COMPASS – Career cOnsulting and Mentoring skills caPAcity building for youth workerS working with NEETS
About the project
According to the last research of Eurostat conducted in 2016, 9 countries are experiencing unemployment rate among NEETs which is higher than the average for Europe (18,3 %). Some of them are Spain (22,8 %), Greece (30,5 %), Bulgaria (25,1 %), Romania (23,5%) and France (18,9%). In order to tackle those disturbing statistics, since the early 2000s the positive role of youth work has been recognised and its direct impact on the employability of NEETs. However, the conducted reseach within the COMPASS project showed that most of the youth workers supporting NEETs have motivation and ambition to guide and advice inactive young people in the process of their education and labour market integration, but not all of them understand and recognize the career counselling and mentoring skills which are a key ingredient for every supporting and social role.
To fill in this gap, COMPASS comes in place (Career cOnsulting and Mentoring skills caPAcity building for youth workerS working with NEETS) as a 2-year project funded by the Erasmus+ programme that aims at the recognition and improvement of youth work and its impact of the NEETs labour market inclusion. The project is innovative as it provides competence-based training with focus on career counselling and mentoring skills for youth workers who are specifically working with NEETs and innovative NEETs activation gamified platform.
Goals
The overall goal of COMPASS is to decrease the unemployment rates among NEETs in the partner countries by increasing youth workers capacity who work directly for the labour market inclusions of inactive youth.
The desired short-term goal of COMPASS is to develop competence-based training for youth workers that will improve their skills for effective support of NEETs by making an important step towards building a pattern of professionalising youth work.
The mid-term goal is to establish synergies and bridges between local and national youth organisations and Youth Guarantee actors in order to multiply the project impact on local, national and European level.
The ultimate long-term goal is to contribute to the decrease of youth unemployment rates in the 6 partner countries and in Europe as a whole.
Target group
The COMPASS target group are youth workers (incl. community mediators, roma mediators, social workers, career counsellors, etc. between the age of 18-29) who work directly with NEETs and are aiming to support them in the education and labour market integration process that leads in the long-run into lower unemployment levels among NEETs.
COMPASS activities
To reach the goals stated in the project, the following main activities will take place:
- Competence assessment methodology for youth workers
Exploration of the concrete learning and training needs of youth workers’ that support NEETs, definition of competences for this specific role and assessment of them.
- Career counselling and Mentoring training programme
Training modules and practical assignments will be developed in order to equip the youth workers with the necessary tools to address the individual challenges that NEETs and young unemployed are facing.
- Youth workers workshops and mentoring
Capacity building programme for youth workers that will be delivered as a blended learning with face-to-face (F2F) workshops and followed by individual mentoring sessions.
- NEETs activation gamified platform
The gamified platform aims at the NEETs activation and empowerment trough learning missions and e-games which will be used by the youth workers in their work with NEETs in order to increase their chances for educational and labour market integration.
Partners
CATRO (Bulgaria)
Oesterreichische Jungarbeiterbewegung (Austria)
Pistes Solidaires (France)
University of Thessaly (Greece)
Acción Laboral Plataforma para la Implatacion de Programas de Inclusion Laboral en Colectivos Desfavorecidos (Spain)
S.C. Predict CSD Consulting S.R.L. (Romania)
Newsletters
Web-site: https://www.compass-eu.org
This project (2019-2-BG01-KA205-062645) has been funded with support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.