The overall goal of the project is to have more employable vulnerable (future) jobseekers. In this project we develop 2 courses regarding 21st century and entrepreneurial competencies: one for the mentioned client group and the other one for the people supporting them, being teachers, instructors, job coaches. Within the scope of the project we also do research on how we can use Open Badges to recognise and acknowledge these competencies. An Open Badge is a visual digital and reliable proof of a skill or competence that someone has acquired. It gives insight and words to what the client is capable of. This strengthens clients’ self-confidence because their competencies are made visible in a digital, transparent and open way, it creates efficient learning paths and is recognisable for stakeholders (employers - funders - governments - business partners)The world around us is continuously changing and this in an always faster manner. Globalisation, digitisation, technology, robotisation, aging and hazing, social changes in the direction of working more and longer, growth and shrinking of companies, etc. The world is changing and so does the labour market. Today 's jobs will no longer exist in a few years, others will come instead. The work is increasingly flexible and volatile. In such a dynamic labour market, it is important for all involved (both employers, employees and self-employed) to be flexible and broadly employable. People on the labour market will need a different skillset that includes generic skills (key competencies). These key competencies entail the possibility to adapt to changing conditions and learn new technical skills when needed. At this moment of the Covid-19 crisis we are all convinced that digitisation will radically change our work, social live and learning environments and we must see this as a challenge to realise a positive support to an inclusive labour market. All the above mentioned changes can be confusing if a person feels uncertain about himself and doesn't understand all mechanisms in place to help find his own space in it. For people with more support needs due to all possible reasons, it is therefore immensely important that the people supporting them have a good understanding of this society and its labour market challenges.This means we need to be equip people in search for a job with futureproof competencies that meet these needs, whether they want to work as an employee or as a self-employed entrepreneur and especially support the underrepresented groups to find out about their skills and how to improve them.Often the staff supporting them has a background that has not put emphasis on the need of unveiling/ uncovering the key competencies of their pupils/clients. They either teach them technical competencies or guide them towards a job by general questions, internship follow up, helping with job applications etc. This all is relevant too, it's just not enough anymore. Therefore it is imperative that these front officers/staff become aware of this fact, what these key competencies are and how these keep changing over the years. Not only do they need to know more about the competencies, they also need to know how they can discuss them with their clients/pupils and how to reveal the competencies (by observation, by tasks, …)The course 'Discover and reveal your clients competencies!' that we will develop will support them to improve their knowledge and skills in the support of revealing extra potential of the people they support.The course for clients is a collective way of discovering and revealing their key competencies. When the course is finished, the clients will have an overview with the explored competencies and where the client is positioned compared to what is desired. The client will make an action plan to work on desired competencies that are currently missing (or insufficiently expressed). Also they learn to express their strengths and how they can be used to benefit the job. Competencies serve as a means to increase clients’ chances at employers because they can talk about their competencies open and clear and why these are important for the vacancy available. As said in the beginning, we will create Open Badges in order to recognise and acknowledge these skills. An indirect goal we hope for is that through learning about the entrepreneurial skills, more people will consider to become self-employed when they see they do have potential.

Context/background:Our main goal was to improve services for vulnerable job seekers, employees and their employers. The better serviceproviders are in providing a qualitative supported employment (= suem) service, the better they can help realising an inclusive labourmarket. Despite different actions the employment rate of people with a disability throughout Europe still is significantly lower than the overall employment rate.In this way the project relates to the EU2020 target for inclusive growth and to the UN Convention on Rights for People with a Disability, art. 27 (work and employment) and the resolution of 2015/05/20 of the European Parliament to endorse that convention. It also relates to the EC’s European Disability Strategy (2010-2020) and during the project the European Pilar on social rights was launched. Within the pillar, principles 3, 4 and 17 also mention the right to equal access to labourmarket for PwD.Objective of the project:The objective was to develop a quality framework for suem- organisations. This would allow them to see if they are organising and offering their services in the most effective and efficient way and how to improve these services. Quality is one of the values that the EUSE (European Union of Supported Employment) wanted to develop and keep emphasis on as a strategic key point. Because by improving the quality of the service providers you get better results and this on different levels: customers are more satisfied, the staff is motivated and skilled, businessresults get better and in communities can deal better with becoming inclusive. Hence the final target group (workseekers with a (dis)ability) benefits: improving people by improving the quality of service providers.The auditsystem related to this model is designed via the ‘single audit principle’. So organizations that already have a quality model can easily assess their organization(and make a growth and development plan) on the basic principles of supported employment.Description of activities:We started with analysing and comparing existing quality systems and standards, both more general (e.g. EFQM, ESF