Adaptation and enhancement of the European supported employment model to enable accessible labour market pathway for refugees and immigrants

Migration to the European Union (EU) from Syria and Ukraine has been substantial over the past few decades. While many foreign-born individuals arrive in the EU to work (mainly from Syria and now from Ukraine), their acceptance in society and ability to access different services and the labour market is still challanging. Eurostat still shows substantially higher unemployment rates for migrants in general, and refugees and asylum-seekers in particular. The supported employment model provided by the European union of supported employment (EUSE) was selected as a possible method, that could be adapted and further enhanced in order to support the local career counsellors and supported employment consultants on the 5 steps process - Engagement, Vocational Profiling, Job Finding, Employer Engagement and On/ Off Job Support including additional (NEW) 6th stage of continuous career enhancement.The partnership produced 2 major training materials as well as have implemented series of trainings of existing and future career counsellors and SE specialists, in order to enhance their practice with person-centered career guidance support including worksheets, tests and activities, which they may use for free of charge in their daily practice.

Our project has the following objectives, which were fully achieved: - To adapt and enhance the European supported employment model to create adaptive pathway for labour market inclusion of refugees and immigrants from Syria and Ukraine. - To develop relevant career counseling guidelines to support the realisation of the process of their labour market inclusion. - To train at least 20 career counsellors and supported employment consultants based on new guidelines. - To improve the provision of further qualification opportunities for VET providers and trainers.. Our project produced a synergy between the vocational and higher education in way that existing career counsellors and supported employment consultants with university diploma can enhance their knowledge in the field of vocational training with regards to Supported employment model applicable for refugees and immigrants. We have strengthen this synergy by provision of 2 guidance intellectual results, which were delivered and we have created a dissemination/exploitation network of key stakeholders to inform policy and practice and maximise exploitation of our products and sustainability of the project outputs, its partnership and networks after the project lifetime.