"Context of the project:The project ""Worklife Guidance - Development of guidance and counseling in the workplace"" is about bringing together methods used within career guidance and counselling, validation of prior learning and Human Resource Management and build a toolbox for providers of guidance services to use when working with managers and employees in the workplace on a strategical development of the workforce competences. In the modern society people cannot rely on the skills they acquired at school to last them till the end of their working life and companies need up-skilled and re-skilled workforce to be able to cope with the rapid market changes. The main aim of this project is to make it clear to both parties, employees and employers, that a strategical development of skills and competences should be a part of every-day work-life and that the responsibility is mutual. The target groups of the project are: a) Individual employees; b) Managers, especially within human resource management and c) Providers of guidance services, who were trained in how to approach both groups and gain trust in the methodology used.Objectives (towards long-term benfits)- Strengthen the competences and believe of managers and middle-managers to use counseling and coaching methods to map competences and possible skills gaps.- Strengthen the believe of employees towards a systematic development of competences to develop their competences and meet organization or sector needs. - Bring down barriers towards the use of competence modeling and measurements/mapping of skills mismatch.- More efficiency in the use of finances used for development of human resource within organisations.- Strengthen adult education’s connections, relationships and service models with companies through the work of career counsellors and through the co-working models of career counsellors and vocational experts - Share and compare models of guidance at the workplace in order to develop models to be used by adult education / career counsellors Products:Comparison of methods/models: information was gathered from all partners for comparison of methods/models used within career guidance and counseling, validation of prior learning and human resource management. On the basis of this comparison partners were able to understand the issue better and choose models that would better serve the respective employment sector and/or companies that each participating organization was cooperating with.Toolbox for providers of guidance services: the core of the project outcomes is the Toolbox which includes promotional material to be used by the providers of the guidance services, models to be used when providing the service, guidelines on how to approach employees and employers to gain trust in the services and a training program for providers of the guidance services.About the partnership:The participating organizations come from five different European countries, Iceland, Finland, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden. They brought different aspects to the project work as the objectives of their work are different, covering adult education, guidance and counseling services, validation of prior learning, research on education and training systems in Europe and cooperation with the business world. This was to secure a very broad approach to the theme and objectives of this partnership project. The benefits of this project for providers of guidance services will be that they are better equipped to approach companies and employees as both parties will better understand the importance of letting the competence development of employees go hand in hand with the needs of the company. Five international meetings have been held, all three multiplier events have been conducted: ideology presented; train the providers; final conference, and the three outputs/products have been produced; report on comparison of methods and tools, Toolbox for guidace (http://wlguidance.wixsite.com/toolbox) and training course/material for guidance providers. The project has reached directly over four hundred professionals in five European countries. Partner countries have set up processes for continuing disseminating the ideology of the project and using the Toolbox further with guidance providers and in companies. This will open up further developments in the area of competence development, transparency and matching of skills."

"Erasmus+ KA2 strategic partnership project „Reflection tools for supporting individual learning paths of adults“ (2015-2017) was initiated with the main aim to collect, test and develop reflection tools for supporting individual learning paths of adults. In our ""age of information,"" rapid shifts in careers, advancing technologies, increasing diversity within our population, and dramatic fluctuations in the personal contexts of our lives set up the need for life-long and life-wide learning. There is an increasing necessity to develop new skills and competences: sense-making, self-awareness, self-reliance, initiative, novel and adaptive thinking, critical thinking, self-directed competence, cross-cultural competence etc. It seems hardly achievable for every individual in short-term perspective. Developing these skills and competencies demand a long and continuous practice, as well as reflection over the practice which involves linking a current experience to what has been previously learned. To reflect, we must act upon and process the information, synthesizing and evaluating the data. In the end, reflecting also means applying what we've learned to contexts beyond the original situations in which we learned something fostering our ability to change and act independently.The main objectives of the project are: -Improvement of adult educators' competences in the partner institutions (developing learner-centred programmes, supporting reflection and self-directed learning, facilitating adult learning, improved fluency in English, skills of intercultural cooperation)-More learner-centred programmes in adult education.The adult educators who took part in the project learned how to accompany, support, guide and encourage adult learner through reflective practice and self-directed learning. The collaborative project work has also promoted development of more learner-centred programmes in the partner organisations and beyond.The project team consisted of professionals who work with various groups of adults: adult educators, educational managers, teachers of compulsory and vocational schools, decision-makers, adult learners with immigrant background, long-term unemployed, housewives, entrepreneurs, etc. Transnational cooperation allowed testing the tools with various groups and seeing how they work and what needs to be adjusted taking into consideration peculiarities of different cultures and backgrounds. The project brings together the collective expertise of six European organisations.OÜ Vestifex (Adult Learning Centre) – Estonia, the applicant and coordinating organisationhttp://www.vestifex.com/ITC Professional Development (Professional training and coaching services) - EstoniaKonsulent Ivan Häuser (Consultancy company) – Denmarkhttp://www.ivan-hauser.dk/dk/Sintagmi srl - Italy http://sintagmi.weebly.com/Centrum för flexibelt lärande (CFL), Söderhamns kommun (Centre for flexible learning) – Swedenhttp://hufb.se/vuxenutbildning/cflsoderhamnKapadokya Eğitim Akademisi Derneği (Cappadocia Education Academy Association CAPADEMY) - Turkeyhttp://www.cappademy.org/The project work was based on the principles of andragogy and life-long learning, strategies of European education, forecasts of future education and labour market."

