BACKGROUNDStroke is the second leading cause of disability and is clearly associated with old age, with the risk of being hit which doubles in each successive decade from 55 years old on. The dramatic increase of the demand for stroke rehabilitation, due to current epidemiological trends, is putting care providers and direct care workers under pressure.Direct care workers are a key category in all care settings due to their essential role of providing personal care to patients with stroke (e.g., bathing, hygiene, feeding), practical help (e.g., mobility, socialisation, health education) and support to other health professionals in a variety of activities (e.g., basic medications, preparation of medical tools, administration of drug therapy).The ordinary work context direct care workers have to deal with when assisting people with stroke is highly demanding. They are the most burdened group of workers (since they carry out the most essential tasks) and the least trained one (no academic title for their position is required). Vocational training is also lacking, since the context in which they work usually does not stimulate them to engage in lifelong training activities. Even considering all the above mentioned issues, evidence from the literature suggest that if adequately trained, direct-care staff can contribute to greatly improve patients outcomes, e.g. in terms of quality of life, reduction of agitation, promotion of independence etc., at the same time improving their working conditions. Better-trained staff is indeed more likely to benefit from a reduced work-related stress, burden and injuries.GOAL AND OBJECTIVES: The main goal of the iTRAIN project is to make evidence-based knowledge available also for low-skilled direct care workers involved in stroke care and rehabilitation in home care, hospital and nursing home settings. The project aims to translate up-to-date evidence in accessible, engaging and innovative vocational training on stroke for direct care workers, reaching this category of different professionals who are normally excluded from this knowledge. The iTRAIN project objective is to address this training gap by providing a set of mobile-based digital training contents, designed and developed together with patients, their family caregivers, direct care workers and clinical experts in the field. INNOVATIVE TRAINING PACKAGE: A comprehensive vocational training package, publicly available and usable by mobile devices, will be at disposal of direct care workers dealing with stroke survivors. The package will be produced in six European languages (English, Greek, Swedish, Italian, Portuguese, Lithuanian). The package will include five INTELLECTUAL OUTPUTS (IOs): methodological framework for implementation of a digital inclusive training of direct care workers dealing with stroke survivors (IO1); vocational education methodology and handbook (IO2); multimedial training videos of patients, caregivers and experts (IO3); mobile-based serious game for learning and self-assessment (IO4); massive online open course (MOOC) with all multimedial materials.NUMBER OF TARGETED BENEFICIARIESWe will involve, in an interactive co-design, testing and dissemination process, over 2,800 participants, including direct care workers (primary target group), patients, family caregivers, employers, unions, patients' associations, clinical units for stroke, and other stakeholders (secondary and tertiary target groups).RESULTS AND IMPACT The iTRAIN project will create a comprehensive vocational training package, publicly available and usable also by mobile devices, at disposal of direct care workers dealing with stroke survivors for free in six European languages (English, Greek, Swedish, Italian, Portuguese, Lithuanian). The training package characteristics are expected to provide a motivating and enjoyable learning experience for a group of workers usually excluded by lifelong learning activities. The use of an ICT-based gamification approach for delivering the training package will allow establishing both feedback loops to adapt VET provision to end-users needs and an objective tracking systems of learning outcomes. The training package is expected to: improve direct care workers attitudes towards people with stroke and their family caregivers (most of all, their level of empathy and understanding towards these users); improve their knowledge, skills and competences on stroke care and rehabilitation; provide them with practical inputs from best practices in stroke care for stimulating reflections on how to improve their clinical routines.

