<< Background >>Man-made or natural disasters can cause severe damage to individuals, communities, economies, supply chains, and the environment. Moreover, they may trigger secondary disasters, aggravating initial impacts. Such type incidents in the previous decades, clearly illustrate the urgent need to tackle these hazards within the overall frame of inclusive disaster risk management. Furthermore, the cost of disasters worldwide has risen from previous years and continues to grow due to increasing disaster risk as a result of factors such as climate crisis, rapid urbanization, and industrialization. This project will contribute to improving the management of these risks and strengthening resilience. We would like this effort to offer a targeted set of both scientific and practical activities for implementation at national and local levels contribution and to support training and capacity building and to raise awareness of the risks and impacts of man-made and natural disasters.Civil Protection Personnel face important challenges due to the complexity and incidents’ increased demands, while private sector Safety and Security Personnel face relatively same challenges in protecting the indoor estate. Under these circumstances, both Civil Protection and private sector personnel need to be able to evaluate critical issues under complex conditions and make quick and reasonable judgments based on sound scientific knowledge and former experience in order to reduce possibly occurring errors. Therefore, it is important to provide more and diverse training and seek new and improved ways to train target groups that optimize the actual task performance, while minimizing physical danger and financial cost.<< Objectives >>SETOFF Project aims to improve the readiness and occupational safety of both civil protection and private sector Safety and Security Personnel against future crises and emergencies by developing an innovative e-training curriculum based both on a successfully tested and implemented simulation model combined with the latest scientific knowledge and on comprehensive needs analysis. In detail: • Provide high quality training for both civil protection and private sector Safety and Security personnel to increase readiness and actionability• Facilitate and support professionals by validating practices acquired in the field• Identify knowledge and performance gaps through various comprehensive training needs assessments• Develop a common e-training curriculum resulting the cooperation between 4 countries (Greece, Republic of North Macedonia, Belgium & Spain) based on findings gathered from simulations (Discussion Exercises) that will address existing knowledge and performance gaps• Develop an e-platform, accessible from any portable device to host the training modules and develop a community of demanders • Generate new and better simulation scenarios to improve the knowledge database through collaboration of experienced professionals from different countries • Mitigate the resource availability issues, sharing already existing installations among participants of the Project, both on-site and through distance learning• Further use and mainstreaming of a successful training modelNUMBER AND PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTSThe partnership consists of 8 partners from 4 countries: universities and training organizations with expertise in civil protection issues, municipalities, and non-profit research organizations as well as technical consulting service companies. Furthermore, twelve (12) associated Partners recognize the need and potential of this project to enable structured knowledge sharing and facilitate collaboration between practitioners, civil society, and stakeholders in the field of disaster management via the proposed SETOFF online platform and express their interest in support and their intention to actively participate in SETOFF.<< Implementation >>The activities are the following• Comprehensive training needs analysis through literature review, including good practices, target audience, and topic analysis. • Validation of the Partner countries’ needs in terms of knowledge and skills gaps. • Development of training methodology: design and development of collaborative, evidence-based curriculum on simulations, integration of contemporary learning theories and practices, development of learning/training scenarios and lesson plans. • Design and development of the e-training platform.• Conversion of the training material into e-training, hosted in the e-learning segments of the platform.• Validation of the e-training usability and efficiency• Development of retention service skills• Training the appointed trainers on the methodology, modules, and training tools.• Organization and implementation of pilot projects in the 3 Partner countries.• Implementation of the ECVET tools• Assessment of pilots and adjustment of the Project outcomes.METHODOLOGYThe consortium will design, develop, test, implement and disseminate an innovative disaster management training programme/curriculum for both Civil Protection and private sector Safety and Security personnel supported by the e-training platform and the Skills Retention Service. The Project will follow a systematic approach to outcomes development: cycles of design, development, testing, and evaluation to assess usability and functionality. The development of the training program will be based on the adoption of a user-centered approach which requires the target groups’ representatives been involved in all project stages. In addition, it is expected that involving users in the design of the training and of the platform functionalities from the beginning will not only increase the efficiency and usability of e-learning training but will also moderate any resistance to change in adopting the proposed innovative training framework.SETOFF fully respects gender and age representation, as proved by the number of male/female consortium key-personnel, as well as the civic and civil protection Safety and Security Personnel involved in the training.Furthermore, two organizations, the Hellenic Federation of the Deaf and the Panhellenic Association of Paraplegics are associated to SETOFF in order to provide input and experience on Safety and Security procedures of invalid/disabled people at risk. SETOFF is in accordance with EU digital transformation priority as it’s curriculum and training techniques request enhancing digital skills and competences and scale up those already trainers and trainees practice. In accordance with the EU green Deal Communication, the SETOFF Project will tackle green goals related to reduced energy by: -hosting virtual meetings where possible-for the in-person training, travelling green and staying at hotels that respect building and renovating policy -reducing CO production and saving energy through the appropriate webtools, use of drives to reduce emails, reducing printed documents and using upcycled or recycled materials where possible SETOFF been an international Project aspires to respect language diversity and promote multilingualism by:-translating curriculum in all Partners languages-assuring press releases and social media presence in all Partners languagesThe SETOFF training will be based on ECVET approach and the certification will be built in accordance to levels 6, 7 of the European Qualifications Framework.<< Results >>Using the simulation facilities and online technology, the SETOFF Project will develop an e-training curriculum based on the real needs and the cognitive profile of the target groups, which can be applied in different stages of both civil protection and private sector Safety and Security training personnel: • e-learning educational platform • e-training modules• online technologies to bring remote training closer to face-to-face training• Skills Retention Service• ECVET supporting toolsIMPACT & LONG-TERM BENEFITS• Provide a high-quality innovative, flexible, and affordable training curriculum for both civil protection and private sector Safety and Security personnel • SETOFF will raise skill and performance levels and will serve the digitalization efforts of the field• Enhance VET providers offer online training with remote control practices• Improve collaboration between Partners and sharing of best practices and resources• Establish simulation training as mainstream methodology• Provide visibility of EU innovative and effective disaster management practices• In order to maximize impact, SETOFF curriculum will be available for consultation and to be included in future disaster management training. Moreover, Trainees will be accredited to perform in their turn as future trainers.