<< Background >>One of the main missions of the modern Higher Education systems is to provide students with key skills to manage their life and career plans in a complex and challenging society. The levels of early leaving and failures of students still remain very high and the rate of youth disengagement is one of the social and economic risks in Europe. The pandemic crisis provided evidence of how high this risk is and showed the vulnerability of our communities and the need of re-shaping our priorities by also enhancing the set of crucial skills for future generations. Learning from real life is one of the challenges for Higher Education systems and enhancing the active role of each university in promoting civic engagement of all students and of the academic community locally and internationally becomes a priority. Student disengagement represents a human, social, cultural and economic cost for individuals and the whole society. Many countries are carrying out tutoring and peer learning programmes in order to prevent early leaving from Higher Education. Also career guidance is a more and more powerful strategy for preventing students' dropout rates, while widening career opportunities in different social groups, promoting lifelong learning and supporting students during transitions.According to the European lifelong guidance strategy (2008), the main aim of career guidance is, in fact, to equip the individual with transversal competences to better manage and develop his or her potential in education, work and life. “Career Management Skills” (CMS) represent the key concept of this strategy. They refer to a set of personal, reflective, social and digital skills needed for making and implementing career decisions and transitions. Consequently, the challenge for universities is to promote and enhance the quality of teaching, for which it is necessary to implement innovative student-centred teaching methodologies. These methodologies require the commitment of students to their studies, which is not always present. Misperceptions and misunderstandings of duties and commitments often play a role in the student's lifetime and adversely affect the study plan. This set of problems during academic life puts students at risk for problems such as exclusion, loss of confidence, dropout and unemployment. Furthermore, early academic leaving affects the academic system and undermines the performance of the HE system moving energies and potentials into the labor market. In this scenario the model of Community Service Learning (CSL) will become a great innovation in didactics because it promotes learning in real situations, involving students in civic initiatives and social programmes aimed to benefit local or international communities. A structured programme of CSL (integrated within the learning offer of the HEIs) helps students master important curriculum content by supporting them in making meaningful connections between topics they are studying and their many applications. Furthermore, it combines the needs for improving career guidance and tutoring services with the need to improve the quality of teaching.Service-learning offers a unique opportunity for students to get involved with their communities in a tangible way, by integrating service projects with didactic and learning. Studies indicate that “students evaluating their service-learning courses are more likely than students evaluating other courses to report that the courses promoted interpersonal, community and academic engagement, were academically challenging, and encouraged their continued study at the University.” (Gallini & Moely, 2003). Furthermore, a correlation seems to exist between Community Service Learning and increased personal awareness, increased social awareness, and improved student learning outcomes that are all rooted in learning conditions that ultimately engage and retain students in post-secondary institutions (Prentice & Robinson, 2010).<< Objectives >>From Student to Active Citizen is a key element of renewed and expanding HEIs commitment to both civic engagement education and more inclusive academic policies. After the Pandemic crisis, the education for civic engagement and a responsive academic governance is founding objectives of a renewed European spirit. These goals remain essential for the future as the European higher education system continue to seek productive ways to engage their community in the whole society. This need is combined with the priority to looking forward the academic learning system to be more student centred, be careful to improve students’ wellbeing and to increase their academic engagement to prevent drop out or poor performance. All the universities involved in the ENHANCE Project are looking to find smart solutions to increase the students’ performance and the academic social commitment in order to be more engaged in the society, to give answer to the emerging needs of the labour market and to address the research for social scopes.The ENHANCE project aims at design and develop an innovative Community Service Learning approach with related learning tools and digital resources. A modern CSL system will enhance students' self-knowledge, empathy, communication skills and cultural awareness. Its practices allow students to acquire social skills and attitudes that are implemented in everyday life. Meta-analyses also show the effect of Service Learning on the development of diverse competencies. Most papers present Service Learning as a valid pedagogical strategy for acquiring knowledge, attitudes and promoting civic engagement. For the ENHANCE partnership the Community Service Learning is also a fundament set of practices to implement career guidance and academic tutoring, because it helps students retain more information learned in class, achieve higher course grades, and have greater satisfaction with the course; these are aspects that irreversible impact on the future citizen, workers, and researchers. The