<< Background >>Higher education sector, one of the most important in Europe, now more than ever, needs qualified academicians to instruct youngsters who will be future workforce with the right mix of skills, both professional and transversal, which will better knowledge transfer to youngsters. In this context, the ClassTHIFA project will develop the tools necessary for skillsenhancement, targeted to higher education, which will enhance better knowledge transfer where transforming a class into team, is very important in effective learning. Cognitivebehavior tools, using 5 senses in learning, and converting classes into smaller teams and whole team creates an environment for effective learning, as it’s described in Berne's transactional analysis and Bloom’s taxonomy. In the European context, ClassTHIFA project will create a potential development key; development of new e-learning tools for students, trainers and professionals; to promote the application of good practices for the enhancement of innovative skills; and to provide knowledge, skills and competences by using virtual tools.<< Objectives >>The ClassTHIFA Project will provide an important tool for educators to facilitate communication skills within the classroom. In this way, educators will be able, for instance, to convert the classroom climate into a successful team instead of individual learners.Our project will help out in smoothing communication problems during HE education/training and improve the level of efficiency in HE. The project will provide an important tool for educators to facilitate the classroom in conversion to a successful team which will get along very well.In brief, ClassTHIFA will create an tool which will give support the EU objective in stimulating innovative learning and teaching practices in Higher Education. Besides that, we will create a virtual coaching platform that will be building an inclusive and connected system - developing, testing and implementing flexible and modular coaching methodology.<< Implementation >>Project partnership comprises 9 institutions from 6 European countries (Romania, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Sweden and Turkey) presenting a balanced geographic coverage. There is a mixture of institutions with different profiles, capacities and complementary competences that are appropriate for the development of the work programme (higher education institutions, SMEs and non-profit institutions). A set of implementation activities will materialise the project objectives, supported by preparation, management, quality and dissemination activities that will ensure the propagation of its results even after the project has ended.All of the project results are the outcomes of six (5) project results.1. A Beyond-State-of-the-art & Development of Coaching Methodology- RO12. ClassTHIFA Trainer’s Handbook -RO23. ClassTHIFA MOOC development-RO34. ClassTHIFA Virtual Coaching Platform -RO45. ClassTHIFA Practice Result research-RO5We will implement the above mentioned activities in 30 months.<< Results >>The Virtual Coaching Platform will create a webplatform which will gather HE stakeholders who are willing to improve their educational environment in their institutions. Besides that, a Project Ambassadors Group will be formed and will disseminate the handbook of good practices through a Linkedin group, among others. The Training the Coaches intensive training will be attended by selected instructors of the universities involved in the project; it will involve training sessions, combining e-learning sessions and physicalpresence, mixing different learning tools and methodologies. With the realization of ClassTHIFA, members of the target groups, instructors of HEI’s, managers and potential ones ofeducation and training companies as well as other stakeholders in the field, are expected to benefit from the project results during the lifetime of the project, either by their participation in multiplier events and validation workshops or by subscribing to the Virtual Coaching platform, by using the ClassTHIFA E-book, by participating in the intensive training course, by getting informed by the newsletters and by participating in the Virtual Coaching platform.After the project conclusion, the platform will remain operational and it will host the final version of all project results which could by freely downloaded by external stakeholders;moreover it will be available for further development and testing by the partners. The Project Ambassadors LinkedIn group will be the ground for new project proposals and newproducts ideas. Moreover, partners commit themselves to use the learning materials developed as part of their daily activities.In brief, in ClassTHIFA project, a coaching model for educators will be created to enable them with coaching tools in order to transform their classes into “TEAMS”. This coaching method will be based on effective communication using1. Combine verbal and non-verbal behavior while communicating,2. Creative and varied instructional approach3. Patient, insistent, encouraging and supportive.4. Time-management, and use of wait time (while students are working or thinking to respond)5. Relate lesson content to student interest,6. Peer learning/teaching; team-work7. 5 senses,and it will help educators to create a TEAM in the class where the attendants will learn more effectively.

