Volunteering is an important way for people to develop themselves, by building new relationships and gaining a whole set of life skills that can improve their employability. It serves to gather important experience in unknown fields, to develop social, personal and organisational competences. However, the competences acquired in volunteering are rarely assessed and validated, hence, they are “lost” in the CV of the volunteers, even though employers state how important they are when it comes to selecting a new employee. Also, there is a lack of feasible and easy-to-use instruments for validating informal learning in volunteering. Job Bridge aims to fill this gap by developing a fully-fledged user-centred approach for validating non-formal and informal learning processes in volunteering activities, including a well proven web-based documentation, both for learners and those supervising them, the “facilitators”. Furthermore, Job Bridge aims at bridging informal, non-formal and formal learning by integrating social, personal and organisational competences in a system which can be linked to existing validation and certification instruments such as EQF, ECVET, ECTS and/or EUROPASS. The project will offer an Online Environment for facilitators to implement a competence-based approach, and tools and methods to assess volunteers’ competences and learning needs. This is how facilitators will support volunteers' personal and professional development. The Job Bridge project will therefore improve the quality of learning opportunities within adult education and voluntary-based organisations by offering new ways of guiding, assessing and validating the competences of their volunteers. It thus contributes to dealing with many challenges related to the Council Resolution on a renewed European Agenda for Adult Learning (2011) including the development of validation mechanisms and improving the quality of adult education provision. The partnership brings a strong European value and will enable partners to develop, and pilot innovative tools and methodologies making the best of new technologies. The developed tools are based on open technologies and will be used in various organisations working with volunteers. Last but not least, the outcomes of the project will lead to policy recommendations on EU policy developments such as the revision of the Europass and of the European Key Competences Framework as part of the New Skill Agenda. In terms of concrete outputs Job Bridge will develop: - A stocktaking report on the current situation in terms of using competence frameworks and validation in adult education and voluntary-based organisations - A Matrix of relevant competences acquired in volunteering that are also relevant for employment. The matrix shall serve as a meta-system that identifies the interfaces between volunteering and social, personal and organisational competences required at the workplace. - Guidelines including practical cases and acting recommendations on how to set up competence oriented learning activities and validate the aquired competence therein. - A rich open learning environment as collaborative learning and exchange space for volunteering facilitators, trainers and volunteers - A training course introducing the concept of validation and competence oriented learning to facilitators of volunteering actions. It will enable them to further develop their offers and activities into learning experiences that make a difference also in the career pathways of the volunteers. - A European label that can be attached to one’s own competence profile and gives evidence of learning. - A Report on national pilots carried out by the participants of the training course in national volunteering projects. - A KA1 course for professionals in volunteering providers that willl use the Job Bridge approach in the future. The Job Bridge approach will be put into practice in a Transnational Training Activity with 21 participants, who then pilot the approach with min. 15 volunteers in their respective country. The Job Bridge consortium is composed of a multi-actor partnership of eight partners from seven countries and combines the expertise and experience of different types of actors with an extremely large outreach through hundreds of member organisations of the participating networks. The partnership is consisting of three network organisations that work in the field of volunteering, civil society and lifelong learning. There is one large volunteering organisation representing several thousands of volunteers European wide. Job Bridge connects this with two organisations representing the employment sector: one chamber of commerce and one HR agency. The partnership is completed by a European network which has been working on innovative validation approaches at the interface of informal and formal learning since 2005.
Volunteering is an important way for people to develop themselves, by building new relationships and gaining a whole set of life skills that can improve their employability. It serves to gather important experience in unknown fields and to develop social, personal and organisational competences. Valuable competences, frequently developed through informal and non-formal learning in volunteering, are rarely validated and certified by voluntary organisations. This leaves a huge amount of progress and development that cannot be demonstrated or proven to potential stakeholders. Therefore, validation represents a considerable opportunity for volunteers and those people working with them. Job Bridge aimed to fill this gap by developing a fully-fledged user-centred approach for validating non-formal and informal learning processes in volunteering activities, including a well proven web-based documentation, both for learners and those supervising them, the “facilitators”. After the development phase, the partnership carried out a 3-day training course in Göttingen, Germany, that involved 22 trainers, facilitators and multipliers. These work either directly with volunteers or cooperate with volunteering organisations. The course aimed to make participants familiar with the Job Bridge approach and to prepare the piloting phase, in which the Job Bridge approach was implemented in informal learning projects with volunteers. From the experience reports can be derived that all partners found many benefits and advantages to using the methodology. The methodology enabled the volunteers to set goals and learning objectives, and to clearly see and track their progress – especially as their competences were evaluated at the beginning, mid-way through the process, and at the end. Obtaining a certificate at the end to evidence skill, knowledge and attitude development was welcomed and often seen as a source of pride. Further, their personal development was seen as contributing to improved educational and career prospects and opportunities. The methodology enabled participants to look at volunteering from a different angle, and to appreciate the learning dimension of their activities. The piloting phase involved 18 facilitators who carried out 28 learning projects involving 190 volunteers that reflected and evidenced their social and personal competences like initiative taking, self-reflection, flexibility, learning to learn etc. in their volunteering activities. The volunteering organisations, by guiding and supporting the volunteers, improved their mentoring competences, like coaching and promoting personal development, and their knowledge and competences on validation of competence developments. The competences acquired during the volunteering activities were validated and documented by means of the LEVEL5 system. The validation offer raised interest, and learners clearly saw its benefits in terms of authenticating their competences and including them as part of their portfolio of achievements. The Job Bridge approach has provided volunteers with the opportunity to measure the progress made during their learning projects and validate the experience through the LELVEL5 system. This is a key outcome for the project as for many volunteers it was an opportunity not only to validate their informal learning but also introduced the benefits of self-reflection in the evaluation of their experiences. For the volunteering organisations involved in the project we can conclude that they were interested in the concept of validation and in finding feasible tools and methods of competence assessment and documentation. This allows them for planning and following volunteers’ activities in order to develop the competences they chose. Some of them used the Youthpass and see LEVEL5 as a complementary tool. From their experience many young people have problems in describing their acquired competences as the key competences in the Youthpass are very general; LEVEL5 helps better understand what is meant with the competences. The Job Bridge consortium was implemented by a multi-actor partnership of eight partners from seven countries and combines the expertise and experience of different types of actors with an extremely large outreach through hundreds of member organisations of the participating networks. The partnership consists of three network organisations that work in the field of volunteering, civil society and lifelong learning. There is one large volunteering organisation representing several thousands of volunteers European wide. Job Bridge connects this with two organisations representing the employment sector: one chamber of commerce and one HR agency. The partnership is completed by a European network which has been working on innovative validation approaches at the interface of informal and formal learning since 2005.