/ although it supposed to be the same number as mentees, A positive outcome of the project is the awareness of SME/Os, managers and HR about mentoring as a strategy to retain a job place, to promote employees’ satisfaction or to promote well-being among newly comers. Besides that, it was also important on the side of mentees, on the development of soft skills such as self-esteem or self-confidence. All partners got to embed the outputs and the package of tools into their own services and the multiplier events served to increase each partners’ network of stakeholders interested in using mentoring to support job place access and retention. Although the precise effects might come later, some partners have already been engaged with some SME/Os willing to implement MPATH mentoring model.

Parent’r’us mainly aimed to support key actors increase parents engagement in children's academic achievement and well-being at school by extending their competences throughout an innovative mentoring model approach integrated in a holistic approach. The final goal was to contribute to an inclusive education, combining equity and quality, enabling success for all students, from the lowest to the highest end of the academic spectrum. THE CONTEXT: although in EU the early school leaving (ESL) rate is decreasing but huge discrepancies remain between & within Member States (time when we applied):Romania: ESL rate was 18.5%Hungary: ESL rate was 12.4 % Portugal: ESL rate was 14%, Spain: ESL rate was 19%.MAIN OBJECTIVES: _develop new, innovative & multidisciplinary approaches to empower parental engagement on student academic routine, building on lessons learnt from previous projects in the field of parental engagement, student participation & their active citizenship _identify the suitable profile & competences needed to support or perform mentoring programs within schools, parent associations &/or local associations _design a mentoring model to improve parental skills, namely with parents less or not engaged in their children’s schooling life, with the final aim of improving their academic achievement & reduce ESL cycles _design a mentoring model to improve teachers’ competences to be able to engage & empower parents to participate on their children’s schooling life, & to be able to cooperate with the parents for steering school life together _design a mentoring model to improve school heads’ competences for applying a real school leadership approach & fully engage parents & students._deliver a Parenthood Mentoring Awareness Toolkit to parents, schools, supervisory/financing organization of the school & community organizationsAlthough the implementation of projects that involved mobility underwent profound changes during the implementation of the ParentRUs, we managed to reorganize and adapt to the situation imposed by the rules of activity in the pandemic, sometimes different from country to country. We obtained the estimated results, we even exceeded them in the same total budget initially approved, but with effort, additional working time, transition from group activity to individual activity, organizing activities in the online environment, and several series of postponements until the context allowed their realization (various partners, depending on the restrictions specific to each country). DIRECT PARTICIPANTS:Researchers in IO1: 90% exceededMentoring Managers and Mentors: 53% exceeded, and Mentees exceeded by 5%Multiplier Events participants: 27% exceededLearning, Teaching and Training Activities participants: 43% exceededThe project developed the following INTELLECTUAL OUTPUTS: _Systematic evidence review on Mentoring Models to engage disadvantaged parents in their children schooling (article) _Self-Assessment Tool for Mentors’ Managers _Self-Assessment Tool for Mentors _Mentoring to Parents Engagement: the course to train the Managers _ Mentoring to Parents Engagement: the course to train the Mentors _Mentoring Model for parents engagement at child schooling life _School Parent Engagement Awareness Toolkit THE IMPACT of the ParentRUs project resulted in empowering the parents to participate in their children’s school and education life, a special focused being given to the adjustment of children-families and academic personal to the online implementation of the school. The grass-roots method of ParentRUs ensures that parents do not feel like they are being spoken down to, but are empowered and encouraged to collaborate with their peers to reach a common goal. The train the trainer model used by ParentRUs enables the wide spread of this innovative approach. ParentRUs works to foster parental self-confidence. Through mentorship and trainings, it reassures parents that they are good and capable of making changes at their school, ensuring that their voice is being heard and acted upon. Additionally, the program encourages schools to eschew focusing on traditional measures of parental involvement like helping with homework or attending teacher-parent conferences. The program, then, ultimately seeks to build an equal partnership between parents and school staff—one that is both responsive and supportive.ParentRUs projects result proved numerous times, the power of collaboration between various entities towards a common goal. It provided and will continue to provide a vehicle towards a much need change within our community. The impact of empowerment, doubtlessly provides protective milieu as well as a boost of confidence and motivation, through knowledge, skills, empathy and transversal skills. All of the above are meant to foster and highlight the outmost importance of the relationship between parents-schools-communities for the enhancement of children’s lives.

