Accessibility is still recognized as an annoying and costly duty but not as an opportunity. The legal position is clear - all public services and goods must be barrier-free (European Unions charter of fundamental rights and UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities CRPD). Accessibility concerns approximately 15% of the population with an increasing tendency in aging societies. The awareness about the four major disability types with the different requirements is largely lacking and the understanding of barrier-free adaptations is not available despite standards. In addition to the socioeconomic importance, the importance and basic requirements of this growing group of clients cannot be ignored (World Bank Group: World report on disability, Online 15.12.2014: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2011/ 01/14440066 / world-report-disability). In fact, if the market of the future is the "Silver Market", accessibility is the foundation for participation and success. The main focus of this project is to improve the work place situation of people with disabilities and to enable a better integration at their work places. The objectives to reach this are: 1) Study of the current status of workplace inclusion in different regions of Europe 2) Collection of best-practice examples from different regions 3) Preparation of teaching and learning materials for the WI4.0 training 4) Test course conducted in all five partner countries with at least ten participants per training course with certification 5) Evaluation of testing phase and improvement of the WI4.0 training The participants of the training will use their opportunity and will strengthen their own profile and expand their business activities with the offer for the improvement of workplace inclusion. The project has different kind of participants. At least 50 take part in the test training and can receive the certificate. Another 600 people of different organizations will be approached in Online surveys and interviews. And more than 100 000 will receive information about the project through different channels like newsletters, reports in media, websites and social media activities. The profile of the test training participant slightly varies from partner to partner depending on their national situations. The main target group are business consultants and people in HR, but also guidance counselors in universities. The following activities are planned. The study about the current situation consisting of Online survey, interviews, data from other sources and literature research will help us to improve our specification with the requirements of the customer. The preparing of the certificate-process and EQF-requirements can be done parallel. The development of the training materials with peer reviewing loops had to take care on these results. The test phase of the training and the certification of the first participants as CAC ends with a feedback loop and an improved version of the training materials. The pm methodology according to IPMA will be used in carrying out the project. The results and the impacts of this project are 1) a holistic training, which enables the participants (ie business consultants and HR manager) to improve the situation for people with disabilities at their workplace, 2) lot of people will get informed about the lacking implementation and this will raise their awareness for this issue 3) more than 50 participants will get trained in the test training 4) an extended business case for the participants of the testing phase is available 5) a certificate conforming to an international standard (ISO 17024) for persons to the CAC is available 6) the training corresponds to the national EQF-implementations 7) the training is also valuable for people with disabilities who , as "experts on their own cause", seek new job opportunities. As social inclusion is not limited to the partner nations, the results can improve the situation in the whole European Union for people with disabilities. The training will be provided by the partners after the end of the project and the training materials will be available via the website for self-study. Also the certification will be existing after the project end, so that other people can get the certificate, too. The know-how of the participants and the raised awareness of informed people will be a good base for ongoing development in this issue.
Accessibility is still recognized as an annoying and costly duty but not as an opportunity. The legal position is clear - all public services and goods must be barrier-free (European Unions charter of fundamental rights and UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities CRPD). Accessibility concerns approximately 15% of the population with an increasing tendency in aging societies. However, awareness about the four major disability types and their different requirements is largely lacking and understanding of barrier-free adaptations is not available despite standards. In addition to the socioeconomic importance, the importance and basic requirements of vulnerable groups facing barriers - as a growing group of clients - cannot be ignored (World Bank Group: World report on disability, Online 15.12.2014: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2011/ 01/14440066 / world-report-disability). In fact, if the market of the future is the "Silver Market", accessibility is the foundation for participation and success. The main focus of this project is to improve the work place situation of people with disabilities and to enable a better integration at their work places. Specific objectives to reach this were: 1) Study of the current status of workplace inclusion in different regions of Europe 2) Collection of best-practice examples from different regions 3) Preparation of teaching and learning materials for the WI4.0 training 4) Test course conducted in all five partner countries with achieving a certification 5) Evaluation of testing phase and improvement of the WI4.0 training The participants of the training used their opportunity and strengthened their own profile and expand their business activities with the offer for the improvement of workplace inclusion. Overall the project involves the following group of participants: More than 100 000 received information about the project through different channels like newsletters, reports in media, websites and social media activities. Another 600 people of different organizations were approached in online surveys and interviews. And 76 participants took part in the test training and 27 received the international standard certificate (ISO 17024) for persons. The profile of the test training participant slightly varies from partner by partner depending on their national situations. The main target group were business consultants and people in HR, but also guidance counselors in universities. The main project activities were related to the Intellectual Outputs O1 to O3 as planned: The study about the current situation consisting of Online survey, interviews, other data sources and a literature research helped to improve our training specification with the requirements of customers, primarily addressing the customers of our training participant group. The preparing of the certificate-process and EQF-requirements was done in parallel. The development phase of the training materials with peer reviews has to consider the results of O1. The test phase of the training and the certification of the first participants ended with a feedback loop and an improved version of the training materials. The pm methodology according to IPMA was used in carrying out the project and proved to be feasible and efficient. The results and the impacts of the project match the plans and even exceed the expectations of the proposal stage: 1) a holistic training, which enables the participants ie business consultants and HR manager to improve the situation for people with disabilities at their workplace, 2) the training is also valuable for people with disabilities who , as "experts on their own cause", seek new job opportunities. 3) lot of people got informed about the lacking implementation and this raise their awareness for this issue 4) 76 participants were trained in the test training 5) an extended business case for the participants of the testing phase is available 6) a certificate conforming to an international standard (ISO 17024) for persons is now available and supported by FH JOANNEUM in cooperation with SystemCert 7) the training corresponds to the national EQF-implementations As social inclusion is not limited to the partner nations, the results can improve the situation across the whole European Union for people with disabilities. The training will continue to be offered by the partners and the training materials will be available for self-study via the website. Also the certification can be completed by other individuals. The know-how of the participants and the sharpened awareness of the informed people will be a good basis for the further development of this topic. Dissemination activities of the project supported this objective.