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Strengthening emergent professional profiles in the third sector – a way to foster innovative bridges to work and social inclusion of disadvantaged groups
Start date: Nov 1, 2014, End date: Oct 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

This project was developed with the purpose to enhance the professional skills of social enterprises, in order to increase their ability to meet the new challenges for labor inclusion of disadvantaged groups. Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs) face persistent challenges integrating disadvantaged groups of the population into the labour market and facilitating their access to decent work opportunities. Simultaneously, the new paradigms of social and economic sustainability of the third sector organisations demand more innovative and professional solutions for those organisations. The WISEs need to strengthen the professional skills of their staff and integrate new professional profiles into the organisations in order to better respond to these current challenges. To meet to these needs, our project aims to: 1) To increase the professional competences of social enterprises and rise their ability to meet the new challenges for labor inclusion of disadvantaged groups; 2) To recognize which are the emergent professional profiles needs of the social enterprises; 3) To define professional profiles and suitable training resources of two of those emergent professional profiles in social enterprises; 4) To contribute with guidelines and training solutions to improve the professional competences and respond to the most relevant corporate needs of social enterprises. Four digital publications will be produced: 1) an overview on the emergent professional profiles of social enterprises, 2) one professional profile and training package for the job-tutor/coacher of disadvantaged groups, 3) one professional profile and training package for the social marketing professional in WISES, 4) guidelines and recommendations to enhance WISES' human resources and effectiveness in social inclusion. To support the multiplier impact of these outputs and validate its results, we will develop five national workshops (one in each participating country), two training validation sessions with the contents of each professional profile and, lastly, a final European seminar. In addition to this, all partners will meet six times over the project life-cycle to debate and agree on the main aspects of the thematic addressed, visit national WISEs in each country and develop a deeper understanding on the different national contexts of social entrepreneurship. This project is built on a project methodology of mutual learning and working together, designed to stream and capitalize partners’ knowledge and experience. A variety of different participants will be involved in this project: 2 staff members from each partner organisation (project managers, social researchers, trainers, business development professionals) will contribute to the project implementation; each organisation’ representative will participate at least in the final seminar; 20 national participants will attend the national workshops in each country, including WISES professionals, WISES beneficiaries, VET professionals, private business professionals and public employment services professionals; 20 WISES professionals will attend the two training validation sessions in Portugal; 64 people will attend the final seminar, including policy makers, social and employment services providers, business associations professionals, WISES professionals, WISES beneficiaries, VET professionals, students, mostly from Portugal but also, at least, one guest from each partners’ country. Other trainers, consultants and evaluators with expertise in labour inclusion and social entrepreneurship should be also involved in the implementation and evaluation of the project outputs. Finally, we expect that, by the end of the project: i) the WISES’ professionals of the participating countries have raised their level of knowledge and competences on the professional inclusion of disadvantaged groups; ii) the most relevant emergent professional profiles needs of the social enterprises are mapped and disseminated at national and European levels; iii) the professional profiles (knowledge, attitudes and behaviours) and training packaged of two emergent professional profiles of WISES are available in five languages and widely disseminated; iv) the WISES and VET professionals and other relevant stakeholders are more aware of possible strategies and capacity building initiatives to promote more effectively the labour inclusion of disadvantaged groups. Lastly, we expect that, on medium and long term, this project will allow clear pathways to the formal recognition of the emergent professional skills and profiles in social enterprises, often acquired by non-formal and informal learning processes; the aligning of VET policies with territorial development strategies and a stronger ecosystem for innovation on social inclusion throughout work.

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