This project brings together partners from Denmark, Belgium (Europe), the UK, Greece and Slovenia in order to improve basic skills provision by explaining, further developing and upscaling the life skills approach. Many disadvantaged people have few possibilities to escape the low skills trap, and they often lack the know-how to access social services, proper health care that goes beyond urgencies, and democratic participation. Refugees need to learn the host language, but also acquire the knowledge on how to make a home in their new countries. Additionally, too many of the native population of Europe respond aggressively to refugees through xenophobic and violent actions.The learning of these groups should combine basic and digital skills with problem solving, critical thinking and interaction with other people as well as information and support on how to access health and social services, developing family competences and fostering intercultural dialogue and active citizenship. The project has the following objectives:• Improve life skills provision in Europe• Provide tools and recommendations that can be used for and with the three target groups • Develop an overarching framework and modules that are transferrable across Europe• Support people from all target groups to access learning and other services; increase their participation in a democratic society and develop greater intercultural understandingThe project aims at reaching adult education providers and networks through the multiplier events (at least 500) but also policy-makers and stakeholders working in other educational sectors and in life skills areas (e.g. health, social issues etc.). The project will produce several concrete outcomes:- a 'glossary' of 'life skills' based on a survey among adult education organisations, desk research and interviews, to clarify the terminology across Europe. - a collection of good practices and an analysis of the practises to help understand what works and how to make it work. - a collection and analysis of tools that are being used across Europe in order to promote life skills and intercultural understanding, used as basis of very concrete recommendations to other organisations on how to strengthen their non-formal approaches with the three target groups- a provision framework and transferable modules to create an indicative framework for life skills provision, incl. modules on, e.g., language & literacy & numeracy skills, financial, digital, health and civic capabilities. - an Awareness Raising and Strategy toolkit that will not only provide summaries of the lesson learnt through O1 and O2, but also contain recommendations as well as proposals for life skills strategies at different levels.Four partner meetings will allow the consortium to work on these outcomes. Two multiplier events will ensure a wide and in-depth dissemination of the project outcomes. The project will have the following impacts and results:- Effective tools for better intercultural and life skills learning- A more comprehensive and relevant life skills learning framework- More and better inclusion into job opportunities and community life- Improvement of basic skills provision in the adult education community- More and better tools for the work with low-skilled people, refugees and people with low intercultural understanding- Acquisition of concrete advocacy tool to target regional, national and European policy-makers- Increased recognition of the role of non-formal (adult) education in achieving social inclusion in the EU- Closer cooperation between agencies and stakeholders dealing with refugees on the one hand and the low-skilled on the other hand- Better referrals of people in need between these stakeholders- For the beneficiaries, a targeted life skills initiative also means improved health situations, better school attendance of children, more chances for employment …- Concrete proposals how to devise and implement a life skills strategy on the local / regional / national levels- A better understanding of the overlaps of learning needs between low-skilled 'native' people and refugees / migrants but also the differences - In the long-term, the adoption of the life skills approach in national policies and initiatives- A close connection with / integration of the life skills approach in both in the European Agenda for adult learning and the upcoming Skills Agenda- Increasing the participation rates of adults in lifelong learning- Contributing to ET 2020, but also the post-Paris declaration process- The integration of the life skills approach in future policy strategies The intellectual outputs developed in the project will continue to display project results after the project lifetime has finished. The tools will be directly used by partners and the adult education community, and the strategies and recommendations will influence future initiatives and policies on different levels.
Too many people in Europe lack basic life skills (see, eg the PIAAC results of the OECD). It could be literacy, numeracy or digital skills, but also health capabilities, financial literacy etc. They often lack the know-how to access social services, proper health care that goes beyond urgencies, and democratic participation. Refugees need to learn the host language, but also acquire the knowledge on how to make a home in their new countries. Additionally, too many of the native population of Europe respond aggressively to refugees through xenophobic and violent actions. All of these target groups can benefit from a life skills approach. The life skills approach builds the curriculum around the learner and takes their needs in to account: it combines basic skills with health, financial literacy and many other aspects that enable the learners to manage their lives successfully. This project brought together partners from Denmark (national level), Belgium (European level), the UK (national level), Greece (regional/local level) and Slovenia (national) in order to improve basic skills provision by explaining, further developing and up-scaling the life skills approach. The work was first based on the experiences of the partners but then further developed through surveys, interviews, good practice collections and further analysis. The project had the following objectives, which it has all fulfilled: • Improve life skills provision in Europe• Provide tools and recommendations that can be used for and with the three target groups • Develop an overarching framework and modules that are transferable across Europe• Support people from all target groups to access learning and other services; increase their participation in a democratic society and develop greater intercultural understanding The project targeted adult education providers and networks through the multiplier events but also policy-makers and stakeholders working in other educational sectors and in life skills areas (e.g. health, social issues etc.). The project has produced several concrete outcomes: Output 1 consists of a thorough report including a glossary based on a survey among adult education organisations and desk research, a collection of good practices of life skills initiatives across Europe and a collection of educational tools. A leaflet was made to communicate the concept of life skills short and clear. The leaflet has been translated into Greek, Danish, Slovenian and French. The summary of the report is also available in Danish, French, Slovenian and Greek. Output 2 consists of a generic learning framework for life skills provision, that was tested in the participating countries. The framework is available in English, Danish, French, Slovenian and Greek. Output 3 consists of an awareness raising and strategy toolkit aiming at both education providers and decision makers (English, Danish, French, Slovenian, Greek). Three inspiring multiplier events were held, two in Brussels and one in Patras, Greece. Given the fact that the projects outputs are available online (see https://eaea.org/project/life-skills-for-europe-lse/) and are acting as a continuing source of inspiration is ensured that the project will have more of mid-long, long-term impact on policies that is hard to be measured at that point. Partners informed their colleagues about the work that has been done on life skills, approaches to life skills and they acknowledged the life skills approach as very promising for vulnerable groups of adults, especially those with less experiences in learning. The project deliverables offer learners and providers inspiring tools to use while they provide to policy makers and stakeholder with a chance to understand better the LSE approach and its benefits. Based on those deliverables the Life Skills Approach will impact the work of the above mentioned target groups. The increased knowledge on the field of Life Skills that LSE offers will lead to a more prominent position of the approach within the area of adult education, especially when it comes to disadvantaged groups of learners. As pointed out earlier, the partners have implemented the results on their levels and will continue to disseminate the results. There are talks ongoing (in 2019) about cooperations with other sectors on how the life skills approach could be shared and further implemented. The annual theme of the EAEA in 2019, life skills and participation, will mean that there will be a Grundtvig Award on the topic of Life Skills, a conference and statement of the EAEA (in close cooperation with DAEA). The further impact is therefore already assured - it clearly demonstrated that the results of this project are being and will be mainstreamed and up-scaled.