Many full-time employees spend more of their waking hours with co-workers than they do with their spouses and families, especially in team environments. It is unavoidable for employees to eventually develop personal relationships among themselves in addition to their formal co-worker relationships. Working with people you like to spend your time has a strong influence for the wellness in the workplace, health, labor environment and, of course and in a mid-long term, productivity, which at the end reinforces the stability of jobs, and above all willingness to learn and improve basic skills and competences. Who is responsible of generating that atmosphere? Obviously, it is a work in several directions. Relationships between employees and management are of substantial value in any workplace. Human relations are the process of training employees, addressing their needs, fostering a workplace culture and resolving conflicts between different employees or between employees and management. Understanding some of the ways that human relations can impact the costs, competitiveness and long-term economic sustainability of a business helps to underscore their importance.Thus, this task affects the company in a 360 degrees analysis, and all the actors in the working process are implied in the achievement of the desired environment, from the leaders, managers and directors to the basic workers. Thus, all of them should be aware of their possibilities to build a positive and creative atmosphere, each one from his/her particular point of view.Taking these facts into account, TIWA aims at helping European companies, SME, entrepreneurs, leaders, managers and workers in general to generate a healthy working environment, creating a framework of fellowship and human relationships between the different levels of the company. This will enable productivity, health in the workplace with the reduction of illnesses and injuries and, then, of absenteeism. As a results TIWA promotes developing basic skills and key competences, especially of low-skilled employees. TIWA wants to provide high-quality learning opportunity for employees to be better co-workers, but also wants to show managers the lines to follow in order to create the best atmosphere in their companies.The project consortium is composed of six organisations from five different EU countries (SL, BG, ES, IR and CZ) and shows cooperation between new and old European Member States. A comprehensive partnership has been established, consisting of a solid group of training companies with long experience in the implementation of in company programs, some of them with a solid career in European projects (such as our coordinator, Ljudska Univerza Velenje, Defoin, Impro Institute or Bulgaria Training) and some newcomers, such as I&F (which is building a recent but solid international career) or INDEPCIE, one of our Spanish partners which will have its first experience in Erasmus+ projects.To achieve the objectives of the project three Intellectual Outputs will be developed, tested and multiplied: the ‘IDEAL LEADERS’ (O1) is a training system for managers in building a healthy company culture, which will be supplemented by ‘WORKING WITH A SMILE’ (O2), a best practice case study. These will be the umbrella for 'ME, THE IDEAL WORKMATE’ (O3), a good feelings kit with training tools for employees, developing strategies to be generators od a positive working environment. The online system will also feature a platform for interactions between learners, trainers and trainees, and other stakeholders. All outputs produced will be freely accessible for the public within and beyond the project’s lifetime.TIWA is likely to have sustainable direct impacts within and beyond the project lifetime on three target groups: 1) entrepreneurs and managers, 2) employees 3) Companies and organisations active in the field of training, adult education and advisory services.By creating training tools for improving skills and key competences of trainers, managers and employees, the consortium expects to achieve the overall objective of the project: (a) evaluate the effectiveness of creating a friendly working atmosphere, and (b) assess the effectiveness of building solid and healthy human relationships in the workplace. The ultimate goal is to improve the culture company and raise awareness of its importance in the health and productivity of a company.

