Soft skills are recognized to be the success factor enabling individuals’ well-being, self-confidence, autonomy and responsibility, fulfilment of education/social and professional lives, career development and higher income. However, the set of soft skills is often referred to be as non-measurable skills by conventional tests or exams, as they include a wide range of skills related to the individual mind-set, such as: capacity building, learning to learn, persistence, resilience, creativity, self-discipline, self-reflectiveness, acting autonomously. VET_GPS is willing to develop and present a wide set of tools, guides and materials addressed to trainees, VET managers, VET counsellors and VET trainers/teachers, fostering the holistic development of trainees. The project is focusing on the acquisition, development and assessment of soft skills by trainees attending VET training, essential for their personal development, social participation and workplace success (holistic development). Capitalizing the outcomes from two previous projects, (Employ project http://www.employ-project.com/ and In-VET project http://invet-project.eu), with VET_GPS project, partners expects to contribute to: i) Further strengthening key competences in VET; ii) Achievement of relevant and high quality skills and competences; iii) Strengthening the recruitment, selection and induction of Educators; To accomplish these goals, the project will have as main intellectual outputs: - IO1 - Guide for the Integration of Soft Skills in VET Offer, addressed to VET providers/managers and policy makers; - IO2 -Toolkit for Professional Guidance and Coaching, that includes a soft skills self-assessment tool, soft skills programme and counselling guidelines, for trainees and VET counsellors; - IO 3–Programme for Professional Development of Trainers/Tutors, integrating a training programme and soft skills guide to support VET trainers/tutors in the integration of the soft skills in their daily classes; - IO4 –Quality Framework and Platform for the Cooperation in VET System, combining a Quality Framework for Cooperation in VET System with a Professional Development Platform, essential, not only, for the implementation of project’s activities, piloting test, but also to the dissemination and exploitation of IOs. Additionally, to these intellectual outputs, the consortium will also prepare and implement a set of multiplier evets (13 in total), fostering the engagement of VET managers, training managers, counsellors, trainers and tutors in the project’s activities. Involving 8 partners from 5 countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Austria and Belgium), partners’ staff will also benefit from a training course, allowing them to successfully implement the activities and events in their own countries.
Soft skills are recognized to be the success factor enabling individuals’ well-being, self-confidence, autonomy and responsibility, the fulfilment of education/social and professional lives, career development and higher income. However, the set of soft skills is often referred to be as non-measurable skills by conventional tests or exams, as they include a wide range of skills related to the individual mindset, such as: capacity building, learning to learn, persistence, resilience, creativity, self-discipline, self-reflectiveness, acting autonomously. Considering this, the VET_GPS was launch aiming at developing and presenting a wide set of tools, guides and materials addressed to trainees, VET managers, VET counsellors and VET trainers/teachers, fostering the holistic development of trainees. The project was focused on the trainees' soft skills acquisition, development and assessment, essential for their personal development, social participation and workplace success (holistic development). Involving 8 partners from 5 Portugal, Spain, Austria, Italy and Belgium, during the 26 months of the project, the consortium had the opportunity of structuring, testing and validating the following main results: • “Guide for the integration of the Soft Skills in VET offer” (EN, PT, ES, DE and IT) addressed to VET managers to support them in the definition of a strategy for the assessment and development of trainees’ soft skills. • “Soft skills self-assessment too”l (EN, PT, ES, DE and IT) – Online questionnaire to support young trainees in the assessment of the level of development of their soft skills. • “Success@work manual” (EN, PT, ES, DE and IT) – Addressed to trainees, providing 25 activities that can be easily implemented by them in different places, that can support them in the acquisition and/or strengthening of their soft skills; • “Soft Skills Profile” (EN, PT, ES, DE and IT) - A structured interview scheme for counsellors to support them in the communication and explore of the trainees’ results from the questionnaire mentioned above. • “Training course for VET Professionals” (EN, PT, ES, DE and IT) – Allowing them to develop knowledge and competences to integrate strategies and activities in their sessions/schools, fostering the assessment and development of trainees’ soft skills, according to the project’s methodology. • “Youth Empowerment Handbook” (EN, PT, ES, DE and IT) - Designed to inspire and support VET trainers in the identification and definition of practices and activities to be implemented in their daily classes, fostering the assessment and development of trainees’ soft skills. • Quality Framework for the Cooperation in VET System (EN, PT, ES, DE and IT) - Document with quality standards and examples of good practices for the establishment, reinforcement and maintenance of VET-Business Cooperation in the VET system. All these materials were prepared, tested and validated by VET managers, counsellors, trainers and trainees at the national level and are available for download in the project’s website - https://www.vetgps.eu/ - in English, Portuguese, Spanish, German and Italian.