The European Mobility Advisor (EMA) is a youth worker (paid employee or volunteer) specialized in advising young people willing to go abroad (mainly in EU countries) for a learning experience, either by studying, working or volunteering. The EMAs deliver mobility guidance, defined as a range of activities that enables young people to make mobility decisions related to study, working, volunteering and to manage their staying abroad. The EMAs play a fundamental role in promoting mobility abroad and assuring mobility is a fruitful experience for the youths, however this role / occupation has not been standardized at EU level and there are no tools to assess the competence of those working in this role. The competence of youth workers, including the ones working as EMAs is a constant concern for the European Commission considering that in many European countries they: • comes from heterogeneous backgrounds, especially among volunteers • don’t hold formal qualifications for working with youths • are mainly trained by the organizations employing them, as formal and not formal training programs are scarce • don’t have the possibility to see their expertise validated. This project will improve the current situation by mapping the competence profile of the EMA at European level, and by developing a methodology for assessment of their competence called Expertise checkup, a E-training course for assessors, a European certification and a European register for assessors and EMAs that have passed the Checkup. The description of the Competence profile of the youth educator working with EMAs will be based on ECVET, and the checkup on the European Council recommendation on validation of non-formal and informal learning and to the European Guidelines for Validating Not Formal and Informal Learning developed by CEDEFOP. The consortium is composed by organizations working with youth mobility in FR, LV, SK, IT, PL, and can rely on a wide European network. Approximately over 400 EMAs will be involved in the project and over 10.000 EMAs and other members of target groups will be informed about the project. Long term benefits will be the professionalization of the EMAs, and delivery of better quality mobility guidance.
ASEM project was aiming to promote quality youth work of youth workers delivering mobility guidance (the project calls them EMAs European Mobility Advisors). The consortium was working to imrpouve the current situation of EMAs by mapping the competence profile at European level, and by developing notably a methodology for assessment of their competence called Expertise checkup and a E-training course for assessors.
The competence of the EMAs and youth workers in general is a constant concern for the European Commission. ASEM project wanted to assess and rise the competence of EMAs ( European Mobility Advisor). It addressed different needs of different target groups: *the need of EMAs to assess and improve their level of competence, and to have their role further recognized thanks to a European standard of competence and professional profile *the need of YOUTHS to be advised by reliable EMAs, whose expertise has been assessed and complies with an optimum standard *the need of ORGANIZATIONS employing paid and volunteer EMAs to assess and improve their competence * the need of DECISION MAKERS AND FUNDERS to fund only initiatives carried out by competent EMAs and by organizations employing them, so to increase the impact and the outcomes of the money spent. *need of the EUROPEAN COMMISSION AND MEMBER STATES to protect the consumer by establishment of codes of conducts and standard of service delivery in not regulated professions as that of EMAs.