The project

The project

Psychological disturbances are usually associated with significant social distress and occupational difficulties. This explains why a growing number of VET centres welcome a rising number of people affected by these troubles. However, not all professionals working in the VET sector have the necessary experience and knowledge to deal with this target audience.

These professionals cover different roles within their organizations and most of the times have no (or very little) knowledge in the fields of psychology, psychiatry or disability. As a consequence, they are not always able to adopt the proper attitudes, to react appropriately, to adapt their tools/methods to the needs of these people. Such a situation produces in them a sense of powerlessness and a lot of frustration ; besides, it can seriously undermine the success of the training and insertion path.

To address this problem, 7 European organisations from 6 European countries have decided to run a project aiming at enhancing VET professionals’ skills and improving support for people affected by psychological disturbances during their training path.

Partners intend to achieve this goal by:

    • Creating a function profile of the “psychological disturbance referent” within VET centres
    • Developing a training frame of reference in connection with the function profile identifie
    • Producing an open resources collection for VET professionals for better supporting people affected by psychological disturbances

Main expected results of this project are:

    • The emergence of referent persons in VET centres specifically in charge of improving support for people affected by psychological disturbances
    • The development of a training course aimed at VET professionals, derived from the training frame of reference developed
    • Significant improvements in the way VET professionals deal with people affected by psychological disturbances
    • The emergence of a community of practice at European level on the topic of psychological disturbances (on a European level)

Main expected impacts of the project (in the medium-term) are:

  • A much better quality of the training offer aimed at people with psychological disturbances
  • The improvement of the continuing training of trainers in which partners are fully invested