Diversity and Mentoring Approaches to Support Active Ageing and Integration / DIMENSAAI
Background
Sectors like care and health have a shortage of skilled labour almost in all European countries due to e.g. an increasing medical care demand. The employment of active seniors and people with light disabilities can improve the situation of labour shortage if they are guided by mentors, if employers have knowledge about Diversity and are convinced by the competences and reliability in working with this group of people. Some ergonomically and organisational measures in the companies are necessary to create/adapt work places to be suitable for seniors and people with disabilities.
By transferring a mentoring model from former LdV projects Voca2 and IBB, to Germany and other partners, the consortium wanted to improve participation in training and particularly on the job qualification and employment for two target groups: seniors (55+) and people with disabilities by the use of a diversity and mentoring training model focusing on the working places in the health and care sectors.
Main activities and outcomes
Activities of the project were the organization of focus group discussions in all partner countries to identify requirements for working places suitable for these two groups and needs, transfer, adaptation and test of a mentor training model from former LdV projects VOCA2 and IBB, workshops in health/ care sector and other interested organizations and individuals for using Diversity, tests of mentoring processes on the job in the partner countries involving seniors and/or disabled persons, social networking, information exchange and collaboration, measures to design working places for seniors and people with disabilities, dissemination and valorisation activities.
The partners of the consortium represented 6 countries of the European Union. They come from education, care, health sector. The partnership included members with more experience and others wishing to learn. This means a possibility to improve the situation in Europe as a whole as well as easy access to a large number of countries which are not included in the partnership but have links to the partner countries.
Target groups were people from health and care sector who would like to be a mentor for a colleague, trainers and consultants wanting to have a new qualification as a diversity counsellor, seniors and people with disabilities wanting to work. The impact was to support qualification and sustainable employment of seniors and people with disabilities, active ageing and integration, employer’s knowledge about competences of these groups, VET innovations and participation in training. The project consortium comes from different parts of Europe and has complementary competences. One partner participated in the project IBB and so improving the innovation transfer process, three core partners belong to care/health sector; one partner has experience in consulting in the care/health sector.
Some outcomes
- A catalogue for competences needed to be a diversity counselor (DC)
- A mentoring program, transferable guidelines and handbooks for diversity counselors and mentoring in partner countries
- A social network supported by a ICT platform for innovative online training, information exchange, collaboration
- A curriculum for a qualification as DC or mentor to be included in vocational and/or higher education as social worker
- Measures to create/design suitable working places for seniors and disabled people
Websites
Social learning community of DIMENSAAI
Disclaimer
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.