Includ-ed, red europea de educación inclusiva

Resumen

SOS-Network – SOS stands for SOcial inclusion of Students with special needs into mainstream vocational education and training and world of work - unifies Europe in its quest for responding to the problems of early school leaving and ensuring a good transition from education to the labour market.

What we are

The SOS network is for students with special needs and for teachers, trainers, employers, counselors, caretakers… all those meeting them in daily life. The network provides knowledge, proven methods and access to experience from practitioners all over Europe. 14 partners from 12 countries have united to discover and collect what works.

What we do

We collect cases of interesting practices from classrooms in schools and training centers, from work places, counseling agencies and other learning environments. We identify methods and approaches that works, and make them available through the SOS-portal. We invite organizations, other projects, schools and educational institutions, employment centres and others in Europe and all over the world to get involved and benefit from exchanging knowledge and experience in tackling early school leaving and transition from education to the labour market.

Why we do it

Providers of vocational education and training all over Europe experience the same problem: students leave education or training without completing it. Many of these early school leavers struggle with social, mental or learning problems and many end up being not in education, employment or training (NEET).

In a society with lurking demographic challenges and economic and social problems NEET is not a solution, neither to the young people categorized as such, nor to society. To approach this challenge we need proven methods for the teachers, knowledge for the world of work and a system that sees the students as individuals with specific competences and skills. This is what the SOS network provides.

Objetivo del proyecto:

SOS Network aims to contribute to social inclusion of young people with special educational needs and social disadvantages into mainstream VET, labour market and society. It intends to develop and introduce new concepts for approaching the issue of social inclusion and to provide teachers, trainers and others working with these young people in learning or job-related activities with adequate, well-proven and relevant methods and tools easily applicable in daily life.

The network takes holistic approach that underlines a need for looking at early school leaving in a context which involves different parties in addition to the VET system. Thus, the objectives of the SOS Network are:

1. To reduce early school leaving

2. To ensure transition from education and training to the labour market.

Metodología

Following methods have been used in the SOS Network:

• - Mapping of barriers to education in different learning environments in different European countries
• - Identifying and collecting interesting case studies from different learning environments involving young people in risk of becoming NEET
• - Based on the collected case studies, identifying and collecting methods and approaches that are easily applicable in different types of learning environments
• - Testing the identified methods in other learning environments
• - Establishing a community of VET teachers, trainers, job counsellors, social workers, employers and others meeting these young people on a daily basis using the SOS portal as a one-stop shop for all interested in the issue and with easy access to the collected material.

Público objetivo

Vocational education and training, organisations working with the transition from education to employment, and employers.

Our target group consists of two main elements:

1. - The young students and learners that are in risk of becoming NEET (No in Employment, Education or Training)
2. - The teachers, trainers, job counsellors and others meeting these young people in daily life
3.  

Ad 1): We operate with four subcategories for this group:

1. - Students/learners with social problems
2. - Students/learners with medical diagnosis
3. - Students/learners with literacy and numerical difficulties
4. - Students/learners from minority backgrounds (ethnic, religious, cultural)

Innovaciones de la buena práctica

65 interesting stories from different learning environments, describing how to work with young students/learners experiences difficulties in mainstream eduation.

15 tested methods.

Logros de la buena práctica

65 interesting stories from different learning environments, describing how to work with young students/learners experiences difficulties in mainstream eduation.

15 tested methods.

Proven success-stories from different partners who have tested new methods and achieved good results:

• - The President’s Award used in Denmark has given self-confidence and a real interest in completing the education for some students
• - A Spanish school has tested out company-based internship for students with special needs, and this has created young people confident of themselves and prepared to take next step further into employment
• - A Danish student has done an international mobility and has experienced that she is capable of things she didn’t believe she would be able to do.

Socios y otros actores que participan en el proyecto

The initiator of this project is Green Academy, south of Aarhus in Denmark. They have been scientific coordinators on the project. Central Denmark EU Office, a Danish body located in Brussels, have been coordinating the project.

Another 12 partners from in total 12 countries have been involved:

• - City College Norwich, UK
• - CSCS, IT
• - VESBE e.V, DE
• - CECE, ES
• -  DPU, DK
• - Queraum, AT
• - EUROED ASSOCIATION, RO
• - Ballymun Job Centre, IE
• - Folkuniversitetet, SE
• - ADPIOS, FR
• - Wroclaw Education Concept, PL
• - JAMK University of Applied Sciencen, FI
•  

More information can be found at the website: http://www.sosnetwork.eu/about/partners

Evaluación

The evaluation of the work being carried out during the project period has been done by queraum (Austria) which took this specific role in the project.