The European Commission for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion report on Support for Children with Special Education Needs In Europe (https://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=15993&langId=en), estimates the number of children with special educational needs (SEN) at 15 million. Furthermore, the imperative to provide assistance to children with SEN is outlined in the Council Conclusions on a Strategic Framework for European Cooperation in Education and Training (2009/C 119/02) (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52009XG0528(01)&from=EN). Conclusions focus on underlining the need for education systems in Europe to increase provisions for inclusions of all learners, including those with special needs.Why much higher provisions? The educational landscape teachers must navigate is becoming ever more complex. When it comes to SEN learners with more general support needs, special play a marginal role in favour of the integration of these students into mainstream classrooms. The provisions focus on more widespread inclusion of learners with SEN and calls for a more adaptive and inclusive approach from teachers on a general support level. Currently, support for moderately disabled students is provided by non-specialists in the mainstream classroom. For educators in this environment, the identification and implementation of a range of inclusive practices in the classroom are still an aspirational goal. In a ‘Communication from the commission to the European parliament, the council, the European economic and social committee and the committee of the regions on tackling early school leaving: A key contribution to the Europe 2020 Agenda’ (2011) the commission concludes, “Education and training systems often do not provide sufficient targeted support for pupils to cope with emotional, social or educational difficulties and to remain in education and training.” – evidently there is a substantial skills gap in teaching staff. Our objective is to addresses the current shortfall in competences. The project will extend and supporting educators by developing competences, particularly in identification and inclusive classroom practices for category B SEN learners in mainstream classrooms with general support needs. There will be 7 participating partners on the project, coming from 5 different European countries. These partners will bring a mix of expertise and backgrounds in provisions for students with special educational needs, development of training material, teacher training, digital course development, soft skills and coaching. Some partners have a vast experience in Erasmus+ projects, whereas only 2 are relatively new and will, thus give a fresh perspective on the problem space we wish to address. The SEN TOOLKIT project will produce 3 Intellectual Outputs:-SEN BLUEPRINT: a syllabus and pedagogical framework for a digital learning course to address the current shortfall in competences in educators in areas such as identification and inclusive classroom practices. -SEN TOOLKIT: a digital learning course with great levels of accessibility to ensure a maximum possible target audience can receive expert support in mainstream classrooms to address general support needs of category B special educational needs students. -TRAIN THE SEN SPECIALIST: Formal educational contexts are giving way increasingly to workplace, informal learning. In response to this, the SEN TOOLKIT project will train local specialists in coaching techniques. This will allow them to act as decentralized support to mainstream classroom teachers. A 20-module course will be developed to achieve this. All outputs produced will be freely accessible for the public within and beyond the project’s lifetime.The SEN TOOLKIT project is likely to have sustainable direct impacts within and beyond the project lifetime on four main target groups: 1) Mainstream classroom teachers 2) Students with category B special educational needs 3) Institutions that offer teacher training and further formation to teachers4) Members of society and school stakeholdersBy creating a pedagogical blueprint, a digital learning course, as well as training course for local specialists to support their fellow educations, the consortium expects to achieve the overall objective of the project and a long term benefit for European Society: Supporting educators.

The main aim of the Project is to create international network of companies operating in the area of Diversity and Inclusion as well as individuals - managers for whom diversity management becomes one of the key competencies. Their goal will be to promote the idea of Diversity&Inclusion in the workplace, create the tools and solutions to support the implementation of the idea in business environment, delivering and sharing the knowledge skills and best practices on diversity and inclusion and diversity management. The expected outcome is to create national equivalents of this kind of network in countries participating in this Project. The primal model is the Polish foundation Diversity Hub. It works as a think thank which main goal is to create a public discussion forum about the idea of Diversity in management. Diversty Hub has already organized 6 conferences and few more minor events on specific topics on diversity area (like interculturalism, age, gender etc.) with the participation of representatives of various environments: scientists and practitioners – business representatives, public institutions, non-governmental organisations and media. The other fields of activity are: organizing workshops, consulting, sharing good practices, conducting researches in various topics of Diversity. The project is based on the mobility, it assumes the organization of international meetings / training with companies which belong to the network. Their taks will be development of rules of the network, excjange the knowledge and experience and learning from each