Description
The aim of the practice is to change the status of young people from NEETs (not in employment, education or training) to SEEDs (searching for education, employment and development).
The transnational partnership of the Erasmus+ project “Beyond NEET(D)s - Integrated guidance and support for vocational education pathways for highly disadvantaged youth beyond the status of NEET” (in other words, those young people who fall into the category of NEETs but are not statistically recorded) tackles these challenges as the project focuses on supporting the most vulnerable subgroups of unavailable or disengaged persons who are not in employment, education, or training.
The project acknowledges that the group of young people defined as NEETs is extremely heterogeneous with some young people leaving the status relatively soon. However, others have no other short-term or long-term perspectives. Those either unavailable or disengaged may be the two most vulnerable subgroups among NEETs.
In addition, there are young people who are at risk of marginalisation as they are not statistically considered as NEETs. These tend to be invisible in the policy agenda, as they are extremely difficult to grasp and often covered by social systems (e.g. systems of child and youth welfare). In many cases, such “forgotten” NEETs have not been covered by more traditional, labour market focused activation measures.
Beneficiaries
NEETs who lack motivation and self-esteem and who need additional guidance through a mentoring system to get in touch with Vocational Education and Training (VET) and/or the labour market on a low threshold level.
Education level and sector
Level of implementation / Scope
Aims of policy/initiative
The main aim of this practice is to provide open, empowering and low-threshold opportunities that are centred on the individual person, their needs and socio-economic situation to gain not only access to VET offers and the labour market, but even more to gain the necessary confidence and motivation as well as to define and implement basic steps for entering the workforce or a VET pathway.
A motivating and rewarding gamification approach further enhances the engagement of target group members.
Features and types of activities implemented
- The Beyond NEET(D)s Report - a transnational survey of the target groups’ needs and specifications, which provides the necessary basic information and specifications for the development of the following outputs. A full report is available in English and video summaries of the key findings are available in all partner languages.
- The Beyond NEET(D)s Integrated Guidance Model - features a comprehensive description of an engaging and empowering guidance approach with lowest possible entrance level requirements, including validation of non-formal and informal learning, utilisation of work-based learning elements in cooperation with local businesses.
- The Beyond NEET(D)s Personal Integration Map - a gamified online platform for individual support, motivation and monitoring between mentor and mentee is an innovative and low-threshold OER (Open Educational Resource) utilising open-source software under full consideration of EU Data Protection rules.
- The Beyond NEET(D)s Synergy Accelerator Magazine - accelerates the political and policy debate. It elaborates the foundation and environment for the project and its outputs, researches and describes the political framework conditions in the partner countries (regions), develops synergies to existing initiatives and projects and provides policy maker on regional, national and European level with recommendations.
Target group
The project is well-suited for youth workers and services, counselling, non-profit organisations, VET, labour market services, and local employers.
Resources
Total Grant = EUR 272,804 Erasmus+ funding
7 organisations in 6 countries are involved:
Coordinator: Jugend am Werk Steiermark GmbH, (AT)
Partners:
ENTER GmbH, (AT)
Consorzio CO&SO, (IT)
Meath Partnership, (IE)
Factor Social, (PT)
AKLUB Centrum vzdelavani a poradenstvi, (CZ)
CSI Center for Social Innovation, (CY)
All partner organisations have vast experience in working with disadvantaged youth and vulnerable NEETs and share the demand for an integrated guidance approach and target group relevant and low-threshold integration plan.
Staff altogether involved in the project = 18
Evaluation of the measure
The practice was evaluated by the Austrian National Agency (OEAD) in 2023. The most relevant findings are as follows:
- The project presents itself as the successful realisation of an interesting idea with extensive and ambitious activities and products. All priorities were addressed, and the objectives were achieved in full. The review of the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of the project showed that it was very well planned and thought through. Through constant monitoring it was possible to react flexibly to challenges.
- The methodology used was very comprehensible and fruitful. The intellectual outputs contributed significantly to the achievement of the project objectives; the quality can be categorised as very high. There is an appealing number of elements of innovation. The results are available on a separate, well-structured and user-friendly website.
- The project team was very well organised, and the final report conveys an image of great professionalism and determination. The success of the project was due to the direct access to the target group.
- The impact on the target group can be seen from the excellently documented course of the project, the professional evaluation and the impressive end results. The participating organisations have also benefited greatly from the project.
- In addition to those directly involved, a few other stakeholders, e.g. representatives from youth organisations and services, youth counselling, youth networks, labour market services, cooperatives, were also addressed and the impact therefore extends far beyond the individual partners.
Evidence of effectiveness of the measure
A considerable number of NEETs were empowered during the project, and the total number of successful entries into VET and/or the labour market results in 87 young people. That, in fact, was a large impact on the lives of young people, and added value, as the transnational project partnership had initially not foreseen any transition in the project application.
Success factors
The Beyond NEET(D)s project especially addresses vulnerable NEETs such as disengaged and unavailable NEETs and the “forgotten” NEETs by developing an innovative holistic strategy that allows flexible, target group oriented and transversal application tailored to the needs of individuals. By highlighting the D in the project acronym, the DIVERSITY of the target group is put in focus and the mix of the terms NEET and NEED emphasises that individual needs must be considered to ensure successful support and guidance process towards a potential VET career path.
The innovative methodological approach of the Beyond NEET(D)s project contributes to improving the situation of thousands of marginalised young persons in Europe as the Beyond NEET(D)s Synergy Accelerator Magazine will contribute to this effort by accelerating the international professional exchange of good practices and contribute to the policy debate.
The partnership implements a comprehensive research study featuring in-depth information about these highly vulnerable and “forgotten” NEETs and furthermore provides an OER Integrated Guidance Model for support staff and a modular Personal Integration Map (that allows highly motivating and low-threshold opportunities to prepare for the (re-)integration in VET or labour market offers).
This target group is extremely hard to reach and partly not registered as NEET yet, so to be even officially considered as NEET would already be a milestone for these persons, because they would gain access to other supporting services that are already offered by labour market services and formal education providers.
The partner organisations of the Beyond NEET(D)s project are well experienced in working with NEETs and disadvantaged youth and have implemented various related projects on national and EU level.