In times of striking economic crisis in Europe, education and training are more in the spotlight than ever, as policymakers are looking for clear responses to challenges faced by the Member States. All over Europe, national VET system and VET organisations are making considerable efforts to face these challenges and are undergoing developments to ensure that VET qualifications meet the highest quality standards and can be built on, refreshed and renewed, in order to maintain their relevance in rapidly changing economies. However, first and foremost, it is crucial that any modernisation of VET systems and organisations and consequent development of new VET standards are actually embedded in the practical implementation of existing European tools - EQF, ECVET and EQAVET – aiming to increase the quality, flexibility, transparency, relevance, comprehensibility and currency of VET qualifications in Europe. As highlighted by Carlo Scatoli, Policy Officer at the European Commission, DG EAC, “Now that we see how ECVET can work, broader national strategies are needed which create a link between all the European transparency instruments’ ( ECVET Conference, 2013). At the same occasion, the Head of Unit at The European Commission, EACEA, Ute Haller Block, pointed out that ‘Implementation happens on national level. There is a need to train national ECVET-experts and to develop more opportunities to meet and learn from each other’ (Ute Haller Block, Head of Unit at The European Commission, EACEA).Stimulated by these strong messages, the ATTRACT-VET project was generated in order to develop a new, innovative and multidisciplinary approach in order to empower VET providers to use the existing European transparency tools for qualification (EQF), credits (ECVET) and quality assurance (EQAVET), and in order to modernise and improve the level of quality, excellence and attractiveness of their VET organisations and enhance the European mobility of skilled labour force.Consequently, ATTRACT-VET aimed at the implementation of the following activities and the development of innovative outputs:- Explore the European EQF-ECVET-EQAVET tools and related resources, compiling them in the @CATALOGUE- Analyse the gaps and challenges of VET providers (managers, team leaders, project managers, contents/programme designers, trainers/teachers, other educational staff), which they are facing for implementing and using the EQF-ECVET-EQAVET tools within their organisations and daily practice at work, during the STATE OF THE ART STUDY- Develop a new, innovative and multidisciplinary approach, including the ECVET CURRICULUM, TRAINING PROGRAMME and OPERATIONAL GUIDELINES- Empower VET professionals during piloting and validation of the ECVET CURRICULUM and TRAINING PROGRAMME- Encourage synergies and cooperation between VET providers and exchange of practices, providing OPERATIONAL GUIDELINES for boosting the implementation of the ECVET CURRICULUM and TRAINING PROGRAMME - Engage stakeholders and target groups by involving them in planning developments from the outset and at all subsequent phases, and offering them and open and attractive “showrooms” of the project, the OER PLATFORMIn this way, the ATTRACT-VET aimed to generate different levels of impact through the use of its outputs on the participants, participating organisations, target groups and other stakeholders, both during and after the project. It will have a direct impact on local, regional, national and European level by enabling VET professionals to practically implement the European tools EQF-ECVET-EQAVET in their daily work with learners.

Entering the labour market successfully when their schooling is finished is a challenge to young people all over Europe, especially if they are considered disadvantaged. The problem is not only visible in the economically weaker countries in Southern and Eastern Europe, but is also evident in all other countries. To address this problem, many countries in Europe introduced 'work-oriented training' methods (WBT) in schools and vocational training programs to create a better link between theory-based learning and practical training. This approach is more stimulating to these students and has shown to produce feelings of success for young learners whose skills and capabilities lie to a greater extend in practical work rather than abstract learning. Nowadays, it´s widely recognized that those countries with an integrated work-based vocational preparation and training system and an apprenticeship-oriented approach are doing better with the successful transition from school to work. However, the national transition settings differ from country to country. Furthermore, regardless the national institutional system may be, the same challenge has to be faced everywhere: how to combine theory learning and practice training efficiently in order to produce sustainable learning success with disadvantaged young people.This in fact was the main focus of the WBT strategic partnership. The aim was to discover and examine the various work-based training approaches being used in European countries and to find out 'what works', striving to disseminate good practices and approaches. The overall aim was to find successful ways and strategies for overcoming long standing learning barriers and blockades in order to create sustainable learning success and to secure the successful integration of young students into the labour market.At first, the partnership researched the different transition settings and WBT approaches in the partner countries and illustrated the findings in an overview report. Following, an Online Survey was carried out, addressed to the main relevant stakeholders involved in school-to-work transition: teachers, trainers/instructors and the young learners themselves. The interviews were done through an online questionnaire containing a mix of standardized and open questions. The aim was to find out what were the great advantages of the respective WBT approach in the country; what were the drawbacks; and what kind of improvements can be identified. The online survey collected around 20 interviews from each stakeholder group in each country, producing more than 560 interviews in total. The online survey was evaluated in a Report on Findings and finally lead, as the core product, to a Manual on Work-based Training that illustrates the different approaches of WBT, documents the findings of the survey, and details best practices-by providing descriptions of demonstrative examples.