What is plain language?
Everyone can understand plain language better.
Here you will find content from the Include³ website explained in plain language. This part is under construction.
What is behind Include³?
Pathways towards inclusion
Transitions from Sheltered Employment for People with Intellectual Disabilities into the Regular Labour Market: Identification, Dissemination and Implementation of Good Practice in Europe.
The Include³ project illustrates how people with cognitive disabilities transition from sheltered employment to the primary labor market in Europe. To do so, Include³ identifies and disseminates examples of good practice and then implements them.
Include³ will produce guidelines and inclusive materials for people with cognitive impairments, inclusion experts and advisors. Furthermore, a transition-supportive counseling method will be created. A curriculum for this method will be developed.
Objectives
The aim of the project is to identify, disseminate and implement good practice on transitions from sheltered employment to the primary labor market in Europe. Innovative practical examples in the fields of vocational training, vocational guidance and transitions from sheltered employment to the primary labor market will be collected and subsequently evaluated with regard to transferable aspects. They serve as the basis for a new counseling method.
The Include³-method enables counselors who are employed in sheltered workshops or work closely with sheltered workshops to match needs of people with cognitive impairments and needs of the labor market. The method will be written down in a curriculum and piloted in sheltered workshops. All project results will be made available free of charge on the Include³ website.
Background
One of the aims of sheltered workshops is to prepare people with disabilities for and support their transition to (supported) employment in the primary labor market. Nevertheless, many people remain in a sheltered workshop for a large part of their working life or even for the entire duration. This is especially true for people with cognitive disabilities. This means that the inclusion goals formulated in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD, Art. 27) and reaffirmed in a directive recently adopted by the European Parliament are being missed.
To achieve the goal of (sustainable) transition, the needs of the person with disabilities and the requirements of the labor market must be matched. Counseling plays a central role in this, as it can identify the strengths, interests and training needs of the person seeking advice. At the same time, counselors who work for or in sheltered workshops maintain contact with employers and can serve as door openers. Guidance also helps to ensure that vocational training is tailored to the individual learning needs, skills and goals of the person with disabilities on the one hand and to the needs and (support) opportunities of the labor market on the other.
Include³ will develop resources and a participatory curriculum in an inclusive and co-productive process in which guidance practitioners work together with people with intellectual disabilities, employers and vocational training professionals in workshops to create pathways from targeted training into sustainable and appropriate work in regular employment. The key mechanism is that through this process, vocational education is refocused in an individualized way to prepare for concrete labor market opportunities.
Target groups
Direct target groups: inclusion specialists and people with intellectual disabilities.
1. Inclusion experts. This refers to all those who professionally support the process of training and labour market integration – for example, work educators in the workshops, supervisors of the integration services, rehabilitation counsellors and employment agencies (and parallel functions in other European countries). New possibilities for action are opened up to them through greater inclusion of the affected person’s perspective and through an approach that transcends functional boundaries.
2. People with intellectual disabilities who are currently or will in future be trained and/or employed in sheltered workshops. The inclusion in gainful employment to which they are entitled under the UNCRPD is to be made possible for them more effectively than before. They are listed as direct target group not only because they are to be the main beneficiaries of the proposed method, but also because they will be empowered to co-determine every decision along this process.
Project results
Building on good practice in Europe
A praxis-oriented report on good practices will present the results of the collection and evaluation of good practice and draw conclusions with regard to the role of centring processes on the needs and aspirations of people with intellectual disabilities; and will elaborate on the perspectives for harmonising sheltered VET and labour market needs through inclusive counselling processes.
Resources for the promotion of good practice targeted at a variety of audiences (e.g. employers, sheltered workshops etc.). In particular audio-visual materials will be produced, such as podcasts about successful labour-market integration of a former sheltered-workshop participant; a video case study on good practice in sheltered VET responding to individual needs and aspirations as well as to external labour market opportunities, etc.
Policy documents for three categories of local decision makers (in sheltered workshops VET, career counselling, and business) (which will be disseminated via the web portal and its blog – see WP5 – and in an early multiplier/community engagement event, and through these channels will receive feedback.
Listen to podcasts in SoundCloud
Inclusive Development of Guidelines for Practice
A praxis-oriented report on good practices will present the results of the collection and evaluation of good practice and draw conclusions with regard to the role of centring processes on the needs and aspirations of people with intellectual disabilities; and will elaborate on the perspectives for harmonising sheltered VET and labour market needs through inclusive counselling processes.
Resources for the promotion of good practice targeted at a variety of audiences (e.g. employers, sheltered workshops etc.). In particular audio-visual materials will be produced, such as podcasts about successful labour-market integration of a former sheltered-workshop participant; a video case study on good practice in sheltered VET responding to individual needs and aspirations as well as to external labour market opportunities, etc.
Policy documents for three categories of local decision makers (in sheltered workshops VET, career counselling, and business) (which will be disseminated via the web portal and its blog – see WP5 – and in an early multiplier/community engagement event, and through these channels will receive feedback.
Digital Infrastructure
The digital infrastructure consists of a web portal (homepage), an active blog/newsletter section, social media accounts and audiovisual resources. The digital infrastructure addresses all target groups and makes the project results available in a accessible and user-friendly form.
Curriculum
A curriculum for collaborative inclusive learning the Include³ method that will equip career guidance and counseling professionals with all necessary skills and capabilites to organise inclusive counselling that connects sheltered vocational and educational training and the labour market will be developed. The curriculum will cross-reference products from workpackage 2 and workpackage 3. Additional material will be developed as necessary to support the learning process.
An evaluation report which will be used to improve the curriculum and to inform and the tools for implementation. As the curriculum is highly practice-oriented and anticipates/enacts the application of the Include³ method, practical experiences will be generated that will processe to generate case-study format materials.
Implementation guidelines and a self-learning module that puts trainer into a position to deliver the curriculum in a confident and effective way. This module will utilise the materials generated in the pilots.
Events (photo gallery)
Multiplier event 10th March, 2023, Slovenia
On 10th of March, OZARA d.o.o., Slovenian partner of Include3 project presented the first results of the project to the public. The emphasis of presentation was on aims of the project and insights from national reports that the consortium is currently finalising. Different organizations have participated in an interesting debate that has developed on the cross thematic of inclusion / data on disability and employment/discrimination.
Different organisations and their employees have attended this event, coming from Employment service, Employment centre, welfare and work centre, NGOʼs Advocate of the Principle of Equality, an independent and autonomous state body mandated to deal with discrimination, business representative organisations.
A debate elevated around the necessity of overcoming discriminatory practice around the term “Ableism” and the need of overcoming the characterisation of people through perspective of their disability, striving for the need of finding more space and public debate to shift this perspective in sphere of employment, sports and all activities connected to inclusion and quality of life.
Since the Include3 project sets plain language at the forefront of results presentation and public communication strategy it was also noticed, that digital accessibility still remains open for improvements within network of public institutions and moreoverin the private and not for profit sector.