<< Background >>Social practitioners play a crucial role in maintaining the health and wellbeing of vulnerable children, adults, older people, and their caregivers. They have a direct role in improving the lives of vulnerable individuals with complex social, physical and mental needs. Individuals having a profession where they put themselves in the position of encountering negative events will impact various aspects of their lives. In a recent report on the difficulties of the social work profession, job demands included increasing paperwork, unmanageable caseloads, and problems with difficult clients, as well as staff shortages and reduced availability of adequate supervision (Center for Workforce Studies, NASW, 2006). An increasing research base highlights higher levels of stress and burnout among social professionals than other human service occupations (Lloyd et al. 2002; Kim and Stoner 2008). This wider group of social practitioners (including social workers, psychologists, sociologists, and others) are the persons who help people obtain needed resources, facilitate interactions between themselves, their peers and their environments. Working directly with individuals does not come without risks. The emotionally demanding aspects of this profession increase the risk for social workers to experience a high level of stress and burnout. Burnout appears when an individual feels emotionally exhausted, experience depersonalization, lack of interest in work, and has decreased feelings of self-worth (Hombrados-Mendieta & Cosano-Rivas, 2013; 2011; Savaya, 2014; Sprang, Craig, & Clark, 2011). In this context, the project 4LessBurnout seeks to develop the means and resources to assess the level of stress and burnout amongst social practitioners, working directly with vulnerable people, to encourage them to seek for help and to provide them with the necessary resources; meaning training, specialized staff, and knowledge, to manage, reduce and improve their capacity to deal with professional stress and burnout.<< Objectives >>The main project objectives are: To encourage professionals to seek help when they feel overwhelmed; To raise awareness about stress and how burnout syndrome affects people’s life and work; To raise professionals’ capacity to manage stress and burnout contexts and support each other through the intervention processes; To improve the relationship between beneficiaries and social practitioners; To increase the quality of social services<< Implementation >>R1 Mapping the current situation regarding burnout among social professionals by designing an open digital tool for burnout level assessment. This result includes several activities, such as brief research on similar tools-additional to the ones already identified while writing the proposal, 2 focus groups/country with social professionals for the identification of the stressors that will be assessed, the development of the platform and its testing. R2 Building professionals’ capacity to cope with burnout-interactive training. This activity foresees to buildout related learning materials that allows to deliver a blended learning course to promote the development of coping skills that will help social practitioners reduce the stress caused by the working environment to be integrated in the training curricula of the social workers professional development. This activity foresees to build out related learning materials that allow delivering a blended learning course to promote the development of coping skills by social practitioners and thus reduce the stress caused by the working environment. We expect that this course to be integrated into the training curricula of the social workers' professional development. R3 A self-care toolkit and resiliency that will guide professionals to cope with job requirements and the symptoms of stress and burnout. The self-care toolkit and resiliency will be drawn from previous activities, especially from piloting and will contain among other information, practical information on how to use the assessment tool and training to cope with job requirements and the symptoms of stress and burnout.<< Results >>The project aims to reduce the stress level among social practitioners and improve their capacity to deal with the symptoms of burnout through the following results: R1 Mapping the current situation regarding burnout among social professionals by designing an open digital tool for burnout level assessment R2 Building professionals’ capacity to cope with burnout-interactive training. R3 A self-care toolkit and resiliency that will guide professionals to cope with job requirements and the symptoms of stress and burnout. Outcome: 4LessBurnout will enable social professionals to seek help when they feel overwhelmed and consequently will improve the relationship between beneficiaries and social practitioners. They need to maintain their self-care, change up their routine, be selective with the cases they accept and negotiate their responsibilities. Adequate qualification and training lead to better preparation of social practitioners to deal with contemporary situations. It will innovate in terms of providing an online platform that diagnoses the stressors they are dealing with day by day, a set of recommendations and a learning program based on practical exercises, and theoretical information that will be presented on an E-learning platform. Dissemination and Sustainability Plan. It describes the communication objectives: to raise awareness on mental health issues, with focus on burnout, promote mental health at workplace, define the target group, channels, activities to reach the target: social media, events, publications etc. A sustainability plan with specific measures will be built and adapted by partners during the project duration. Foreseen impact: improvement of coping skills, resilience, a higher level of personal accomplishments, release of stress and burnout, all this leading to more qualitative social services and a better connection with the beneficiaries.