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EU GANGS VET mobility programme
Start date: Jun 1, 2015, End date: May 31, 2017 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Gangs and gang crime cannot just be dealt with as a national issue to have real impact in communities. Membership of gangs is complex and multi-cultural/ multi ethnic as people become more mobile. The increasingly international dimension of some street gangs poses a cross border threat. (Europol - European Police Office, Annual Report 2011). The 2009 Eurogang EU network of researchers set up in 1997 defines street gangs as “A street gang (or a troublesome youth group corresponding to a street gang elsewhere) is any durable, street-oriented youth group whose own identity includes involvement in illegal activity”. A gang is predominantly an adolescent group, which has been active for a few years, ranging in size usually from 10 to 50 members. Its criminal behaviour pattern is diverse. The UK Government’s “Ending Gang and Youth Violence: A Cross-Government Report (November 2011) responded to the August 2011 riots recognised gangs and youth violence had been a serious problem in UK cities for several years, that not enough was done to deal with the underlying drivers of the violence or in preventing young people joining gangs and that stopping such violence is not a task for the police alone. Success only comes when local areas and agencies work together sharing information. This 2 year mobility project complements and adds value to the approved LLP project "EUGANGS New skills and competences to address skills gaps and mismatch within the sectors working with Gang and Youth Crime across Europe" (Grant Agreement 2013 3382 /001-001) by sending 22 VET trainers, and 20 recent VET graduates from the first pilot EUGANGS VET (City and Guilds) Level 3 Certificate in Community Safety Working With Gangs – piloted by UCB on placements to partners in Italy and Hungary, supporting Europe 2020 targets and meeting ET2020 rethinking education by investing in new skills for better socio economic outcomes. EUGANGS Trainers targeted will have completed their level 4 training trainer programme (accredited for all the transnational partners through UCB) and the EUGANGS VET recent graduates will have completed their level 3 City and Guilds VET programme in either March or June 2015 (the new cohort in March and June 2016). Placements take place between October 2015 and February 2016 with a similar timescale in 2016/2017. All EUGANGS participants are working in gang related environments in Birmingham and across the West Midlands. Between April 2011 and March 2012, the overall crime rate in the Titan area (100.4 crimes committed per each 1,000 of the population) in this area was higher than the city average of 79.8 crimes. (Birmingham ward data August 2012). Some participants are unemployed, single parents, the majority of non UK ethnic origin. Most left compulsory education without or too few qualifications. This mobility project meets policy priorities for the recognition and transparency of qualifications. The promotion of mutual recognition of qualifications between EU Member States and the implementation of the ECVET framework is high on the list of priorities in Europe laid down in the Bologna Process, Copenhagen Process and Lisbon Treaty also reflected in this consortium's commitment of inserting the two new EUGANGS VET programmes within ECVET mechanisms. Using mobility enables EUGANGS expert trainers to help validate the new learning outcomes agreed by the EUGANGS partnership through: - 19 EUGANGS accredited trainers co-teaching on the Italian national EUGANGS VET programme, work shadowing their trainers and participating in their related training programmes (5 days). - 3 EUGANGS accredited VET trainers exploring new methodologies to apply in their own training practice by adopting drama in education techniques as offered by InSite (Hungary) to create safe places to discuss difficult issues (5days). - 2 week work placements in CEIS in Italy for level 3 EUGANGS VET recent graduates, to evidence and validate their new skills and competencies in the Italian work place. Europass Mobility will also be used to validate these experiences. The EUGANGS transnational partnership collectively will be empowered to use ECVET tools and instruments following review and evaluation of this first mobility project in the field of EUGANGS. This will enable definitive ECVET documentation to be produced and shared across the EUGANGS partnership including the additional partners in Cyprus, Greece and Romania all signing a joint Memorandum of Agreement. This will enable the EUGANGS transnational partners to submit mobility applications in the future, which might also include VET trainees while on their EUGANGS VET programme in their own country. The knowledge can also be transferred and applied to other VET provision and into other transnational partnerships that individual EUGANGS partners work with.
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