The objectives of the ReachOut project were to: Enhance the skills of guidance practitioners to cater to the needs of working people from the underprivileged milieu. Raise awareness among governing actors to influence policy and strategy development in educational guidance. Support working people from the underprivileged milieu in accessing education and training opportunities to improve their employment prospects.
We applied for the ReachOut project to address significant barriers to education and further training among the lower underprivileged milieu, often referred to as the "left behind" segment of society. This demographic faces numerous challenges, including limited access to educational guidance, exacerbated by factors such as digitalization, polarization of the labor market, and immigration from economically disadvantaged countries. Despite being employed, individuals from this group often receive inadequate educational guidance, as existing approaches do not effectively cater to their needs. The ReachOut project aims to fill this gap by focusing on educational guidance practices and enhancing the connectivity between guidance practitioners and their clients. Traditional guidance approaches tend to prioritize the users' perspectives, but ReachOut takes a novel approach by emphasizing practitioners' understanding of their clients' lifeworlds and habitus sensitivity. By recognizing the diverse backgrounds and needs of individuals from the underprivileged milieu, guidance practitioners can better tailor their services and effectively support their educational and training endeavors.