The mission of this project is to find innovative approaches to tackling youth unemployment with special needs at risk of poverty and social exclusion in accordance with their needs and expectations in context of real possibilities of the labor market through the use of participatory approaches and methods based also on ICT . The project specifically focuses on the socio-occupational and career counseling for 100 young people with special needs at risk of poverty as a result of their unemployment, as a pilot project in Pezinok and Senec ( 55 young disabled people living in their households, 25 special primary and secondary school disabled pupils and 20 disabled young clients living in supported facilities). 30 employers obligated to employ people with disabilities and 23 municipal and local governments will take part in counseling aimed to creation of innovative business models and more efficient use of replacement transactions targeted support selected a sheltered workshop and their specific disabled young workers from the region and the creation of new jobs for young people with special needs directly at their workplace. Supported employment model innovation lies in the combination of social work and counselling ( IPRO and IAPZ ) provided by 20 young volunteers - students work psychology and social work (most of them are disabled a or from poor families) in a tandem group work and field social work under supervision and the development of methodologies and forms reflected in the electronic case filing system of social client intersectoral collaboration and expertise to design proposals for practice at national and transnational level . Thanks to the cross-sectoral national and multinational strategic partnership we want to increase the capacity and professionalism of the work of youth workers in Slovakia and in EU, to strengthen cooperation in education and training of youth in accordance with innovative solutions for the labor market.
The project objective : seeking inovative approaches to solving problem of unemployment of youth with special needs. These people are endangered by poverty and social exclusion resulting from their disabilities. The solutions need to respond to these young people`s neets and expectations as well as to realistic review of the labour market resources via application of participative approaches and methods based also on information and communication technologies. This was fulfilled thanks to the support of Erasmus + programme (KA 2 - strategic partnerships). Concretely speaking within the project we carried out social, and career counselling for 107 young people with disabilities (25 meetings for 1 person with a disability on average) which is 2547 meetings (each lasting 3 hours on average). 23 young people with disabilities participated in all 3 project phases (anamnestic and diagnostic individual work, social competence group training focused on preparation for career, active engagement in finding employment or creating work positions as well as the adaptation phase at work). 41 young people with disabilities participated only in 2 phases (mainly because of problematic synchronization of 10 group participants or mobility limits resulting from the participants` disabilities. 9 young people participated only in 1 phase (depending on the stage in which they joined the already running project). The other 27 participants took part only in "lump-sum" nonrepeated counselling intending to contact us shortly before or after their graduation and planning to ask us for hel to enter the labour market then. The project results concerning this group say that 30 young people with disabilities are still studying and we carry on in their preparation for future employment. 17 young people with disabilities from this group actively cooperate on seeking suitable jobs even now even though the project had already finished. 6 young people with disabilities ended cooperating with us thanks to hospitalization, sudden worsening of their health condition, moving out from Bratislava region or a family situation change. Within this project we directly formed new work positions for 9 young people with disabilities in 6 totally new social enterprises built with the help of ours (due to the absence of legislation these receive subsidies for employing people with disabilities in the form of sheltered workshop but they show all the atributes of the open labour market employment receiving state funding). We helped other 10 people to get employed via our counselling services and directing them during the process of diagnostics and counselling (most of them found their jobs by themselves within the individual action planning) 31 employers - businessmen as well as town and village municipalities were provided with counselling (during 337 meetings , each lasting 3 hours on average) on founding inovative business models and / or more effective usage of substitutional compliance through direct support of a chosen sheltered workshop and their concrete young employees with disabilities in the given region or on formation of new work positions for youth with disabilities directly in their own company. As for 31 employers, 12 of them were helped to found new sheltered workshops. 6 of these workshops (with our help) achieved successful preparation and founding (varying in number of new work positions from 1 - 6) 3 other were given counselling on obtaining state subsidies in already existing and prosperous companies. These corporations though decided not to use the potential subsidies due to overwhelming administration. Still we keep in touch with them and seek suitable candidates with disabilities for them. 8 already existing employers - sheltered workshops - were contacted by us to find out about their interest in founding new work positions. 5 of these participated in free training on "increasing gaints of sheltered workshops from product sales " that lasted 50 hours. 8 employers - mostly corporations in Bratislava were contacted because of potentially free work positions and their willingness to employ young people with disabilities. We are in touch with them and at the moment we prepaire the help and support program for young people with disabilities to prepaire effectively for labour market entry and assistance in their transition from school to employment. The project team included also the other target group . The projecct success is a result of 29 young volunteers' help. They are students of work psychology and social work (disabled, from poor families). 5 of them went through the whole process of the project not just their compulsory practice demanded for their university education) They worked in pairs - often directly in the field - under the supervision (2 accredited supervisors worked once a month on their group supervision). The inovation of the model of supported employment agency resided in combination of social and career counselling (individual personality development plan and individual action employment plan), as well as in formation of methodologies and forms processed in the electronic record system for clients` social cases, in inter-sector cooperation and expertise consisting suggestions for practice on the national as well as transnational level. Thanks to the national as well as inter-sector partnership we succeeded in increasing Slovak as well as European youth workers` capacity and professionality, and strengthened cooperation in the field of education and professional youth` preparation in accorddance with the inovative solutions for the labour market.