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Information pack for participants

THE JOB AFFAIR Information pack for participants ........................................................................................................... 1

Our starting point .................................................................................................................................... 2

Motivation ........................................................................................................................................... 2

Aims and objectives ................................................................................................................................. 3

General aim of The Job Affair: ............................................................................................................. 3

Objectives of The Job Affair: ............................................................................................................... 3

Expected outcomes of the Job Affair: ................................................................................................. 3

Dates of the project: ................................................................................................................................ 4

Part 1: training course: ........................................................................................................................ 4

Part 2: implementing ........................................................................................................................... 4

Part 3: Follow Up Meeting with participants: ..................................................................................... 4

Programme of the training course .......................................................................................................... 5

(Tentative) Day to day programme of the training course: ............................................................. 5

Target group ............................................................................................................................................ 6

Youth workers… ................................................................................................................................... 6

Selection procedure: ........................................................................................................................... 6

Practicalities ............................................................................................................................................ 7

Accommodation .................................................................................................................................. 7

Special needs for food ......................................................................................................................... 7

Travel ................................................................................................................................................... 7

Contact details of the team ..................................................................................................................... 9

Trainers team ...................................................................................................................................... 9

Coordinating organisation ................................................................................................................... 9

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Our starting point

Motivation

Many European countries suffer from youth unemployment for a range of reasons, and this projects

objective is to address this issue and look at supporting youth workers in competence development

skills (for the further support of the development of competencies of the young people they work

with).

There is a proved match between skills demanded by employers and skills developed in youth

organisations. Out of studies, such as The European Youth Forum’s study about the contribution of

non-formal education in terms of increased employability, the soft skills that employers most

frequently demand include communication skills, organisational/planning skills, decision-making

skills, team working skills, confidence/autonomy and numeracy. Five of these six most frequently

demanded soft skills that employers require are also being amongst those skills developed to a

greater extent in youth organisations, the exception being numeracy.

These soft skills are seen as a key element for successful job performance. Certain personality traits

are also found to be important components of these skills and competencies, contributing to their

development. For example, sense of initiative and pro-activity are traits associated with

confidence/autonomy and entrepreneurship. Employers do also have a positive attitude towards

young people’s experience in youth organizations. Employers however stress a special emphasis on

the way of presenting the skills and competences (what they present, how they present it has more

impact than what is written on the paper) acquired during the participation in youth work, which is

an area where there is still room for lots of improvement.

In youth work, we have the instrument of the youth pass at European level, a lot of countries have

own national recognizing tools for competences, and each young person can use the European CV

format (the Euro-pass CV) for presenting the skills and competences towards employers. But only

few still know, how to work effectively with it (e.g. what to present if I have already Youthpass from 6

different events).

This goes in line with the recommendation of the European Youth Forum to work further on the

transitioning to employability: there is a need to greater guidance and coaching for young people so

that they are better able to present effectively the skills and competences they develop in the youth

sector in job applications and that they are able to better understand how these skills may be applied

in working environments, and can contribute to the performance of specific job-related tasks.

Young workers should be made more aware about the value that employers place on the skills and

the competencies developed in the youth work, and youth workers can be trained in how to support

the young people they work with, in this topic. That is the central focus for a project we would like to

develop.

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Aims and objectives

General aim of The Job Affair:

to support youth workers in enabling young people to better assess and express their competences

for employment purposes

Objectives of The Job Affair: 1. to enable youth workers to help young people to become self aware about their

competencies, to show evidence of those, and to recognise spaces for further development

2. to inspire and increase capacity of youth workers to develop activities with the focus of

employability

3. to prepare youth workers to help young people articulate, adapt and transfer the description

of their competencies into different working contexts,

4. to provide/develop concrete tools for youth workers to use with their target group to work

the selfawareness of competencies relevant for employability

5. to increase competencies about assessessing impact of youth work activities towards

employability

Expected outcomes of the Job Affair:

To develop youth workers’ capacity to improve young people (YP) employability by:

Developing competences relevant for young people and for the job market;

Supporting realistic self-assessment of gained competences by young people;

Improving the young people capacity to express it in professional contexts.

Developing competences relevant for young people and for the job market,

Acknowledging and listing competences that are relevant for the job market;

Recognising the role of youth work in the development of competences for employability;

Ability to create, facilitate and evaluate activities focused on employability of YP.

Supporting the realistic young people’s self-assessment of gained competences

Promoting the value of life-long-learning;

Increasing YP self-confidence;

Supporting YP self-assessment process: reviewing experiences, increasing self-awareness (using existing competence frameworks, using concrete evidences drowned from experience, etc), identifying strengths and weakness, talents and potentials;

Helping young people to envisage further learning needs and opportunities.