Health and safety in the workplace are part of the EU policy on employment and social affairs, under the Rights at Work directives. However, in spite of the large sums spent on risk prevention, there are certain areas where results are still limited. That is the case of work-related stress, which is dangerous and expensive as it affects performance, leads to frequent absences and, if prolonged, may result in serious health problems, such as cardiovascular or musculoskeletal diseases. Furthermore, with the advance towards the ubiquitous use of digital technology at work, new psychosocial risk factors and health hazards emerged, namely difficulty to focus, cognitive losses, deficits in social skills, sense of isolation, etc. The negative impact on productivity represents a major hidden cost in many organisations but especially in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Unlike larger enterprises, which have dedicated human resource specialists and welfare offices, managers in SMEs have few, if any, resources and no access to experts.Developing Competences for Stress Resilience @SMEs (DeSTRESS) aims to provide an innovative VET-based solution to this problem. Building on existing research, partners will develop a VET curriculum supported by an innovative VET Digital Training Platform using the latest techniques in game-based training and gamification, complemented by a set of practical tools and resources to facilitate the transfer of learning into the workplace. This environment will expose the main psycho-social health risks and their real impact on the individuals’ life and on the companies’ productivity. Players will assume roles, enabling them to think back on their experiences with these specific situations and how it happened, and which solutions are available for each scenario. Besides raising awareness on the problem, the project outputs will enable owner, managers and even decision makers to plan for and to mitigate its occurrence and the negative consequences of work-based stress. For that purpose, both a policy report and recommendations will be produced. A network of facilitators will also be created as an open forum to debate these issues. As such, the project will contribute to strengthening key digital competences while preventing the inherent hazards.Therefore, the project targets mainly employees, managers and owners of SMEs and micro companies. About 250 will be directly involved through the multiplier events and another 250 will be involved through direct contacts and other project activities like the network of facilitators. This network will also include about 100 HR consultants, health experts and decision makers leading to about 600 stakeholders directly involved in the project. Through a vast set of dissemination and exploitation activities, the consortium expects to reach 5000 stakeholders (from all the identified target groups).The project follows the Key Action priorities by using ICT based methodologies, fostering more modern, dynamic, committed and professional environments inside the organisations, increasing the level of digital competence of the involved participants and increasing motivation and satisfaction in the daily work life. It will create open and innovative practices, in a digital era, developing learning materials and tools that support the effective use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in training. As a result of DeSTRESS, SMEs will benefit from improved staff productivity and will be better placed on the Digital Transformation whilst mitigating many of the negative consequences associated with it. The project will also contribute to improving the competitiveness of European SMEs enabling them to compete more effectively with larger, better resourced and digitally competent enterprises both in Europe and globally.

One of the biggest challenges in the Covid-19 era is the seamless continuation of learning in formal educational contexts. Billions of children were forced out of school worldwide as a result of the pandemic, engaging in eLearning instead of in-class instruction. The continuation of educational offerings is imperative as a whole young generation is in danger of being offered subpar learning experiences with detrimental effects to their own development and society as a whole. In this environment, eLearning has emerged as a potential solution. While eLearning offers benefits in terms of knowledge retention completely foregoing in-class instruction and collaboration opportunities is not desirable as it deprives learners from the social aspect of education. The uncertainty introduced by the Covid- 19 pandemic highlights the need for the development of alternative, blended educational models that facilitate virtual interaction to complement physical presence. Integrated learning may be significantly enriched by technology that simulates face to face communication and promotes co-working anywhere, anytime. While eLearning services do exist that allow access to traditional, static digital content such as text, images, and video many of them fail to engage students in highly interactive team work that simulates classroom group collaboration. Through most available eLearning platforms students have the opportunity to passively review content or collaborate through asynchronous services such as forums or chats that cannot effectively replace face to face collaboration due to the time lag between student responses and reactions. VIE aims to design and implement a highly interactive digital collaborative learning platform that will allow learners to actively work together in groups in real-time or asynchronously on jointly owned projects through a commonly owned digital workspace. VIE envisions a digital work environment through which students will design solutions to learning challenges through brainstorming and synthesizing by building on each other’s ideas. The VIE solution will simulate the way that students work together in a classroom towards solution design by taking notes on a common blackboard that all can see and update at the same time. The VIE digital learning service will enable collaboration to take place in a similar manner but on-line, for example from home or from the road. The service functionality will include: avatar presence through which participants will be able to recognize their team members in the digital environment; sharing of ideas in the form of building blocks that all can see, review, edit, and combine simultaneously towards building a larger solution from smaller contributions; and project organization that allows the effective management and prioritization of tasks in a visual and engaging manner. Interaction will be supported through both desktop and mobile devices for maximizing access flexibility.The VIE digital learning intervention will create seamless learning experiences that take place through a combination of physical and virtual presence. To facilitate the adoption of the proposed integrated learning design, the project will further focus on building instructor capacity through proof-of-concept learning activities, supporting content, and good practices. The services will be validated widely in diverse cultural, economic, and academic environments generating European wide feedback that ensures the applicability and effectiveness of results in the European learning landscape.In terms of impact, VIE will contribute to the modernization of higher education through emerging active learning design enabled by digital solutions. It will contribute to the facilitation of uninterrupted education in today’s uncertain environment promoting the development of foundational knowledge as well as soft skills, including collaboration and analytical thinking that are in demand by industry. It will promote the capacity of higher education institutions to introduce learning that addresses needs in an evolving world. Through knowledge development, it will promote growth and social cohesion for the benefit of students, their communities, and the European learning space.