Flanders growthmodel) and specific within supported employment (BASE and EUSE quality standards). Based on these we came up with a framework that we used to start building the self assessment.This self-assessment gives an overview of points in which the organization can grow, improve and further develop in using supported employment. In every country we had the first draft tested by a couple suem-organisations and based on their comment we adapted the selfassessment tool.Since a self-assessment only provides a screenshot of the organisation, it's equally important to know how to move forward based on the information of the assessment. So next step was building a growth and development tool. Within suem it’s more important to show you want to grow as a team and use the suem-principles within your own organisation rather then only focussing on individual performances. We then brought together the knowledge and know how gathered and made a theory and a practice book. The theory book describes the theory behind the developed quality model and repeats briefly what is suem, why to use it and what are the suem-values. Furthermore it consists of the self-assesment tool and growth-and development tool. The practical book really is a hands-on book. You need the theory first in order to be able to use it. It gives extra prompts to help filling in the assessment and leaves room for describing the proof and immediate thoughts for improvement actions. It also provides different templates to support an organisation to arrange actions for improvement after the self-assessment is ready. Results and impact attained: We have a ready to use suem quality framework with self-assessment and growth and development tool. Moreover we can give training to future suem-assessors in order to get more and more suem-organisations using it in a standadised way.Within the project countries we still continue doing self-assessments, helping organisations and will get back with the national results in spring 2018 to see what needs to be done next. Also different other countries have asked to start working with the tool. Within EUSE the dissemination will go on. We really felt there was a need for these tools and the willingness to start working with it throughout European suem-organisations is big.Now having a quality model specifically for suem, this can contribute to make sure our customers (vulnerable work seekers and their employers) get the best service in order to find and keep their job on the regular labour market. Long term benefits: Because of the standardised way of assessing it becomes possible for suem-organisations to benchmark and learn from each other. By becoming better in providing supported employment the 'turnover' gets less, so more people can benefit from the service delivered.

Project objectives are:- To improve the knowledge, capacities and skills of professionals who provide support services to entrepreneurs with disabilities- To facilitate the recognition of the knowledge, experience, capacities and skills of these professionals, providing a sound base for the definition of a Professional Qualification by the competent authorities- To increase the mobility, job opportunities and the exchange among professionals and organizations which provide support services to entrepreneurs with disabilities by means of facilitating a common framework for the recognition of competences- As a consequence of the previous results, to increase the number of professionals aiming at increasing their capacities and skills to support entrepreneurs with disabilities using a validated intervention model and tools. - To increase the number and quality of support services provided to entrepreneurs with disabilities throughout Europe and, as a consequence, to improve the self-employment opportunities for people with disabilities.That will be achieved by means of the design and validation of: 1) An Intervention Model to provide support services to entrepreneurs with disabilities, 2) A specific Professional Profile for professionals that provide those services, including the requested experience, education, knowledge, capacities and skills.The following activities will be carried out:- Design of the Managerial Procedure, appointment of an external evaluator and design and set up of an internal Communication tool- Gathering of Best practices regarding the support to disabled entrepreneurs’ initiatives in Europe. - Adaptation of the Supported Employment methodology (including toolkit) to support entrepreneurship. - Design of the professional profile of the Supported Self-Employment Advisor. -Design of a European Course for Supported Self-Employment Advisors. - Validation of the professional profile by means of a training activity addressed to 40 professionals from all throughout Europe. - Design and execution of a Dissemination Plan, including specific dissemination activities addressed to stakeholders and policymakers- A final European Seminar to increase visibility and awareness on project productsBy executing the above indicated activities, the projects aims at achieving the following objectives:- Locally, more organizations traditionally supporting labor opportunities for disabled, will offer support services for entrepreneurs with disabilities. Due to the existence of a recognizable professional profile, more professionals will choose to increase their capabilities in this field. The increase of mobility will increase the expertise and experience treasured by these professionals and, as a result, more entrepreneurial initiatives promoted by people with disabilities will result in new businesses and jobs.- At a National level, competent authorities will have available a professional profile following the ECVET principles and technical orientations and designed and validated with the participation of the involved agents. After validation and presentation, that could lead to the appearance of a new qualification and, in any case, to the offer of more and better training and capacity building activities in that field.- At a European level, the Intervention Model and the Professional Profile will be of special interest for those countries which do not have a strong tradition in support to entrepreneurs with disabilities as they will have access to a sound model to start working with. Furthermore, the existence of a European professional profile promoted by the European Union of Supported Employment will increase not only mobility of professionals, but exchange of experiences and the continuous enrichment of the model, too