ESTEEM project

(Empowerment through Study, Training, Enabling Education and Mentoring)

Scope and Target Groups:

Lifelong learning provides more opportunities for more people to get the skills and qualifications they need to enter the labour market, and at a level which matches their ability and potential. But, to make the most of this opportunity, people need to get into training. This is difficult for some people to do, because of economic disadvantage, structural barriers to their participation, limited educational experience, ethnocentric attitudes and cultural insensitivity.

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ESTEEM is building opportunities that can empower people to do this, who include:
• People with disabilities and people with learning difficulties whose access to employment is restricted to low paid, unqualified work, or no work at all.
• People from lower socio-economic groups for whom access to qualifications provides a huge boost to their opportunities to work and get better pay for it
• People excluded from training and the workforce because of cultural differences and ethnicity
• People returning to learning, especially those with limited secondary school experience
• People with mental health difficulties whose experience of training and employment may be disrupted
ESTEEM has come out of the APT Project which set up a flexible and adaptable platform for encouraging entry to professional training in social work and social care by disabled people and other disadvantaged groups. APT developed a suite of pre-entry preparation programmes which use a blend of face-to-face workshops, online learning and mentoring to support students’ learning and to prepare them for entry to professional social work and social care training.

Aims & Objectives of ESTEEM

The key aims are:
• to encourage the participation of under-represented groups in VET, particularly in social work and social care, and at pre-entry level and in volunteering - enhancing personal development, encouraging participation and contributing to greater social cohesion, in line with the objectives of the Lisbon process.
• to adopt a learner-oriented quality assurance process whose elements have value to learners, providers and employers - supporting learners in the acquisition and demonstration of knowledge, skills and competences, enabling them to enter the labour market and at a higher level
• to extend the range and applicability of the suite of preparation programmes developed in the APT Project - promoting partnership and co-operation across a wider range of training institutions, social partners, municipalities and regions, and providing greater opportunities for participation and training
The key objectives are:
• To analyse targeted user requirements, particularly among the identified beneficiary groups (all partner countries)
• To adapt and run preparation programmes in new sectors (Malta), new regions (Bulgaria), and with new user groups (UK)
• To promote the programmes into new countries (Greece and Turkey)
• To adopt a learner-oriented quality assurance process which will run during the adaptation and delivery stages
• To disseminate information about the learner-oriented process and the new programmes, and to promote their value to others

Partners

De Montfort University (UK)
e-ISOTIS (Greece)
Marie Curie Association (Bulgaria)
Foundation Ozon - Social Services Complex (Bulgaria)
University of Malta –Department of Social Policy and Social Work (Malta)
Sakarya University (Turkey)

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