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