The area of disability includes physical, mental, developmental and age-related disorders. People facing these problems, encounter several major obstacles that prevent them from seamlessly integrating in society. Nowadays more and more of these people have their capabilities, rather than their disabilities, recognized and accepted by the general public. The rapid technological advance of past decades, has also triggered a dramatic progress in technology usage for assistive and training purposes. Since true inclusiveness, and deinstitutionalization process pass through all the professionals involved in the care of persons with disabilities, from the lowest levels to the highest ones, there is an increasing need to integrate existing skills, with new approaches and competences, able to properly meet these new challenges. New and up to date training curricula need to be developed, to respond to the needs of social care employees and properly take advantage of new opportunities offered by technologies. DDSKILLS project, aims to develop an Alliance for providing new competences and skills for Health and Social care sector professionals supporting persons with Disabilities and Mental Health Problems. Within the proposed training qualification of DDSKILLS project, skills shortages will be verified and addressed on EU scale, relevant knowledge and learning outcomes will be discussed and finally mapped to ECVET points and EQF levels and project will be promoted at European Level. Professional caregivers (Occupational therapists, Psychologists, Social Workers, Special education teachers, Nurses, Gerontologists, Rehabilitation experts) will be able to follow these courses to learn how the use of new technological devices(sensors, assistive devices, robots, virtual and augmented reality headsets, brain Computer Interfaces).

Increasing Volunteers' Skills across Europe – InVolvEDuring the so-called refugee crisis 2015 and 2016 a large series of impressive voluntary campaigns and gestures has been developed all over Europe. But this amazing work, in many cases, originate also tremendous side effects stress and pressure as well following words from a volunteer who works around the refugee camp near Calais in France might give example: “Working on a camp can be exhausting and upsetting but to see the human spirit continue to shine through adversity puts many of my trivial concerns into perspective.” (Quoted from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/02/meet-the-volunteers-europe-refugee-crisis) Not everyone is in a position to cope with physically and mentally exhausting unpaid work.Volunteers generally bring varying blends of technical expertise and other life skills to their role. They also have personal expectations of what they will achieve through volunteering. Regardless of the particular setting, volunteers often are dealing with singular difficulties and performance-related problems. The following situations can be observed among volunteers:a) A fading motivation throughout the time or in case of changing tasks and responsibilities as well as in circumstances of upcoming troubles,b) A lack of self-awareness and self-regulation regarding psychic risk, over commitment, overload of work, etc. c) An insufficient capacity to face and/or solve conflicts (conflicts with supported persons, with other volunteers or with professionals).These difficulties are probably not a lot different from other businesses, except a much greater ‘voluntary’ element influencing the outcomes. It is much easier for a volunteer to withdraw (or reduce) their service if they are not motivated or able to handle with the above mentioned situations. Correspondingly, a priority relays on delivering specialized training to build up among volunteers the related capacities of self-awareness and self-regulation, to learn and practice skills which enables volunteers to identify and minimise or overcome the above mentioned difficulties in field. The implementing partners from 10 EU member states have asserted that in their own training design the issue of soft skill training in volunteering environments isn’t considered satisfactorily and that tailor-made training programs would overcome this competency gap. The project creates a framework to support and push exchange of best practices of training arrangements that are focus on enhancing soft skills and preventing the above mentioned difficulties, and knowledge sharing in matters of curriculum, standards and tools for volunteer training (include staff training). Besides this overall goal, the project specific objectives are to:1. “browse” national and European best practices and and related experiences, products (curriculums, tool boxes, learning materials, etc.); 2. collect methodological information on how to develop training programs for strengthen soft skills in setting of voluntarism, taking in special account:a. the particular learning resources that volunteers have available; b. the democratic imperative to increase the inclusion of adults with social disadvantages; c. the innovative use of digital media in the training process; 3. identify essential elements for the development an efficient open training program tailored to the specific needs of two target groups: a. the board members and managing staff members in civil society organisations which engage volunteers in their work, to strengthen organizational readiness and volunteer management resources; b. volunteers themselves providing with the resources and information they need to strengthen their soft skills for self management, conflict solving, psychic resilience focused to do their specific volunteer contribution and to ensure their well being; 4. increase the capacities of the participant organisations and their staff members regarding language skills, intercultural competences and networking on international level. Considering the different institutional, academic and even cultural backgrounds as well as variety multi-faceted approaches to training of volunteers, the partner organisations are aware of avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach and based on that conviction, they stress on the need to develop a very concise overview of the best practices of learning design. Meeting these differences and dealing with them is not only about demonstrating the competency for transnational cooperation and the organisation's overall capability, but it is also one pathway to achieve the project targets and a solid resource to improve existing efforts. I

