COACH@WORK Project – Intellectual output 1 Contract No: 2014-1-BG01-KA202-001529
COACH@WORK:
EQAVET system for recognition, validation and accreditation of Supported Employment providers of people with disabilities
Comparative reportIntellectual output / 1
Activity / A4
Status / Final
Delivery date: / 20/04/2015
Author / NAVET
For further information related to the COACH@WORK project please visit:
the project website (www.supportemployment.eu);
Facebook page (www.facebook.com/supportemployment );
Twitter page (twitter.com/zguraprojects).
This project 2014-1-BG01-KA202-001529 is funded under the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author(s), and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Introduction
This document represents the conclusive part of the research phase of the COACH@WORK project (Activity code O1-A4) which generally aims to develop EQAVET system for recognition, validation and accreditation of knowledge, skills and competencies gained by job coachers who will participate in its implementation phase. The focus is placed on learning outcomes - statements of what a learner knows, understands and is able to do on completion of a learning process defined in terms of knowledge, skills and competencies. Those learning outcomes will be in connection with the unique ECVET training programme for Supported employment (SE) providers which will cover different disability related topics in the context of employability. Supported employment is primarily a policy and philosophy of employment which leads to securing a job and social inclusion of people with different type of disabilities. The philosophy of the SE is that everyone could work - by performing real work with real pay. The variety of definitions for SE in the literature also includes the understanding of Supported employment as a method. For the purpose of the present study: “Supported Employment is a method of working with people with disabilities and other disadvantaged groups to access and maintain paid employment in the open labour market” (EUSE Toolkit, 2010, p. 9). In addition the project partners will develop training materials for jobseekers with disabilities related to: preparing for interview; completion of job applications; disclosure of disability; presenting a professional appearance; analyzing strengths and weaknesses; accessing further help and resources etc.
Within the first phase of the project the project partners are running a research aimed at identifying and consolidating national findings related to Supported Employment providers’ training needs and gaps in provision of SE services as well as in recognition and assessment of their competencies, relevant methodologies and pedagogical approaches regarding this specific activity.
The present Comparative report comprises a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the national findings. All partners had to identify stakeholders to be involved in the interviews, then to collect and comment the received information and at the final to provide summary data in English of the outcomes/ results from the national surveys which will facilitate the formation of the professional profile of the future job coacher.
This report is presenting the information gathered through questionnaires sent and completed by predefined target groups- employer, VET centers, SE providers, non- governmental organizations (NGOs) in Bulgaria, Turkey, Austria and Spain. The research which describes and compares the national particularities and similarities of the needs has been conducted in December 2014- February 2015.
The main purpose and ambition of this Comparative report is to identify country specific aspects to SE provision of services, to collect the core aspects of gaps of skills, knowledge and competencies of SE providers, to indicate common needs and expectations and to describe the ways and opportunities for their achievement.
The results are summarized on the following pages. This report should be used for dissemination and raising of awareness. We foresee that on that basis the logical framework for the development of an EQAVET system would be designed as part of Intellectual output 2.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: access to the objectives of the Comparative report
2. Scope of the research– deviations from the initial methodology and justification
3. Training needs in terms of SE coachers:
· What knowledge?
· What skills?
· What competencies?
4. Gaps in provision of SE services:
· General gaps in terms of barriers that people with disabilities faced in terms of employment
· Specific gaps in provision of SE services– funding opportunities, how the SE could be included into the legislation and how the course/ job profile could be accredit per country
5. Evaluation/ assessment of competencies and Quality assurance
6. How the project will address those barriers/ gaps/ weaknesses
7. Readiness of the respondents to participate in the project development and piloting
8. Final conclusions
Scope of the research– deviations from the initial methodology and justification
Initial methodology
In order to achieve a common understanding of the stakeholder groups in all four partner countries (ES, BG, TR, AT), the partners defined the specific beneficiaries as part of all six different stakeholder groups. The initial plan for the researches on the basis of which has been drawn the present Comparative report (Intellectual output 1: Consolidated survey
findings, activities O1-A3/ O1-A4) is that there will be interviews/ focus groups with at least 50 interviews (per partner) with representatives from the SE providers, VET centres, NGOs, Policy makers and Governmental bodies in Austria, Bulgaria, Spain and Turkey. During the First partners’ meeting in Plovdiv (19- 20 November 2014) the representatives concluded that the most effective distribution of surveyed stakeholders per country, based on the specific circumstances in the partners’ countries and having in mind the opportunities and contacts of each partner to access project’s stakeholder groups at national level, would be as follows:
Survey participants- Initial distribution
Target group / Austria (Jugend am Werk) / Bulgaria (Zgura-M, NFRI, NAVET and Interprojects) / Turkey (UBITED) / Spain (FPT)SE provider / 20 / 20 (NFRI and Zgura-M) / 20 / 20
VET centres / 10 / 10 (Interprojects and NAVET) / 10 / 10
Employers / 10 / 14 (NFRI) / 10 / 10
NGOs / 10 / 10 (Interprojects) / 10 / 10
Policy makers/ governmental bodies / Desk research / Desk research (NAVET) / Desk research / Desk research
TOTAL / 50 / 54 / 50 / 50
Final results achieved per country- in total 218 persons from the previously defined target groups
Countries / Target groupsEmployers / NGOs / VET centres / SE workers / Policy makers
AUSTRIA / 10 / 10 / 5 / 30 / Desk research
BULGARIA / 14 / 12 / 14 / 24 / Desk research
SPAIN / 10 / 10 / 10 / 19 / Desk research
TURKEY / 10 / 10 / 10 / 20 / Desk research
In addition during the discussion about the content of the questionnaires, the partners have abandoned the idea of developing a questionnaire for policy makers and governmental bodies, due to lack of regulations for training, validation of competences and job occupation of the SE provider in two of the partner countries- Bulgaria and Turkey. They concluded not having expert interviews, but to organise a Desk research with the existing policies in terms of legal situations in all partner countries, the requirements and needs for governmental bodies to accredit trainings for SE providers.