ENHANCE consortium aims at finding smart solutions in design an innovative CSL system, also based on the partners experience to guaranteeing remote continuity of the teaching–learning process during the pandemic crisis.Equally, for this project, ICT is a crucial ally for a sound implementation of community service-learning into the academic services since it increases ease of access and relevance during the student's dynamic construction of a new career, training and educational pathway. New technology is an area of transformative social change (e- learning, virtual mobility, social media, etc.). ICT goes beyond conventional education and introduces a feedback loop that enables stakeholders and diverse target groups to contribute to the design of the system. Community service-learning will be provided at any stage of academic career, with the support of the tutoring and career services and within all learning environments. This innovative approach also implies an increasing need for a new set of digital tools and resources for empowering the tutoring and career services. The project achievements also include the implementation of a cooperative strategy for introducing and integrating Service-Learning in the tutoring and career service of the universities involved in the project. CSL will also improve the academic system of micro-credentials, related to several learning pathways. A micro-credential is a recognised proof of the learning outcomes that a learner has achieved following a short learning experience, according to transparent standards and requirements and upon assessment. Micro-credentials are owned by the learner, are shareable, portable and may be combined into larger credentials or qualifications. Through micro-credentials the new CSL system will be easily integrated in the formal learning offer of each HEIs.<< Implementation >>The main activities of the ENHANCE project includes: 1 - Participatory Action Research (PAR) - The consortium will collect best references, models and practices on Community Service Learning (CSL) through an international desk research and local and national focus groups with tutors, education staff and other associated stakeholders. PAR is a pedagogical approach based on the direct and active involvement of stakeholders and beneficiaries in the co-creation of the new CSL system, based on the related project outputs (IO1-IO2-IO3). The working groups will include tutors, career guidance practitioners, coordinators, trainers, students, experts and researchers. All participants play an active role as “researchers” and cooperate for building a new contextualised knowledge, developing innovative actions for solving common issues and for designing the new CSL model and to collect practices and models for implementing all tools and resources.The PAR will be the methodological base to design and to test all IOs (IO1 - IO3) through regional pilot actions with a wide and direct involvement of tutors and students in 5 Countries.2 - The European framework of Career Management Skills (CMS) will be the based to design the Virtual CSL platform, to build the learning offer and to define the micro-credential related to each pathways (in real situations or within virtual environments for e-learning). Each students involved in Community Service Learning will collect and upload learning evidences to gain micro-credential related to the CMS and other key skills. 3 - Pilot Actions: all regional teams in Spain, Italy, Romania, Greece and Turkey will set up the CSL system and test the model within the HEIs involved and through civic programmes and social initiatives in cooperation with the associated partners. The main achievements will be the validation of the products (IO1-IO2-IO3) and the implementation of the learning and tutoring resources.4 - International Training - In Spain a group of selected tutors from 5 countries will trained to use the CSL model and the related digital tools. Trained tutors will be appointed as ENHANCE Ambassador to lead dissemination and further exploitation activities and initiatives nationally and internationally. The training module for CSL Tutors (IO3) will be created and shared as MOOC by all HEIs involved in the project.The work plan shared and implemented by all partners will produce 3 relevant outputs (IO1 - IO3) designed and related as a coherent set of models and resources to providing tailored and effective CSL programmes for students' engagement and career education.<< Results >>Main project results will be:- Creation of a common international approach on Community Service Learning - CSL (IO1), as learning resource for enhancing the academic training offer and the tutorship services. It will be produced a comprehensive Handbook for tutors and educative staff, based on the best practices and learning resources. The main focus will be on the Career Management Skills framework, following the EU Resolutions, to support all students in the building of a lifelong career and learnig plan. This theoretical and methodological document will be used by all partners and associated partners to enhance and enlarge learning opportunites in real life and civic engagement for all students. It will be also a base model all HEIs in Europe for improving education policiesand build inclusive systems to validate informal learning through a micro-credential system. 2 - Development of an innovative web portal for supporting Virtual Commyunity Service Learning (IO2). This tool will have a potentially strong impact as it allows HEIs to provide community service learning on line and e-tutoring support to students and organisations involved. The platform will be multi-languages to foster an international use and widest exploitation.3 - E-learning platform and training module for CSL tutors and education staff of HEIs (IO3). This resource will be designed as MOOD to be used freely by all Universities and other HEIs for training and updating tutors, trainers and career practicioners.

