"The project ""Pimp up your brain - brain-friendly teaching and learning in integration courses for adults"" was a strategic partner project for the exchange of good practice. The initial situation was that the increased immigration of people from other countries of origin confronts the European Union with numerous challenges. Discussions with EU partners have shown that integration processes are approached differently in all countries and sometimes lead to very different results. The Landesverband der VHS Saxonia-Anhalt e.V. went with the VHS education institute VoG. Eupen - Belgium and the BhW Niederösterreich GmbH St. Pölten, into the active exchange, in order to examine the quality of DaZ and integration courses in the European context.The discussion was based on the following questions, among others: 1) How successful do learners in integration courses judge the welcome culture in the target country or in the institution? How successful do they judge their personal development? What do they feel is missing? 2) Which political and legal requirements influence integration processes in the individual partner countries? (e.g. structures, goals, financing, group sizes, e.g. in Germany 12-25 participants / in Austria 6 participants per group). 3) How is the training and further education of teachers for integration courses organized in the three partner countries (e.g. professional and linguistic requirements, contents, implementation, financing, materials)?Three surveys were conducted, targeting adult education organizations, education staff and participants in integration process courses. An interesting finding was that brain-friendly teaching materials are almost exclusively created by educational staff. Here the actual causes would have to be clarified.There were three learning activities with the following main topics: C1. Intercultural competence as a stress competence - strengthening of teachers' competences C2. Strengthening the joy of learning and motivation of the learners - brain-friendly teaching - developing a variety of methodsC3. Dealing with traumatized participants in integration courses - sensitizing and strengthening the teaching staffThese activities served the exchange and the expansion of competences. In the three learning activities, more than 85 teachers participated in the exchange activities and competence strengthening workshops. They shared their knowledge with their colleagues in regional workshops.Indirect target group were learners in the integration process accompanying courses. They were involved by their teachers in the implementation and reflection of what they have learned. For the implementation of the project a common project management method was chosen - initiation, planning, execution, control and evaluation.In order to ensure the management and evaluation of the project as well as the dissemination of the results, a transnational meeting was held at the beginning, at the end and in the margins of each of the three learning activities. Regular video conferences of the project working group complemented this process and enabled a timely correction and adjustment of intermediate steps. All participants emerged from the project with strengthened competencies. The exchange and the workshops offered led to an increase in course quality. In some cases, concepts were revised and adapted; in others, new concepts were developed. The aim of the cooperation was to improve the quality of the courses by strengthening intercultural competencies among the educational staff and raising awareness for a more brain-friendly preparation of learning material, thus increasing the chances of successful integration work for the European community. In order to achieve this goal at the EU level, local, regional and national providers of German as a foreign language and integration courses as well as corresponding organizations were regularly informed about the progress of the project and the results and invited to further training. At EPALE there are links to reports and to the collection of materials on the project website. The materials can be downloaded free of charge."

"<< Objectives >>The MOMENTUM project consortium has agreed on the following priorities:1. Improving of social inclusion2. Expanding and strengthening the skills of adult educators and3. fostering Inclusion - fairness / justiceObjective:- Integration of migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and people in precarious living situations (e.g. threat of poverty)- Inclusion - fairness / justice- better trained inclusion advisors<< Implementation >>• Transfer of INTEGRATION COURSE and a BOARD GAME to promote inclusion• Training to become an INCLUSION MANAGER• 2 PROJECT NEWSLETTERS• WEBSITE• PRESS RELEASES• Activities on SOCIAL MEDIA• Publication on EPRP / EPALE• Production of FLYERS / POSTERS• Conducting ONLINE SEMINARS for training purposes and for mutual consultation• Establishment of a TRANSNATIONAL NETWORK OF EXPERTS• 4 TRANSNATIONAL PROJECT MEETINGS• ""INCLUSION & DIVERSITY MANAGER"" CERTIFICATE<< Results >>• Transfer and adaptation of proven methods (good practise)• Training as an INCLUSION & DIVERSITY MANAGER for 8 project participants• Dissemination activities (eg newsletter, website, press releases, facebook, EPRP and EPALE) for free use of the project results• Transnational network of consultants for mutual training and advice"

<< Objectives >>In 2021 the European Parliament called for research on sheltered workshops to support compliance with EU and United Nations inclusion targets. Include³ will, in an inclusive and co-productive process, develop resources and a curriculum to create individual pathways for people with intellectual disabilities from targeted vocational and educational training into sustainable employment and decent work, thereby contributing to inclusion by linking sheltered VET more strongly to labour market needs.<< Implementation >>Based on a curriculum for the Include³-method, career guidance professionals working in or for sheltered workshops will engage in seminars with people with intellectual disabilities, employers and the workshop’s vocational education and training specialists. The aim is to personalise vocational training so that a tight fit with labour market needs is achieved. Piloting and evaluation of the seminars will ensure that the method can be established sustainably in different European countries.<< Results >>Include³ will result in the development of a process to harmonise sheltered vocational education and training with individual needs, capabilities and aspirations of people with intellectual disabilities and with labour market opportunities. A curriculum and resources available through a fully accessible web portal will ensure the applicability and dissemination of this process, so that vocatioal training sheltered workshops can better contribute to the target of labour market inclusion.