GreeNet aims in improving and innovating inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities through fostering specific actions within the framework of Adult Education and Rehabilitation for people with Intellectual disability (PIDs). The state of affairs for people with intellectual disabilities is that their full social inclusion and active citizenship are not yet a reality, but future challenges. The policies to remove physical barriers have not been extended to the overcoming of mental barriers. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the employment and work based training provided to PIDs. Even though in the last few years there has, been a visible shift at the European level towards integrating PIDs into the labour market, still PIDs are often unable to complete adult education programmes, and are restricted to participating in courses, which do not grant the student any official certification of their gained qualification. Furthermore, the majority of programs, designed for PIDs need the constant participation of a guide or trainer, limiting their autonomy, are designed for use in a “protected environment” and mainly focus on maintaining life skills and not bridge the actual skill gap between PIDs and the general population. Even though, the main effort by such programs is guided toward work place “equality” for people with intellectual disabilities and their peers, the perceived need of supervision leads, to segregation. One of the 8 areas of action defined in the “European Disability Strategy 2010–2020” is to “Promote inclusive education and lifelong learning for pupils and students with disabilities”, furthermore, The Council Directive 2000/78/EC (Employment Framework Directive) aims to promote equal opportunities and combat discrimination on several grounds, including disability, in employment, self-employment and occupation (European Commission, 2000), but still the problem persists. GreeNet aims to create a complete training Course for Adult Educations in Horticulture (Assistant Gardener – PID). Special attention will be given to skills transparency through EQF and ECVET system as well as the certification of the course materials and the trainers and future supervisors themselves. GreenNet is also going to promote Work Based Learning (WBL) and co-training and will involve the trainees working in the community. GreeNet will provide the opportunity to PIDs to obtain a certification for the learning units achieved or the entire curriculum. The course will address the latest’s technological advancements in the supported employment (Assistive Technology solution), in order to bridge this lack of skills, to increase autonomy and maximise social impact. An Assistive Technology toolkit will be prepared to control in real time garden conditions to improve services, to reduce time and resources required, and also reduce the possibilities of human error. The toolkit will include a weather station, soil moisture sensors, sunlight exposure, etc).The main Objectives of the project are:To promote inclusive education and lifelong learning for people with intellectual disabilities. To design and develop an Assistant Gardener curriculum for people with intellectual disabilities of EQF levels 1 and 2.To develop an Assistive Technology toolkit to assist in WBL, but also later on when the certified trainees will work in real jobs helping them to retain their skills and increase their autonomy. To offer easy to read training materials specifically designed from the start, to cover the beneficiaries’ vocational needs. To develop a certification system for the assessment of the training content and the trainees. Each training module will consist of learning outcomes that will correspond to training units.To train 2 trainers professionals working with PID in each country (Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Cyprus and Serbia) in the use of sensor technologies in horticulture and guide them or the successful organisation of the training's with main goal to ensure sustainability of the project resultsTo pilot train 10 PIDs as gardener in all partner countries in order to test the effect of the methodology and the tools. To offer the materials for free through an online platform and the corresponding manuals to be used worldwide.Considering the different institutional, academic and even cultural backgrounds, the partner organisations are aware of avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach and based on that conviction, they stress on the need to develop a very concise overview of the proposed solution and best practices. Meeting these differences and dealing with them is not only about demonstrating the competency for transnational cooperation and the organisation's overall capability, but it is also one pathway to achieve the project targets and a solid resource to improve existing efforts.