Despite falling unemployment rates, however, the labor market integration of formally low-skilled workers is still a problem in Germany, Slowakia, Bulgaria or Sweden. Unemployment, drop-outs, as well as absenteeism and impaired performance through illnesses are problems we as education providers have to face and to find solutions. We realised that existing regional instruments of counseling and employment promotion by job centers, public administration offices with mostly practiced deficit-centered approaches are not sufficient and do not solve problems. Regional employers also confirm, that initiated mesures are mostly poorly fitting. Common to all these strategies is that they tend to be more mechanistic, often subject to sanctioning power, and often focused on weaknesses and problems that people should get rid of. It can be far more purposeful to explore and promote one's own strengths and resources. For the low-skilled with experience of failure solidifies, risks of permanently precarious life situations become permanent . Particularly affected are disadvantaged target groups with low education, poor language skills, mental or physical disabilities, long-term sick leave or regions with a stagnating job market. Young people, migrants, older people in many cases do not understand the different responsibilities and do not know who they can turn to and what the suitable offers are for them. As a result, for many years there has been a plethora of different offerings confusing and non-transparent for the targeted groups. On the otherside many formally low-skilled have already non-formally or informally acquired professional skills. After all, it is not the case that the formally low-skilled have not acquired any professional knowledge throughout thier life. It can therefore be far more purposeful to explore and promote one's own existing strengths and resources. A good practice case is the biologdesigner method of our Swedish partner Ibility, whose application in one year of youth unemployment in the municipality Laholm Sweden decreased from almost 17% to 9%. With our teachers (3 each per partner) we will organize a short-term training action and workshops (10-15 persons) with our local strategic partners for colloboration and exchange. Together with our partners from Germany, Slovakia and Bulgaria, we want to get to know the "biologdesigner" method of IBILITY (Schweden) and exchange ideas on how this concept could be transferred or adapted for our clientele and in our regions. We will learn about the learning processes and strategies discuss how and which resources contribute to the ability to work and against disadvantage, and how work, education, family and society are multifaceted dynamic complementarities that influence each other. Another benefit will be the empowerment of municipalities; pooling of VET- and guidance services through systematic coordination on cooperation and support structures.
We wanted to learn from the practical example about the learning processes and strategies, • how and which resources contribute to psychological integrity and earning capacity • how work, education, family and society are multifaceted dynamic complementarities that influence each other • how acquired knowledge and skills can be applied, developed and refined throughout life • Which individual and also different context factors are decisive for this
So-called "uneducated and labour market" sections of the population confront the promotion of employment with special challenges. Absences, abortions and also "measure escapes" are by no means rare among this group of people throughout Europe. Low-skilled people are threatened with negative conditioning when experiences of failure become entrenched and become the guiding principle of educational biography, which in turn promotes risks of permanently precarious life situations. Particularly affected are target groups with low school education, poor language skills, disabilities or in regions with a stagnating labour market. We were looking for answers to questions: How can continuing vocational training and counselling promote individual competence and personal development, support patchwork biographies and regional development? How can the quality and efficiency of vocational and adult education be increased in order to obtain and maintain earning capacity? How should cooperation between companies and educational institutions take place? Which structures and patterns of action need to be changed? Which policy impulses are important for sustainable investments in education, training and youth systems?