other, collecting material concerning diversity and inclusion in the workplace and icluding more bodies to the network The meetings would have two variants: • training session with experts in the field of diversity management and human rights in the context of business. Training would aim at increasing the knowledge of the participants in creating a friendly diverse environment, how to overcome difficulties resulting from working and living in such an environment and how to extract the largest amount of advantages carries by diversity. It is the basic knowledge, fundamental to start a work with creating a national think thanks. • Exchange the ideas about starting the possibilities of starting the diversity think thank network at every country. The involvement of organizations with big experience in organizing events will be also crucial to Exchange the „know-how” about how to organize an succesfull event in the topic of D&I. Diverse character of involved organizations will be seen at various levels - both international and national. The international character of the network gives it additional value - the exchange of experiences from different backgrounds. Intersectoral character of companies will provide the clash of different perspectives - through a holistic look at the situation. The network can also be a basis for start the new projects and initiatives organized to promote the idea of diversity and inclusion. Project will be realized by diverse partnership of 7 organizations from 6 countries, all of them have huge experience in different dimensions of diversity and inclusion and will give the best possible input. Project will last 24 months. Specific Objectives: • to create the international network of companies and institutions focused on exchange the knowledge, ideas and best practices on the topic of Diversity and Inclusion. Not only institutions will benefit from the network, but also managers developing their competencies in diversity and inclusion. • to launch instruments of providing and sharing the knowledge and best practice on diversity in the workplace: knowledge platform and newsletter. • Increase the knowledge of participating organizations on the topic of Diversity&Inclusion, exchange of experience, learning from each other; • Increase the knowledge of participating organization related to how to start a think tank/network focused on D&I issues and promotion of this topic;

Our intersectoral partnership combines the efforts of 8 organizations (4 schools and 4 training providers) from four European countries; Denmark, Bulgaria, Poland and Spain, in an attempt to create a unique innovative educational tool to support teachers in their daily activities to provide high quality of teaching and present contemporary learning opportunities to their students. We will work with students from 14 to 16 years old.Our main innovative proposal is based on the design of 20 work units (five units for each intellectual product). Each work unit will be formed by a description of the activity that we will develop with students from 14 to 16 years old. The work units will be grouped by categories: Learning to read, learning to write, learning to understand and learning to speak. In each work unit there will be details of the activity to be done with studentsThe work units will be formed by training lessons.UNEX T-YOU PROJECT is made up of a set of tools for teachers to implement using a more participatory, creative and flexible methodology, contributing to the integration and adaptation of students. At the same time the gained knowledge and skills will facilitate them in the future Integration into a society where they are increasingly required to compete and be versatile. It also will enhance the acquisition of knowledge, making it more meaningful for them and will allow a much more creative, personal, reflective and critical literary experience. In UNEX T-YOU PROJECT the student is seen from this perspective as the protagonist of the action and as the person directly responsible for the product.The project activities will be grouped into 4 main work processes (WP), which can be summarized as follows:1. WP1 - Management. Main activities: Design and the adoption of strategic documents, 4 partner meetings, Assignment of tasks, Reports, monitoring, Quality control, Risk management, Communication with the National Agency and Internal evaluation.2. WP2 - Development of the UNEX T-YOU PROJECT work units. This process will include several main stages: Design of the work units, which will be distributed by each partner. Translations in partners languages; Piloting in the classroom, evaluation reports and final tuning.3. WP3 - Creation of the UNEX T-YOU web. This process will involve several main stages: Prototyping; Review and feedback from teachers; Development of the first full version of the application in English; Translations to partners languages; Piloting among teachers, Evaluation reports and final tuning.4. WP4 - Dissemination and exploitation. Main activities to be delivered: Project website and development of Social network channels, Production and distribution of news, Presentations to National and European events, direct meetings with Stakeholders, promotion meetings with teachers in partner schools.The additional tangible results of the project, together with the 20 work units and the design of a web page that we hope can be summarized as follows:- 1 Project website in 5 language versions (DK, BG, PO, ES, EN);- 1 Profile of social networks of the project - Facebook page;- 40 Teachers (10 per country) participating in the piloting of intellectual products;- 240 Students participating in the piloting of the UNEX T-YOU activities;- 80 Teachers (20 per country) starting the mini-projects in their daily practice;- 480 Students (120 per country) participating in UNEX T-YOU activities;- 600 Teachers and 350 interested parties were reached through dissemination activities.

