Rationale

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The rationale of the project is based on the Development Plan for Education and University Research 2003-2008, evaluation report on educational guidance and counselling in Finland (2002), Career Guidance and Public Policy - Bridging the Gap (OECD 2004), etc. policy documents that clearly emphasise the importance of the quality of guidance and counselling services in preventing the social exclusion of young people from the labour market.

Objective

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The objective of the CHANCES project is to develop guidance and counselling services that are provided in multiprofessional and cross-sectoral cooperation and to create new tools to prevent exclusion of young people from the labour market. New training models and good practices that can be applied nationally and disseminated for a wider international audience will be generated in the project. Another objective is to promote recognition and understanding of individual needs for educational and vocational guidance and counselling from a gender- and culture-sensitive perspective.

Innovation

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Work practices of people working with immigrants will be studied and developed in cooperation with educational staff and staff from different adminstrative sectors and business and industry.

Skills of guidance and counselling professionals in developing regional service systems combining different administrative sectors will be improved.

Assessment and research data collected during training sessions and the project will provide tools for multiprofessional cooperation, guidance and counselling of young people and strengthening of guidance and counselling ideology in the school community.

Individual career guidance to students with special educational needs will be developed, flexible ways of studying will be created, access to the labour market and further studies will be supported.

Budget Action 2

1 000 000 – 1 500 000 €

Beneficiaries

Empowerment

 With beneficiaries

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Target groups of the project include experts within education, employment, social and health care authorities that work with young people outside of formal training structures, at risk of social exclusion, those with special needs, immigrants and ethnic minority groups. The main goal of the project is to find new ways of preventing exclusion of the above groupds from the labour market. Innovative training modules and good practices for national and international use are developed for guidance experts who by means of these tools are better capable of supporting and empowering young people to make successful choices concerning their life and career.

 Between national partners

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The development measures in the project are targeted at young people outside of formal education systems and at risk of social exclusion, students with special needs, immigrants and ethnic minority groups. The four subprojects represented by the Institute for Educational Research and the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä Vocational Institute and the University of Joensuu work together with guidance counsellors and experts in various administrations to support the empowerment of the above risk groups and their integration through education and training to the labour market.

Transnationality

 Percentage of the budget for transnational activities

• 15.0%

 Transnational Co-operation Partnerships

Background

 Involvment in previous EU programmes

• One partner involved in A&E

National Partners

Agreement Summary

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The Finnish CHANCES project cooperates with projects from Denmark, Italy and Spain funded under the EQUAL programme. This partnership of four European countries called CHOICES focuses on multicultural and gender-sensitive issues in guidance and counselling. The goal of the partnership is to create methods for guidance and counselling of young people at risk of exclusion and for promotion of equality between men and women in the labour market.

The goald of the CHOICES cooperation are

- to identify differences and similarities in the position of minority youth in the labour market in the participating countries
- to compare and analyse guidance and counselling practices targeted at groups with special needs
- to develop guidance mthods to encourage boys and girls to choose careers that do not follow traditional gender divisions
- to disseminate experiences and results of the transnational cooperation regionally

Concrete results of the European CHOICES cooperation will include research reports, good practices guide, newsletters, exchanges of experts and a thematic seminar to disseminate results.

Finnish National Board of Education

Contact person(s)

Developing study guidance to prevent exclusion of young people