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).

<< Background >>Project objective is to create vocational training program for HR managers in social care to supports the inclusion of foreign workers in the social care sector who have difficult conditions when entering the labour market, for example due to language and cultural barriers, but also due to the lack of confidence of employers in their ability and prejudices from other employees. The project will seek to remove barriers for integration of foreign workers by preparing guidelines and recommendations, as well as training programs for managers of social care providers. The project seeks to promote equal opportunities and access to well-paid jobs for foreign workers working in social care area.<< Objectives >>The project focuses on educating employer representatives, such as manager and HR managers of social care providers employing foreign workers to be able to understand specific need foreign workers have and to know how to approach those needs.The training program will be developed in two ways. First will be an online version. This version will be more basic to be suitable for an online environment, but will contain an online testing and if successfully passed, it will generate a certificate. An online training program will be designed in 5 language mutations and placed on the web site of the project to be easily accessible to all who are interested across Europe. It will include video tutorials, examples of good and bad practice, etc. to be as useful as possible. Second will be a vocational curriculum for a full-time teaching with recommended length of 8 to 16 hours of interactive teaching plus 4 hours of individual mentoring. When both training programs are finished, they will be “tested”.<< Implementation >>The outcomes contributing to the specific objective of the project will be: a) Analysis in partner countries (PR 1); b) Guidelines and recommendations (PR 2); c) New training programs (online and full-time for managers, HR managers and HR agencies (PR 3).<< Results >>This project’s objectives are to contribute to inclusion of foreign workers creating 3 tools that will help CEO, HR managers and managers to approach foreign workers, to understand their specific needs, help them to become a recognized member of the “core team”, be integrated in the labour market and gain and raise all needed skills. The tools are: Creation of guidelines and recommendations, online training program, and full-time vocational training program curriculum in 5 languages.