<< Background >>People with disabilities, especially those with intellectual disability, have to face lots of obstacles and barriers in their day to day lives, in their personal experiences and professional activities (when the case). They rarely receive orientation or counselling based on their talents, abilities, preferences and needs.In March 2021, the European Commission adopted the Strategy for the rights of persons with disabilities 2021-2030. The Strategy builds on the results of the previous European Disability Strategy 2010-2020, which paved the way to a barrier-free Europe and to empower persons with disabilities so they can enjoy their rights and participate fully in society and economy. Despite the progress made in the past decade, persons with disabilities still face considerable barriers and have a higher risk of poverty and social exclusion.The objective of this Strategy is to progress towards ensuring that all persons with disabilities in Europe, regardless of their sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, age or sexual orientation. In our project we plan to introduce and engage new, innovative methodologies from the fields of applied psychology, career orientation, coaching and gamification that will be intertwined into an easy to use, accessible and inexpensive tool. Our project proposes an itinerary where adults with mental disabilities define their personal plans regarding social life and employment and are guided and empowered through practical tools, which would be adapted to fit people with intellectual disabilities needs. The new tools and methodologies will facilitate people with intellectual disability to gain direction, to get emotionally stabilized, to make their own choices, to become more empowered and to join the labor market. This will be beneficial not only for the direct beneficiaries but also for their families and society.<< Objectives >>The objectives of the project are the following:-To empower a group of 50 adults with intellectual disability in order for them to lead an autonomous personal, professional and social life, through a process-oriented methodology (constant support meetings), through a training and through project results. -To foster social inclusion for a group of 50 adults with mental disabilities that participate in the project, through the specific support and educational activities of the project. -To develop competencies for a group of 50 practitioners from the 5 participating organizations in the field of support for people with intellectual disabilities, focusing on the promotion of an autonomous life.<< Implementation >>1.Methodology/training materials for professionals working with adults with mental disabilities2.An innovative supportive toolbox for adults with disabilities with self-guided activities for independent living3.MOOC platform where some videos with therapeutic impact will be developed4.Educational and therapeutic board gamesEducational and support activities: - training courses, focus groups, testing activities.Multiplier events- dissemination activities in all four countriesTransnational project meetings- for cooperation between partners.<< Results >>The results of the project are closely connected to the objectives of the project and also to the objectives of the programme such as described in the Erasmus+ 2021-2027 Guide and the National Call for projects of the Romanian Agency.Results of the project can be included in several categories1. Impact on beneficiaries: 50 adults with intellectual disability, pluridefficiency, serious development disorders, serious health problems, mental disorders, behavioural problems and/or language disorders ●50 professionals from the partner countries The need of the adult educators in the project is that of developing competences that can help them better convey and implement the concept of autonomous living and social inclusion for people with mental disabilities. It is a need they have in order to make their work even more relevant and useful. Their needs are addressed through the activities, the methodology and the project benefits and impact. The needs of adults with mental disabilities are those of having access to information and methods that can make them understand how to have an independent life and to become socially included. The activities, the methodology and the impact of he project respond to this need. Innovation activities and testing of innovative solutions ●Four transnational meetings●Four innovative and intellectual products●One mobility for professionals adult educators ●One mobility for adults with intellectual disability●Four multiplier eventsThese results are in accordance with all objectives 3. Better cooperation with stakeholders and associated partners- during the project each of the partners has the obligation to meet and set up partnership with at least 2-3 partners- these partners will support several processes: dissemination, follow-up, feedback and also the process of accreditation of skills. This results is in accordance to the general objective and specific objectives4. A consolidated consortium through communication and good cooperation (particularly through transnational meetings)- communication within the project will respect a series of conditions and will be marked by the 3 milestones represented by the 4 transnational meetings.- this result is in conformity with the third specific objective5. A solid monitoring process- through constant evaluation, risk handling solutions and quality assessment - the 24 months project will be monitored by the leading organization, but also individually by each of the partners. Evaluation grids, compliance with deadlines, quality assessment will all be part of a monitoring structure to be presented in detail at a later phase- this result is in conformity with the general objective and all specific objectives6. A good visibility of the project through the dissemination plan and the multiplier events- the visibility of the project will be measured through indicators foreseen in the dissemination plan and will be monitored by experts in the field- - this result is in conformity with the general objective and all specific objectives7.Follow-up and sustainability of the project solutions- this result is in conformity with the general objective and all specific objectives