In fact the various questionnaires are directed to the same research question and lead to an answering of that question: What skills/ knowledge/ competences should trainers in the field of Supported Employment have?
As an outcome of this output it is expected a comparative data in English which describe and compare the national particularities and similarities of the needs.
Deviations from the initial methodology and justification
The data analysis (qualitative and quantitative) related to the gaps, barriers and identified requirements for the recognition and validation of the skills, knowledge and competencies acquired by SE providers through VET SE training was done in Austria, Bulgaria, Spain and Turkey in the period December 2014- February 2015. The research was made with semi open standardized questionnaires through online form, by e-mail, with face to face interviews as well in form of focus groups. This quantitative method is useful for gathering information and opinions and is a combination of an individual in- depth interview and the quantitative interview with a standardized questionnaire. Adapted to the research question, this method has the possibility to collect information from different stakeholders and to make them comparable.
Regarding the survey results in the four countries, the obstacles that had the partners from Austria and Turkey in terms of some of the respondents are highlighted as follows:
In Austria:
Planned / Quantitative Realized online / QualitativeRealized via focus groups/ qualitative interviews
SE workers / 20 / 11 / 19
VET centres / 10 / 0 / 5
Employers / 10 / 10 / 0
NGOs / 10 / 5 / 5
TOTAL / 50 / Total 55
Jugend am Werk (JaW) reached only 5 VET centres (of the predefined 10) but increased the number of the SE providers to 30. The reason behind those figures is that those VET centres are the only ones who are offering SE trainings for job coachers. Generally in Austria VET centres are not very interested to organize training courses for SE providers, because the accreditation procedure itself will not be particularly easy.
JaW contacted 10 centres from other regions in Austria but they disagree to participate. So in total the Austrian partners realized more than the planned interviews, but in this early stage of the project, it turns out that it was not easy to engage enough VET centres. There is a comprehensible reason, because in the Province of Styria they have in total 138 listed VET centres, but only eight of them could possibly provide such a training course in the field of SE. The others are on the one hand specialized in a certain field (for example language trainings, trainings for health care professions, training for special target groups– people with disabilities, elderly people, etc.) or on the other hand they are only providing face-to-face training and are not in favour with online courses. There are trainers for the SE contents missing, due to that it was not easy to find the right contacts in this field. Therefore JaW also contacted one VET center in Vienna, because it already provides training for SE worker on academic level. In fact the chances to reach 10 VET centres in the Province of Styria are very low due to the limited number of that kind of service providers as described before.
However, 5 VET centres were contacted and asked to take part in the COACH@WORK survey but none of them replied initially. Therefore, the survey strategy had to be changed and personal interviews were conducted. Due to the fact that none of the VET centres have any kind of experience with regard to offering professional vocational trainings for SE providers on ECVET level at the moment, the interviews could not exactly follow the outline of the online questionnaire. However, the interviews were conducted with the questionnaire headings in mind.
In order to reach the project aims the Austrian partners tried to involve different VET centres through the questionnaires and will try to engage them in the further project steps. At this moment they got two VET centres which are interested in the project results and will be informed about further developments.
In Turkey
Planned / Quantitative Realized online / QualitativeRealized via focus groups/ qualitative interviews
SE workers / 20 / 10 / 10
VET centres / 10 / 2 / 8
Employers / 10 / 7 / 3
NGOs / 10 / 10 / 0
TOTAL / 50 / Total 50
In total the Turkish partners realized planned interviews, but in this early stage of the project, it was not easy to implement enough interviews with VET centers and SE workers in Turkey. The main reason is that Supported Employment is a new profile in Turkey and there is not a certificated and structured training both in public and private VET centers. As a result of this, SE workers are mostly graduated from different faculties and most of them are only participated limited trainings to develop their occupation profile.
In Turkey, main problem about Supported Employment is in institutionalisation of it or mainstreaming Supported Employment.
Consequences are:
- Unclear position of Supported Employment
- Unclear understanding of what Supported Employment is (employment or subsistence)
- Unclear status of Supported Employment
- Lack of awareness and knowledge about Supported Employment on national policy level and in Public Employment Service
- Lack of monitoring and statistics
As a result of those reason, there is not a special accreditation, certification or long term course about Supported Employment in VET centers in Turkey.
We could make the conclusion that in all partner countries the VET centres as responsible bodies for the training of SE providers should be involved in the project realization in a proactive and sufficiently engaging way. They could collaborate in indispensable manner for the inclusion to the European labour market of job coachers and thereby to support disadvantaged people in the society by providing innovative ways for their labour market inclusion and long- term employment.
Training needs in terms of SE coachers
The “BIG question”
One of the first methodological steps for a survey (project activity O1-A3/ O1-A4) is to define a research question, which should be specified in order to determine the construction of the conceptual framework. Because of the fact that the researches conclude views of different stakeholders in every partner country, it is necessary to direct the various questionnaires towards the same research question as mentioned above:
• What skills/ knowledge/ competences should trainers in the field of Supported Employment have?
For the future recognition and validation of the skills, knowledge and competencies acquired by SE providers through VET SE training it is beneficial to review how they are perceived in each partner country from the perspective of the different target groups.
Austria
In the questionnaire for SE workers after the general part of questions there is a focus on knowledge, skills and competences and the surveyed representatives of this target group have to assess their own abilities and to evaluate what are the most important abilities of coming new SE workers.