Context & backgroundSoft skills are closely connected with employability and it is also seen that EU countries have different methodologies and approaches to assessment (Cinque, 2016) of soft skills competences and furthermore in the train of teachers. Skills development is one of the four main areas of the European Union. The labor market is constantly evolving and therefore competences and qualifications that educators need change over time. These interpersonal skills are seen as a one of the key competencies in EU policy. The Cedefop (2014) defines competence as the ability to apply learning outcomes adequately in education, work, personal or professional development; these outcomes include knowledge; skills; and personal, social, and/or methodological abilities. European Commission has published new recommendations (2018) for Key Competences for Lifelong Learning, which was adopted in 2006. An agile competence development is seen as a key factor when developing European education. Competence needs are not static; they change throughout life and across eras.Easily accessible learning outcomes promote adult educators development, indirectly students in adult education benefit from the results. Objectives, activities & resultsThe objectives of the project were: a) to recognize needs of soft skills competencies through 2 Delphi rounds, b) to identify and describe 15 key soft skills competencies , c) to develop a self-reflective online test, and d) to co-create an open badge-driven learning process to improve missing soft skills.The project team consisted of six European partners from five countries; Häme University of Applied Sciences (HAMK) Finland, Formacion Para El Desarrollo E Insercion, Sociedad Limitada (Defoin) Spain, Universidad De Cordoba (UCO) Spain, Fondazione Hallgarten-Franchetti Centro Studi Villa Montesca (FVM) Italy, Orange Hill Sp. Z o.o. (OH) Poland and Centrul Pentru Promovarea Invatarii Permanente Timisoara Asociatia (CPIP) Romania. The common definition for soft skills was reached by the first survey (398 responses) and the second survey (216 responses) by which the most important soft skills for adult educators and HR people in their daily work were identified. In total 15 key soft skills were identified. Translations of the badge names and descriptions into national languages were conducted. The landing page (online) was created and badge icons were composed. The landing page was updated by self-directed learning materials (such as new created podcasts, learning materials, videos) in partners’ languages (Finnish, Polish, Romanian, Italian, Spanish) and in English. The links for the badge application with detailed competence criteria as well as instructions for skills demonstration was shared via the landing page. The self-reflective online test was created and implemented in the landing page. The purpose of the online test was to assess persons’ skills related to chosen soft skills (15). In all, 274 badges were issued to the participants in all languages (Finnish 48, Polish 30, Romanian 27, Spanish 40, Italian 28, and English 101). The project team arranged three short-term staff learning, teaching and training activities during the project, twelve multiplier events and was able to achieve all set objectives. Participants, impacts & sustainabilitySOSTRA project succeeded in supporting adult educators, training companies, school-based training centers, training consultants and HRs teachers in achieving a better understanding of the soft skills competencies, as well as adapting learning process more transparently and consistently into practice, seeking an innovative way to intertwine digital and competence-based education into soft skills development in the field of European adult education and to further model competence-based adult education approaches in open digital badge-driven learning approaches.During the project, approximately 38 000 people were reached through dissemination activities. The feedback gathered from piloting the open badge-driven learning process suggested that the learning and teaching situations were conducted well, the process was straightforward and all participants used soft skills daily, finding them to be important skills for educators. The Participants found the project innovative, appreciated the involvement of many countries and that it could be linked to EQF levels. There were some concerns regarding the official recognition of the badges and the evaluation process. The partners found the project results useful for their own self development and will use this type of learning process in the future. Sostra has inspired several new European projects to include digital badges or soft skills development.All materials including self-reflection tests and 15 podcasts in six languages produced during the project are available on Sostra.eu webpage.