"<< Background >>Especially among the lower underprivileged milieu – the “left behind” – there are still major barriers to education and further training (Bremer 2017). This raises questions of connectivity of educational guidance. Many drivers such as digitalisation (e-literacy, information literacy…) polarisation of the labour market (increase of working poor, new forms of precarious work…) immigration from “poor countries” etc. are pushing this development. Because unemployed people are mostly under the supervision of public employment services (PESs), there needs to be a special focus on persons from the prime working age who have a form of gainful work (hereafter labelled “working persons”). In some European countries working persons from the underprivileged milieu are still hardly or not at all in focus of educational guidance, other countries already have a lot of experience with different approaches to reach this group of guidance users.Persons from this underprivileged milieu are characterised by a certain habitus (Bourdieu 1987), which differs greatly from that of the guidance practitioners themselves. They are characterised by lower educational and skill level and lower participation in educational guidance (Bremer 2017). People in a certain social milieu are among other things similar in their preferences and attitudes to work and education (Vester et al. 2001). Many guidance/counselling approaches focus on the users. ReachOut, however, addresses guidance practices and raises the question of the ""connectivity"" of educational guidance practitioners to their clients. Guidance practitioners are challenged to respond to different people and their concerns, to be up-to-date professionally, to deal with new media (social media, online counselling, chat counselling, etc.) and to adapt to an increasingly diversified society (multiculturalism, diverse value systems) (Leonhartsberger-Ledl 2017,5). ""Connectivity"" is created by recognising the lifeworld of the other person(s) and, above all, through ""habitus sensitivity"" (Sander 2014, Bremer 2017). In line with the ET2020/European Agenda for Adult Learning priorities and the Council Recommendation on Upskilling Pathways ReachOut aims at increasing demand and take-up of adult education through effective outreach, guidance, and motivation strategies by adapting guidance offers to the target group of working persons from the underprivileged milieu. ReachOut does this by answering the question how connectable educational guidance is and how habitus sensitivity in offers of educational guidance can be supported (Sander 2014).<< Objectives >>ReachOut sets clear objectives in relation to three direct and indirect target groups:GUIDANCE PRACTITIONERSThe ReachOut project focuses on upskilling educational and vocational guidance practitioners. The first direct target group is the group of guidance practitioners and their organisations (e.g. five associated partners), who are confronted with the challenges of working with persons from the underprivileged milieu, whose habitus differs greatly from that of the guidance practitioners themselves (e.g. due to their educational background). With the ReachOut project we want to achieve knowledge transfer and reflection on measures to reach working people from the underprivileged milieu and on the design, setting and approaches of guidance used in practice. The ReachOut project will have an impact on the skills and competences of guidance practitioners in the fields of education, career, employment and will be of use for providers of further training for guidance practitioners. Guidance practitioners and their organisations will be enabled to reflect on their experiences and practices of guidance and to upgrade its offers. Stakeholders responsible for educational guidance and professional development of the guidance practitioners will benefit from tailor-made guidance offers and will be enabled to design different training programmes.GOVERINING ACTORSThe second direct target group are governing actors on regional, national, and European level. For example, stakeholders responsible for educational guidance and training and policy actors in the field of strategic programme development and funding. To meet the needs of this target group the project will present the key findings in form of a Policy Paper. The Policy Paper “Habitus Sensitive Guidance - recommendations for policy makers"" (PR3) will be published in English, Czech, Slovenian, and German and will disseminate via the projects website and via websites of projects partners. The results will be presented at four national multiplier events (ME1, ME2, ME3, ME4).The project will raise awareness about the challenge of reaching out to working persons from the underprivileged milieu. It will help to redefine objectives and strategies of educational and vocational guidance to meet the guidance needs of this target group. And it will support the implementation of identified measures to better cater this targe group with appropriate guidance offers.WORKING PEOPLE FROM THE UNDERPRIVILIEGED MILIEUThe indirect target group of the ReachOut project are working persons from the underprivileged milieu. They are from the prime working age and have a less stable form of gainful work (e.g. fragmented, precarious, low paid, marginal, partly declared). They have a certain distance to formal education and guidance and some of which have migration background. This group has severe needs to rise their participation in educational guidance and further training. By upskilling guidance practitioners, offering adequate guidance and creation of an adequate policy setting, individual guidance users will be supported in accessing appropriate education and training opportunities in adult education and to have a clear picture about their individual career path and skills needs. They will be supported to size the labour market opportunities through education and guidance. The project will help them to move on to more stable and secure forms of work.