The project focused on social and educational reintegration and inclusion of remigrant pupils (children coming back to their native country after a period spent abroad with the intention of migration), as international researches (Valtolina, 2013) shows that the school performance of remigrant pupils is decreasing after returning in their native country compared with the performance in the country of migration and remigrant children experience psychological and educational difficulties after returning “home”. The partnership developed through this project a general strategy for the educational system to implement in order to facilitate the re-adaptation after returning home, including research data and theoretical background, training methodology and optional courses, handbooks. Those tools address all the educational actors (school management, teachers, parents, pupils, teachers trainers) and allow schools to organize coherent activities based on a general intervention strategy. The project focused on supporting schools to tackle early school leaving by providing schools the necessary tools to be integrated in their general strategy of preventing dropout in the remigrant population. During the project, the partners developed 6 intellectual outputs (research regarding methodological information for teachers working with remigrants, theoretical materials on the effects of remigration, training methodology for teachers trainers, optional course for facilitating the reintegration of remigrants, handbook for teachers and handbook for pupils), tested and validated through two joint staff training events, one focusing on formal education, one focusing on non-formal education, integrating both methodologies in the outputs of the project; 23 trainers and teachers from the partner organization participated to at least one of those trainings, developing their skills in using the resources developed through the project and in integrating them into their current activities. The primary target groups of the project were: remigrant children; teachers, especially class masters, irrespective of their specialization; school counsellors and other experts in school education; school management and policy makers in school education; educational researchers; teachers trainers; parents of the remigrant pupils. The secondary target groups of the project were: native children (children that never migrated) and parents of the native children; as the educational activities proposed through this project were designed to be implemented with the hole class group, native pupils (and their parents) could benefit from this project even if they are not necessary targeted. In the follow-up period, the partners organized training for teachers and school counsellors, trainings for trainers and informative activities for pupils in order to promote the utility and efficiency of the intellectual outputs of the project and to develop the professional skills needed for active usage of those resources. Through this project, the partnership provided: increased access to specific educational methodology and tools to facilitate the reintegration of remigrants and tackle early school leaving in the remigrant population; increased access to education and social inclusion for remigrant children; increased access to training for teachers and other specialists working with remigrant children; good practice examples that schools could adapt to tackle other educational needs of other specific target groups; encouraging initiative to develop and implement innovation in education. Staff involved in the project improved their competences linked to professional profiles as teachers and teachers trainers, especially regarding the integration of remigrant children in education and preventing early school leaving in the remigrant population. Organizations involved in the project developed innovative approaches for addressing their target groups, by providing new practices to cater for the needs of disadvantaged groups, assisting the remigrants in their reintegration efforts. Through this project, teachers and school counsellors gained increased capacity to facilitate the re-adaptation of remigrant children and prevent early school leaving, by using the strategy developed during the project; teachers trainers increased their capacity to design and implement quality trainings and to develop teachers abilities to integrate the remigrants and remigrant children increased their capacity to involve themselves in their reintegration process; better knowledge and understanding of their specific needs.

Tackle is the collection of tools necessary to complete a task as well as the verb to mean the determined effort to deal with a complex problem. The TACKLE project does both of these - it provides a digital toolbox for schools to tackle Early School Leaving and disadvantage through guidance. The digital tools will support schools in evaluating their services and work to assure that, despite the additional pressures on schools within the Covid-19 crisis, they are prepared to tackle disadvantage and early school leaving. The pathways to education, training or access to the labor market by young people who are finishing school and young people in school who are at risk of Early Leaving, must be accompanied with quality guidance services because many connections have been broken as a result of the current Covid-19 crisis.According to Eurostat, the proportion of early leavers from education and training in the EU in 2019 ranged from 3.0 % in Croatia to 17.3 % in Spain . In the TACKLE partnership countries great progress has been made in reducing Early School Leaving and meeting the 2020 benchmark goal. In 2010 the proportion of early leavers in Spain, Italy and Greece was 28.6%,18.2%, and 13.5% respectively compared with 17.3%, 13.5% and 4.1% in 2019. A 2010 Cedefop report by its ESL ambassadors altered that marginalized and vulnerable learners especially are more at risk for disengaging and dropping out and that actions are needed to support students and schools so that the progress made prior to the Covid-19 pandemic in the early leaving from education and training should be sustained and strengthened. As a result of the Covid-19 crisis in Europe, the need for guidance services, monitoring and support in schools for their students is even more urgent. According to a June 2020 study by the Bertelsmann Foundation, the challenges for guidance in times of Coronavirus have been and will be to continue to offer support and follow-up with students and their families despite the conditions and the needed digitalized of guidance and the increase of access to guidance resources overall.The objective of this project is to develop digital evaluation tools for Secondary schools to self-evaluate their academic and career guidance program, to develop an academic and career guidance plan to tackle new challenges and offer an online training module for teachers, guidance practitioners to work with the TACKLE Toolbox and to support teachers in their role to support students, with digital tools and resources, in this unprecedented time. The TACKLE project activities by the numbers:- 1 online school guidance diagnostic Checklist- 1 Guidance Action Plan and Resources creator- 1 Training Module for teachers, guidance practitioners and other educators- 3 contexts - Spain, Italy, Greece- 5 partner organisations- 75 schools participating in the Pilot Action of the Toolbox- 65 teachers and guidance practitioners trained in the Pilot of the TACKLE Training Module. - 45 participants in the multiplier event of the project- A total of at least 200 education professionals participating in the project activities to develop the intellectual outputs.The methodologies that will be used to develop these tools and achieve the planned results are participatory - involving the professionals on the groups in secondary schools as well as the broader school -business community through focus groups or an expert review and validation process. The desired impact of the TACKLE project is for the schools using the TACKLE toolbox to provide career education and guidance activities that support transitions to further education, training and work from Secondary Schools and to tackle Early School Leaving with a coherent and school community-wide guidance action plan implemented by trained professionals. The current coronavirus crisis makes more urgent the need to ensure that schools and educators continue and strengthen their academic and professional guidance plans and resources in support of the transitions, decision-making and pathways of their students, but the need for these tools does not end with the pandemic. The TACKLE toolbox will relevant for schools to employ beyond the pandemic and to strategically implement guidance actions, be guiding schools, that tackle the complexities and supporting their students on their education and training pathways.