Improving the young people’s capacity to express their competences in professional contexts

Capacity to express competences in oral and written form;

Helping young people naming their capacities in different contexts;

Promoting proactivity to present their competences to potential employers;

Capacity to market their competences using different media.

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Dates of the project:

Part 1: training course:

Arrival date for participants: Saturday 31/10/2015

Start of the training: Saturday 31/10/2015 in the evening

End of the training: Friday 6/11/2015 in the evening

Departure of participants: Saturday 7/11/2015

Part 2: implementing

Trying out during local activities at grass root level: November 2015 - February 2016

Part 3: Follow Up Meeting with participants:

Arrival date for participants: Thursday 4/2/2016

Start of the Follow up meeting: Thursday 4/2/2016 in the evening

End of the Follow up meeting: Sunday 7/2/2016 in the evening

Departure of participants: Monday 8/2/2016

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Programme of the training course

(Tentative)

Day to day

programme

of the training

course:

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Target group

We would like to nominate participants according following profile:

Youth workers…

directly working with young people (not project officers behind the desk)

interested in the theme of competencies that the young people need for their future

professional life, and intended to work in this area in their (direct) work with these

youngsters

who are able to apply the learnt issues of the project in their youth work reality

active on local level or at international level (no exclusives here)

who have a certain level of influence in the organisation in order to be able to disseminate it

in the organisation

able to communicate in English

can attend whole duration of the course (both parts)

Selection procedure:

Partner organisations should nominate participants according to the profile above. We would like to

ask you to let interested youth workers fill out the application form at following link by the 2nd

October 2015 the latest.

https://docs.google.com/a/plusko.net/forms/d/11bP1UwapdDOL4nHiWzfRVgwDvcLtkQX04F5HydvJT

sg/viewform

Following number of participants were described in the application form for this project:

Belgium vzw Lejo 2

Czech Rep. Prazdninova skola Lipnice, o.s. 3

Portugal Associacao Check In – Cooperacao e Desenvolvimento 4

Slovakia Orbis Institute 3

Poland Fundacja na Rzecz Rozwoju Kariery Trampolina Talentow 4

Slovenia Socialna akademija - zavod za izobrazevanje, raziskovanje in kulturo

4

Netherlands Stichting Jeugdwerk Maaspoort 3

Ireland The Inside Out Programme 2

Total 25

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Practicalities

Accommodation

Participants will be accommodated in double rooms. We would like to mix the participants in

different nationalities-rooms to stimulate also the intercultural learning during the overall context of

the seminar, but rooms will be not mixed with gender.

Special needs for food

For food we will ask the participants via the application form to mark their preferences.

Travel We would like to ask you to verify which would be the most appropriate way to come to Slovakia

(Bratislava area). Look for the 2nd class tickets, reasonable means of travel and also reasonable prices.

Maximum limits for your travel are appointed in the table below:

Country: Distance band: Max. reimbursement for travel per participant:

Belgium 500-1999 km 275 €

Czech Rep. 100-499 km 180 €

Portugal 2000-2999 km 360 €

Poland 100-499 km 180 €

Slovenia 100-499 km 180 €

Netherlands 500-1999 km 275 €

Ireland 500-1999 km 275 €

There is a good bus connection between Vienna Airport in Austria and Bratislava, so for partners

coming from a long distance, a flight to Vienna International airport would be for those partners the

best way for reaching Slovakia.

There are also few direct connections with low cost airlines to Bratislava airport from Dublin, and

Brussels-Charleroi.

We would like you to look for the best price/quality for the travel, and to propose it to Tomas

(tomas.pesek@plusko.net) who is monitoring the budget and who is responsible for this part of the

logistics of this project.

Please, don’t confirm a travel booking yet, before a confirmation of Tomas.

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The team of the Job Affair

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Contact details of the team

Trainers team

Contact person: Tomáš Pešek (Slovakia) – tomas.pesek@plusko.net, +421 908 979 939

Ana Silva (Portugal) – empada_com_mayo@hotmail.com

Jan Van Hove (Belgium) – jan@interculturallearning.eu

Adéla Dvořáčková (Czech Republic) – dvorackova.adela@gmail.com

Coordinating organisation

Orbis Institute, o.z.

Bajkalská 29/E

821 01 Bratislava

Slovak Republic

Offices: Kominárska 11, Bratislava

Identification no.: 31 810 306

Website: www.orbisinstitute.sk

e-mail: info@orbisinstitute.sk