<< Implementation >>The following activities will be implemented during the project period and beyond:>Extensive desk research at national (AT, CZ, DE, SI) and European level on the topic at hand>Presentation of progress during Mutual Learning Seminars (MLS1-4) of all partners at the Transnational Partner Meetings >Interviews with stakeholders for PR1, 3-5 interviews per partner (total of 18 all in all, 30 minutes each)>Interviews with guidance practitioners for PR2, 12 interviews per country (total of 48 interviews, 30 minutes each)>Compiling the project results: PR1 Country Reports, PR2 Self-Study-Manual, PR3 Policy Paper (see next point on “project results”>Compiling and setting up a project Onepager and a Project Website (see next point on “project results”)>Presentation and discussion of results at Multiplier Events (ME1-4) in Austria, Germany, Slovenia and Czech Republic. Each event will have about 30 participants.>Presentations at numerous conferences, workshops, seminars for different target groups<< Results >>>The first Project Result (PR1) are four different COUNTRY REPORTS titled: “Habitus Sensitive Guidance for Underprivileged Milieu” on Austria, Germany, Czech Republic and Slovenia in the respective languages, plus English (15 - 20 pages each). The objective is to map the state of the art and situation related to the policy and practice of professional educational guidance offering guidance to working persons from the underprivileged milieu. The target groups are political decision makers, managers of institutions providing training and guidance and other relevant stakeholders and governing actors in the field of educational and vocational guidance. The reports will create a base from which the mutual discussion will start and crucial points in each country systems can be defined and compared within the consortium. PR1 will also enable the target groups to identify potentially good, applied practices and approaches which could be inspiring for partners or other experts in the broader environment. > The second Project Result (PR2) is a SELF-STUDY-MANUAL titled: “Experiences and Cases from working with the Underprivileged Milieu” in English, German, Slovenian and Czech (about 60 p. + Annex each). The Self-Study-Manual is to be directly used by guidance practitioners, policy makers and relevant stakeholders, who want to inform themselves and to reflect on the practises guiding working persons from the underprivileged milieu. It contributes to the professionalisation of guidance practitioners and their organisations. Also, stakeholders responsible for educational guidance and professional development of the guidance practitioners will benefit from tailor-made guidance offers for the special needs of working persons from underprivileged milieus.> The third Project Result (PR3) is a POLICY PAPER titled: ""Habitus Sensitive Guidance - recommendations for policy makers"" in English, German, Czech and Slovenian (15 - 20 p. each).PR3 is a briefing paper for governing actors, political decision makers, managers of institutions providing training and guidance and other relevant stakeholders in the field of educational and vocational guidance. It will support actors, at European, national, regional, and institutional level in adapting their educational and vocational guidance policy towards the needs of working persons from the underprivileged milieu.Other relevant outputs are:>PROJECT WEBSITE: presenting above others all project outputs for download. It is hosted on ÖSB (www.oesb-sb.at/ReachOut) to make sure that all content will be offered for cost-free download (with an open Creative Commons license: CC BY) for unrestricted time. All partners will additionally provide open access to the project results on their websites. >MULTIPLIER EVENTSThis series of Multiplier Events (ME1-4, one in each country: AT, DE, SL, CZ) aims to boost the national discourse on the impact of recent stratification of society and labour market trends on educational and vocational guidance needs and the resulting challenges for providing guidance. These events are used to disseminate the results and to increase the impact of the project by entering a dialogue with relevant persons in the fields of educational and vocational guidance, education, and labour market, such as guidance practitioners, policy makers, administration representatives and national agencies for educational and labour market programmes. Each partner organises one Multiplier Event with about 30 participants. The output will be documentation and evaluation reports on all four 4 Multiplier Events>ReachOut-ONEPAGER: a short presentation of the project for dissemination will be available in English, German, Czech and Slovenian as PDF and PowerPoint.>According to the DISSEMINATION plans of all partner organisation there will be numerous additional results like journal article, newsletter article, Social Media input, presentations targeting different groups of audience."