The term NEET is well-established on EU level and beyond as gives challenging youth issues a common term which increases the visibility and strengthens the position of youth related issues in European policy discussion. Reducing the NEET rate is a common goal of economic leaders, but as mentioned in various references, while the term has many benefits, it has also limitations. The group of young people defined as NEETs is extremely heterogeneous - some leave the status relatively soon, but some have no other short-term or long-term perspectives; for example the two most vulnerable subgroups are either unavailable or disengaged young persons. However, there are young people who are even more at risk of marginalisation as they are not statistically considered as NEETs. These persons are not visible in the theoretical and political agenda as they are so extremely difficult to grasp and are often covered by social systems e.g. systems of child and youth welfare and not by labour market systems. Professionals working directly with these marginalised persons are aware about their situation, but they are still left out in the political debate. These “forgotten” NEETs have been invisible to traditional approaches for years and have only recently been addressed officially. In the 2018 publication “Effective outreach to NEETs” by the EU, the need for identifying and providing special support to these “hard to reach young people [...] often not registered with the PES” is expressed as well as the need for integrated, flexible and transversable services. The partnership of the Erasmus+ project “Beyond NEET(D)s - Integrated guidance and support for vocational education pathways for highly disadvantaged youth beyond the status of NEET” tackles this challenges as the project focuses on supporting the most vulnerable subgroups of unavailable or disengaged persons who are not in employment, education, or training or even below this status as they are statistically not registered as NEETs. The main objective is to provide open, empowering and low-threshold opportunities that are centered on the individual person, their needs and socioeconomic situation in order to gain not only access to VET offers and the labour market, but even more to gain the necessary confidence and motivation as well as to define and implement basic and steps for entering the workforce or a VET path. A motivating and rewarding gamification approach further enhances the engagement of target group members. In order to reach these objectives, the partnership of the Beyond NEET(D)s project will develop the following results: (1) The Beyond NEET(D)s Report (O1) - a transnational survey of target group needs and specifications, which will provide the necessary basic information and specifications for the development of the following intellectual outputs. A full report will be available in English and video summaries of the key findings will be available in all partner languages. (2) The Beyond NEET(D)s Integrated Guidance Model (O2) will feature a comprehensive description of a engaging and empowering guidance approach with lowest possible entrance level requirements, including validation of non-formal and informal learning, utilisation of WBL elements in cooperation with local businesses. (3) The Beyond NEET(D)s Personal Integration Map (O3) - a gamified online platform for individual support, motivation and monitoring between mentor and mentee will be an innovative and low-threshold OER utilising open source software under full consideration of EU Data Protection rules. (4) The Beyond NEET(D)s Green Paper will accelerate the political and policy debate. It will elaborate the basis and environment for the project and its outputs, research and describe the political frame conditions in the partner countries (regions), develop synergies to existing initiatives and projects and provide the policy maker level on regional, national and European level with recommendations and needs. The partnership of the Beyond NEET(D)s project is multiprofessional and involves seven partner organisations from AT, CY, CZ, IE, IT, and PT. All partner organisations have vast experience in working with disadvantaged youth and vulnerable NEETs and share the demand for an integrated guidance approach and target group relevant and low-threshold integration plan. The involved staff of the are characterised by unique competences and experiences, which will ensure a multidimensional perspective. The products of the Beyond NEET(D)s project will be open, transferable and applicable in existing practices. The achievement of these product quality criteria in combination with the implementation of comprehensive dissemination and sustainability strategies will guarantee the long-term exploitation of project results beyond the partner countries and beyond the lifetime of the project, benefitting thousands of vulnerable and “forgotten” NEETs.
-To examine the interfaces and gaps of European child and youth welfare systems and European active labour market policies in the field of labour market and VET integration services, define action positions and raise awareness by informing about the needs of the most disconnected, unreachable and "forgotten" NEETs. -Reduce drop-out and segregation rates among young people at risk of social marginalisation and segregation by reducing inequalities in access to and use of VET opportunities. -Develop an integrated guidance model for the target group that takes into account the disadvantages and individual challenges of the target group by providing flexible and modern guidance on labour market and VET opportunities. -Development of a flexible and modular personal integration card for each individual learner in the guidance process, enabling continuous exchange between mentors and mentees. In this setting, open badges were used as a reward system. -Steering the policy discussion and increasing the visibility of these marginalised groups and promoting transnational exchange of good practices on social inclusion of the most vulnerable NEET subgroups and the "forgotten" NEETs.
The European Union and its Member States have launched several campaigns to support people considered NEETs, such as the Youth Guarantee (2013). The publication "Effective outreach to NEETs. Experience from the ground" by the European Union (2018) mentioned that there was still a number of "forgotten NEETs" not registered at any services. They only became visible when one was reading between the lines - for example, in Eurostat's NEET statistics (April 2019), where there was a tiny note stating that the figures did not add up to 100% "because the category of young people for whom the employment and/or education and people for whom employment and/or education status is not known" (edat_lfse_18). In order to reach NEETs and those 'forgotten' NEETs and enable them to take the necessary steps towards (re)inclusion, the Beyond NEET(D)s project offered open and low-threshold services that focused on the individual, their needs and their socio-economic situation.