Access For All

Within the framework of the project “Learning Lab for Integration” financed under the Lifelong learning Grundvig programme, a database has been created to provide good practice examples on how people with disabilities can be helped to return to the labour market, integrate society, learn and acquire new skills.

You are invited to add your ideas, projects or organisation and so promote them to professionals all over Europe for free. Click here for direct access to the database.

You can now download the enhanced Code of Practice (CoP) for Mentoring in English, Bulgarian, Dutch and Turkish. This CoP (the result of the Validating Mentoring 2 project) is mainly addressed to managers and developers of mentoring programmes. It will help them to critically review their systems and how they work, while also helping them to improve their quality and/or gain external recognition. It will equally be very useful to those planning new mentoring programmes, through the advice about good practice that it provides and by the links it offers to other resources. But such first-time developers are not its main target audience. The CoP is also designed for use by the staff of organisations that provide mentoring programmes. Indeed, an important principle of our approach is that as many of the staff team as possible will participate in the self-assessment process. By contributing to the process staff will bring their own knowledge and expertise and learn from their colleagues while helping to improve their own practice and the performance of the programme overall. This CoP does not address all types of programmes that sometimes are called ‘mentoring’ (see Section 4 for guidance about the nature of ‘mentoring’). It has been developed initially to meet the needs of NGO’s, small training organisations, and others sharing their approach. The term mentoring is often used, for example, to cover aspects of professional training and coaching, where formal reporting requirements may constrain freedom of choice and confidentiality. Though the CoP may have limited applicability to mentoring programmes of this kind, it should still provide some useful guidance and valuable stimulus for self-reflection. The crucial first step, as for all mentoring programmes, is to carefully consider and define the particular goals of the programme and to understand the particular requirements that such goals impose.
Downloads are available at the newspage of the project website.

The aim of the Check and go project is to enhance access to workplaces for people with disabilities. With the tools developed in the project, people with disabilities will find it easier to apply for a trainee post or a job in a company. By constructing an individual profile of accessibility they will be able to say quickly and easily what barriers they face and what they need in order to do their job efficiently. In addition, companies that receive applications with this profile of accessibility can easily determine if the applicant will fit into the company and people with disabilities will be able to find a suitable job quickly and easily.

With the Check and go website, people with disabilities, companies, staff managers, trainers, instructors and job coaches can get a three-part product range to learn how they can include or integrate people with disabilities at a workplace more efficiently. These products are:
the Training tool, the Check and go tool and the Advice tool.

More information can be found on the project website.

The project will support participants in training and further training activities, in the acquisition and the use of knowledge, skills and qualifications to facilitate personal development, employability and participation in the European Labour Market.

In addition, GOAL aims to support improvements in quality and innovation in vocational education, training systems, institutions and practices as well as enhance the attractiveness of vocational education and training and mobility for employers and individuals and to facilitate the mobility of working trainees.

More information can be found on the project website.

The aim of this project has been to provide access to professional training, and improve disabled peoples’ opportunities for professional employment. It was aimed to be reached by developing a preparation for social work course delivered through a blended training and mentoring support programme, and to test this across three European countries with the intention of identifying cross-national applications for such a programme. It has developed a model of mentoring that involves recruiting disabled people as mentors.

The project has built networks in the sector in each partner country which bring together providers of training, users of training (both employers and potential employees), sector advisory and accreditation bodies, through which the programme can be more widely applied. Furthermore, partnership arrangements were developed with institutions in other European countries to further develop the trans-national element of the project.

The project final results are a curriculum designed to be an ‘inclusive’ preparation for professional social work training. The curriculum is a modular, using a blended learning approach, and designed to be studied prior to any social work/social care training. It can therefore be incorporated into the Widening Participation and recruitment strategy of training providers without making any significant changes to their usual mode of operation. Furthermore, it could be used by associate, or feeder, colleges of social work training providers in support of mainstream teaching, such as the network of colleges working with De Montfort University.

More information can be found on project website