The primary goal of the project is to facilitate the reintegration of people with changed abilities into the primary labor market. The main outcome of the Core-Relief project is a curriculum written as simple text in the working language of the partnership and in the 6 languages ​​of the Core-Relief consortium (GER, FI, E, SK, HU, LT) which can be used by the partnerships' stakeholders and other partners. Our goals include:1. Secure top-grade professional development for the Core-Relief Course adult/professional trainers in response to expected high demand for training;2. Extend the level of knowledge in connection with the main topic in Slovakia, Belgium, Spain, Finland, Hungary and Lithuania, and other EU countries.3. Support usage of the Core-Relief Course by elaborating its training methodology into an even greater level of detail.Professionals of the sheltered labor market and teachers/trainers of social care workers are the primary beneficiaries and the focus of the proposed project.The project will be for the most part accomplished in a series of joint trainer staff workshops focused on the exchange of know-how and best practices of all participants. The material of the training events (3 occasions) is supplemented by work based on common thinking and experience of exchanges of best practices. In structured workshop sessions and training sessions participating trainers will enhance considerably their professional competences and the workshops and the training events will also generate a set of outputs consisting of detailed lesson plans, worksheets and comprehensive methodology recommendations for training of professionals in the CoRe-Relief courses. The proposed project implementation will start in October 2020. After completing the necessary preparatory steps all project partners will meet at the kick-off meeting in October 2020, where they will plan and agree on detailed project parameters. Each consortium partner will establish a study group of staff members possessing one or more of the following areas of expertise: • Professional worker educators/trainers in the sheltered labor market, • Health care experts, • Adult training methodology experts.Study group members will participate in joint staff workshops and the training events aimed at the exchange of know-how and best practices. Subsequently, four cycles (one of the Spanish, one of the Belgian, one of the Finnish and one of the Lithuanian partners) of 3-day joint staff workshops will take place in regular about 3-months long intervals. The Hungarian partner will organize the training occasions in the first part of 2022, the main applicant, the Slovakian TENENET will organize the kick-off and closing TPMs, assists in the organization and organization of all kind of meetings during the project, reviewer and responsible for the big whole process. After this, the last training occasion in March 2022 will evaluate and summarize the outcomes of all exchanges. The project will be concluded in March 2023.The study group of trainers participating in the joint staff workshops and in the training events will obtain the immediate benefits of the work program. Exchange of know-how and best practices with the other experts and the common teamwork on the development of innovative and effective teaching methods will benefit their professional development considerably. We also expect that a transfer of experience will take place among the lectors who participated in the exchanges and their other colleagues.Improvements in the professional development of the trainer staff will have a profound positive impact on the quality of service partnership members will provide to their clients, public bodies, interest groups, and other stakeholders when delivering CoRe-Relief Course training. The results of the project will be freely available on all partners’ websites, along with learning materials of the CoRe-Relief Course. Enhancing and detailing the training methodology of the CoRe-Relief Course will support the wider adoption of the training for the sheltered labor market by peer training organizations on the regional and national levels. Hopefully, the Core-Relief will have a positive impact on improving the affected staff mobility and transferability of competences, initially within the boundaries of our partnership and later among other EU member states.

The basic principle of the project “Enhancement in psychosocial life skills” was to describe our contemporary living situation. Among other things, the project found that the increase in decision options for human beings, along with their greater disorientation, pressure to self-improve and the increasingly rapid pace of living conditions go hand-in-hand with a growing alienation from the (social, natural, psychiatric and spiritual) world. Life transitions are increasing and interpersonal relationships are becoming more fragile. Human beings are facing the challenge of steering themselves, designing how they live with one another constructively and in a way that fosters solidarity.Consequently, mental stress is increasing and diagnoses of illnesses of a psychological nature are on the rise. Many people are seeking refuge in addictions or fundamentalism in an attempt to escape this pressure and to regain control over their lives. The Corona pandemic, which started during the course of the project, has placed the stress faced by human beings and their abilities to overcome this as well as their limitations in even greater focus.An ideal image of a psychosocial, strong personality was developed that had its foundations in this analysis. Attitudes and abilities were assigned to the basic cornerstones of thinking and feeling, wanting and acting. An assumption was made here that they strengthen the resilience of human beings and their mental health. This is not only important for individuals but also politically and socially relevant, in light of the financial effects of the increase in mental illnesses.Psychosocial life skills enhancement is a preventative approach for strengthening living proficiency. It promotes the self-regulating ability of human beings in social contexts, supports their self-responsibility and offers possibilities for acquiring a personal orientation system. It strives at support of the (psychological) health of people as well as the extension of equal (health) opportunities and the strengthening of social participation. Psychosocial life skills enhancement is based on the trinity of education, consultation and supervision. It opens up “learning and feedback spaces”, “zones of encounter” and “workshops of success and failure”. It works in a resource-oriented manner, involves the target groups and takes into account forms of self-controlled informal learning. Much attention is paid to the question of knowledge transfer.Alongside this theoretical basis, new formats were firstly devised, conducted and evaluated. Secondly strategies and tools were developed that ensure the quality of offers of psychosocial life skills enhancement and safeguard this. In this way a quality framework and a description of successful learning arose. Furthermore tools were developed for describing the target group, evaluation etc.During a concluding conference, the results and experience of the Erasmus+ project were presented to and discussed with the wider public. Within this framework, there was evidence of great interest and much positive feedback was received about the project results. In addition, a wide range of suggestions were made about developing the project further and consolidating enhancement based on feedback.