ESES - Designing the Competence Profile of the European Supported Employment Specialist
Overview
ESES (Designing the Competence Profile of the European Supported Employment Specialist) is a Leonardo da Vinci Multilateral Project funded by the European Commission through the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EACEA. The main objective of the project is to define the competences and the professional profile of the European Supported Employment Specialist according to the guidelines set by the European Credit System of Vocational Education and Training (ECVET).
Supported Employment is one of the chief constituents of the non-exclusionary policy pursued by the European Union and its effectiveness is grounded on a broad-based approach characterized by customer-oriented procedures, clear codes of practice, targeted vocational programs and a dynamic system of both serviceable labour market pathways and functional lifelong learning policies. Today most Supported Employment providers still cannot count on a certified training and on common organizational modes and approaches focused toward pragmatic ways of tackling ever-changing professional contexts.
ESES aims at designing the competence requirements for Supported Employment Specialists (SESs) working with disabled jobseekers, and therefore at setting a benchmark with regard to several aspects of the profession: certified training and upgrading, definition of tasks, and validation of skills and knowledge throughout EU countries.
Partners
Project Promoter
Soc. Coop. Aforisma (Pisa, Italy)
www.aforismatoscana.net
Project Partners
Association pour le Développement de la Pédagogie de l’Individualisation (Paris, France)
http://adpiformation.fr
Business and Development Center (Rzeszow, Poland)
www.bdcenter.eu
DIA-SPORT Association (BG)
www.dia-sport.org
Centros de Promoción Integral (Granada, Spain)
http://www.centrosproin.es
Queraum. Kultur- und Sozialforschung (Vienna, Austria)
http://www.queraum.org
ESES web-site - http://www.esesproject.eu/
Target groups
The main target groups for the ESES project include:
- Supported Employment Specialists (current and prospective);
- Organizations and VET providers offering courses regarding Supported Employment;
- Trainers of Supported Employment specialists;
- Employment offices, organizations, local authorities and companies employing a significant number of people with disabilities;
- People with disabilities who are looking for a job;
- Policy makers involved in Supported Employment.
Background
The project wants:
- to support the development of the European qualification of the European Supported Employment Specialist (SES)
- to promote the use, test and implement ECVET by applying it to assessment, design of curricula, transfer, validation and accumulation of learning outcomes achieved in formal, informal and non formal contexts related to the ESES qualification.
As a byproduct, the project will bring advantage not only to the world of VET, but, by focusing on a fundamental occupation, to person with disabilities inserted or willing to be inserted in VET.
To reach this goal, the project will produce:
- A competence profile of the ESES. The profile will be fully structured according to ECVET guidelines and described in the paper The European SES Competence Profile. The profile will describe key activities (units of competence) and for each activity skills and knowledge needed. To each unit will be allocated a set of ECVET points, so to allow recognition and transfer in other existing official qualifications and comparison with similar profiles in different countries.
- The blueprint (lessons plans including materials to use for training) of a training course for training ESESs. The blueprint will be described in the paper A Blueprint for the Training of the European SES.
- A procedure for the accreditation (recognition of competence) of people working as SES. The procedure will allow assessment, transfer, validation and accumulation of learning outcomes (under the form of ECVET points) achieved in formal, informal and non formal contexts. The procedure will be described in the paper A Methodology For Assessing And Validating Competence of the European SES.
- Guidelines for the accreditation of courses providers organizing courses for training SESs will be produced. The guidelines will be described in the paper Guidelines for accreditation of training providers.
- Guidelines for the application of ECVET to qualifications. These are described in a document with the same name and will list a set of principles (quality standards) for the application of ECVET to SES and more in general to national, sectoral or trans-sectoral qualifications.
The project produces benchmarks for the profile of the SES, for training SESs and for accrediting their competence and organizations employing SESs. Thanks to the project, the ECVET system and the occupation of SES will become better known, more effective and widespread. The effects of the project are differentiated depending by target groups.
- Existing SESs: the project allows to recognize themselves as part of a specific profession. Our aim is to create a register of SESs at European level. To this end, we will cooperate with EUSE European Union of Supported Employment http://www.euse.org/. The accreditation procedure will also allow each SES to understand the ECVET system, to have his/her formal and not formal learning recognized by VET providers across Europe, and recognize its own professional strong and weak points and to improve its expertise
- People interested in becoming SES: the project allows them to understand the ECVET system, to have their formal and not formal learning recognized by VET providers across Europe, to measure distance between competence already possessed and competence needed to work as SES, and to develop action plans for their own training. The project also allows to compare training offered by different training providers and to chose the most complete or the more suitable referring to the missing competencies
- Training providers in general: to understand in practice how ECVET works and how to choose the best SES when recruiting them
- VET trainers interested in training of SES: the training blueprint will support training providers for the design and the implementation of courses addressed to SESs, and for producing a course with the same content across Europe. Our aim is to have this blueprint implemented throughout Europe and to create a list of accredited training providers
- Policy makers and stakeholders can use the competence profile as a relevant reference point for the concrete implementation of professional recognition path within a European perspective.
Activities