ACT POSITIVE is an Erasmus+ KA2 project that runs from September 2020 to August 2022.
The Act Positive project wants to promote equal opportunities and inclusion of second-generation migrants into education and mainly in the labour market by providing tools for training and empowerment. As an overall result, ACT POSITIVE project will contribute to the development of an innovative approach to enhance resilience and utilize the strengths of European second-generation migrants, based on the positive psychology theory. The target group will undertake an e-learning path that will empower them and will assist them in developing the personal resources needed to adapt to potentially stressful events. By developing those personal resources and competences, the target group will also be able to utilise key Positive Psychology constructs and processes so as to use potential stressors as opportunities for positive growth.
Objectives
To increase quality in the VET education programs that are offered in order to improve and develop learners’ employability skills based on the theory and approach of positive psychology;
To upgrade employability skills and competences of unemployed 2nd generation migrants;
To increase awareness of the multiple benefits that increasing the employability of 2nd generation migrants can bring to local societies and economies;
To enhance interaction among practice, research and policy in the field of vocational training;
To promote the issue of migrants’ social inclusion through action that promote their inclusion into education and, mainly, employment at a European level.
Outputs
Within IO1, partners will compile a synthesis report of existing literature on the challenges and obstacles that 2nd generation migrants face within their efforts to find a job along with
their needs for developing new skills and/or improving existing ones in order to improve their position within the labor market. At the same time, along with the literature review,
partners will conduct a field research based on a structured questionnaire aiming to collect data directly from the project’s primary target group: VET organizations / trainers and 2nd generation migrants. Following the implementation of both the literature review and the experimental research, partners will compile all findings and develop the relevant national reports, based on a template that will be provided by the IO’s leading partner (Da&Da). Finally, the national reports will be included in the overall synthesis report called “Analysis of the State of the Art on Employability needs of 2nd generation migrants”. The state-of-the-art analysis report will be developed in such way in order to ensure transferability.
Once the Training Curriculum for 2nd generation migrants’ employability skills is defined and described, the following step is the development of the VET Training Course and its experimentation through piloting activities into the partners’ countries along with an evaluation process based on defined evaluation criteria.
The training course will adopt a blended methodology with face-to-face and work-based learning actions and online resources. The exact structure of the course will be decided when the research is completed and the learning levels to be achieved are agreed. The training material will be fully available in all partner’s languages, allowing any learner or training center to implement the training independently throughout Europe and abroad. Moreover, project partners will make sure that the following principles apply during the development of the training course:
– the course system will be flexible;
– the course will be multistep and arranged over the long term;
– the course will be designed with innovative blended learning methods, i.e. part of this course will be provided on-site, in an instructor-led format, which is necessary for effective workshops, case studies, collaborative work, etc., and also it will be available on-line, on the project’s e-learning platform.
The training course will be developed in English and in the national languages of participating partners.
In order to enhance and improve significant elements of the project’s successful implementation, such as sustainability, transferability and accessibility to the project’s results, partners will develop an interactive gamified e-learning platform, with an attractive and creative layout that will ensure a user-friendly environment.
The main objectives of the platform are:
– To develop and distribute learning materials available to all visitors of the platform that complement the training course (IO2) with interactive learning scenarios.
– To establish a widely recognized online platform that supports the development of 2nd generation migrants’ employability skills based on the positive psychology approach.
– To create an international and interactive online network of 2nd generation migrants, thus enabling a sense of community and connectivity that does not only give them more peer support but also strengthens their European identity.
The ACT POSITIVE Toolkit for VET trainers / organizations and policy makers shall serve a two-fold purpose:
1) It will ensure the availability and sustainability of the project’s results
2) It will ensure the highest possible level of transferability of the tools, materials and methodologies developed within the project.
To this purpose, the ACT POSITIVE Toolkit will include:
– The training curriculum and training material developed within the project;
– Tools that VET trainers and organizations can exploit in order to offer courses and/or training courses for the development of the 2nd generation migrants’ employability skills based on the positive psychology theory and approach;
– The evidence and data collected through the piloting activities in the form of a consolidated report;
– Policy briefs for the promotion and wider establishment of initiatives for the development of the 2nd generation migrants’ employability skills.
The main target groups of the ACT POSITIVE Toolkit will be:
– VET experts and organizations interested to incorporate the relevant tools and methodologies;
– Representatives of public organizations;
– Decision and policy makers;