"The project idea derives from the necessity to use and develop innovative guidance tools having the role to improve knowledge and awareness on careers and training pathways among young people.In the Partner Countries, most career guidance services are provided by public bodies, educational institutions, private authorized training institutions and also by the nongovernmental sector, which is nowadays increasingly addressing social issues.Unfortunately, in the partner countries market of career counseling services there are no adequate tools to highlight the connectionsbetween the personal interests, the potential career paths and education and training offers or in updating needs. Many educational and occupational choices are made without adequate knowledge of all possible career perspectives available in the European labour market.The main aims and objectives of this project are to adapt and transfer a guidance model, a personalized career guidance softwarethat allows users to create a ""matching"" between the characteristics of different jobs and the preferences expressed. The software iscreated specifically to assist and facilitate decision processes in the field of career guidance.The project aims to improve the quality of vocational and educational guidance services provided by all partner countries indifferent geographical contexts, through the transfer of the “DOC model” provided by Cascaid (UK), which willbe refined through a process of analysis, translation and testing, with the help and supervision of qualified partners that havealready successfully used the model but they need to update it.The consortium comprises 9 international partners from Italy, UK, Spain, Romania having the expertise and the know-how for making the transfer of innovation in Bulgaria and the update of the model in the other 4 countries involved in the project. This international partnership will offer the proper framework for discussions, sharing of experiences, innovative practices and methodologies and also for development of results achieved so far.The main expected outcomes are: web site of the project; database of profiles in the national languages as technicalsupport for the guidance model; training model and materials for practitioners; e-learning platform in English; PDF version of thehandbook for guidance practitioners in all partner languages.The main results are the translation and adaptation of new career profiles, distribution of copies of the printed version of the manualfor guidance and counseling, testing of the model by the Bulgarian partners.The envisaged impact is reflected in the improvement of guidance services quality for young people; the enrichment of the information and guidance processes, to support individual choices of training and careers; the enlargement of information concerning careers and related training systems; the improvement of integration between guidance systems; promoting awareness on the European dimension of guidance."

<< Objectives >>Improving general accessibility of persons with disabilities (PWDs) is a core priority at EU level. The LMI4Dis_ABLED project will focus on facilitating access to quality labour market information (LMI) for new emerging career options, through highly skilled VET and career inclusion professionals and adequate LMI tools. Tailored and inclusive LMI services for PWDs will improve their labour market accessibility, career aspirations and opportunities, economic prosperity and autonomous living.<< Implementation >>The LMI4Dis_Abled project seeks to equip training, social & labour market inclusion professionals with adequate competencies and tools to provide quality career navigation services to PWDs through the development of: a. Updated LMI material for PWDs. b. Competence Profile Handbook on LMI provision for PWDs & Training Program for professionals serving PWDs c. Digital Careers Information System for PWDs, as a tool for professionals working with enabling PWDs active involvement and employability.<< Results >>The LMI4Dis_Abled project is expected to deliver concrete LMI material and tools, enhancing the competencies and capabilities of VET & disability support professionals involved in helping PWD for career planning, job rehabilitation and participation in VET opportunities, workplaces and communities. Long-term outcomes will contribute to eliminating barriers that exclude PWDs from social participation, to increasing their employability as well as the inclusiveness of VET, labour market & society.