Global organization of Pilot courses by country

The workshops were delivered to a total of 31 participants. Out of this number, a total of 30 attendees responded to the questionnaires.

The Danish team ran a 2-day workshop, supplemented by a 1-day blind test session. The blind test session was committed to testing strength and value cards as well as feedback sessions for the toolbox, course guide and the theories presented in the conceptual framework. In Denmark the workshop was organised by MYO and Coneqt, with a total of 9 participants; 2 days practical workshop: 25/11/17-26/11/17 and 1-day blind testing of image-based materials with MYO.

In Denmark the workshops were announced with an advert on Coneqt’s company social media page, and by contacting professional networks to invite them to attend the workshop. Upon the receipt of participants’ interest in attending the workshop, a date was arranged with participants to ensure their availability. It was agreed with participants, that the workshop would be held over a weekend, so as not to interfere with work hours of participants.

Czech and Portuguese teams ran a 3-day workshop, organised by Pelican with a total of 8 participants and a duration of 3 days: 19/10/17-23/10/17. The Czech workshop was advertised through networks and email, and participants registered to attend the workshop directly to Pelican.

In Portugal the workshop was run by SCML, IPAV, and UCP, with a total of 13 participants with a duration of 3 days: 22/09/2017-24/09/17. The workshops were advertised by contacting professional networks and sending invitations by e-mail to the respective networks.

Intellectual Outputs covered during the workshops:

• IO1: Development of life projects for psychosocial disadvantaged young adults and refugees: a theoretical manual
• IO2: Toolbox
• IO3: Course guide
• IO5: On-line audio-visual learning scenarios

The repartition of workshop participants per country is shown below:

Diagram 1 – No. of participants in each Pilot test country

 

Each partner got in touch with organisations and professionals working with Live2Work target groups and informed them of the project from the very beginning of the project funded period. Participants were invited by e-mail, or through advertisement on social media and through professional networks. Participants who attended, registered to attend the workshop through a contact person from the partner organisations.

Participants then attended a workshop introducing the Intellectual Outputs as mentioned above.

Profile of participants

Gender

The participation to the pilot workshop was predominantly feminine (29 women), with two male participants.

Academic Background

Their academic background has been fairly equally divided between the graduate’s, Bachelor’s, and master’s degrees.

Experience with professional vulnerable young adults

The total number of participants was 31, and a majority of these, have worked with professionally vulnerable young adults. We were pleased to attract a broad public and be able to also receive feedback from the professionals working with refugees and/or migrants.

The tables below show the characteristics and profile of the participants to L2W Pilot Workshops:

Diagram 2 – Gender of participants

 

Diagram 3 – Age of participants

 

Diagram 4 – Academic degree of participants

 

Diagram 5 – Academic area of participants

 

Diagram 6 – Target groups of participants

 

Diagram 7 – Years of experience of participants

 

The graphs reveal a diverse group of participants in all variables, besides gender. The participants were predominantly female and going ahead it would be beneficial to gain more feedback from the male demographic in order to detect possible differences in attitude. Despite this,

The participants gathered to take part in the pilot courses have been very satisfactory due to their wide variation in background.

Overall satisfaction

We can observe that respondents were generally quite satisfied with the workshop. However, we received a fair deal of constructive feedback during the workshops in the three countries, which have been carefully noted by the L2W trainers that delivered the workshops.

The satisfaction rate was measured on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is ‘Not satisfied’ and 5 is ‘Very satisfied’.

As shown below, the majority of respondents generally appeared to find the course ‘Very satisfying’ or ‘Satisfying’. One respondent found it to be semi-satisfying, rating the satisfaction a 3. According to the respondents’ feedback, the structure and description of the activities could be improved.

The organization of the workshops and the communication during the course were also generally considered a positive experience for the respondents. As shown below, all the participants rated these as 4 or 5, satisfied to very satisfied.

Diagram 8 – Overall satisfaction of participants

Viewing the above graph, it is visible that satisfaction with the pilot courses rated very well globally. The variables; Time to complete the activities; Activities related to self-knowledge and ;Activities related to world-knowledge, scored the highest rating of not satisfied or unsatisfied, giving cause for improvement. All of the respondents’ feedback will be taken into consideration to aid the fine-tuning of the courses and project Outputs.

Satisfaction with the dimensions

Looking into the dimensions; Self-knowledge, World knowledge and Transition skills the results for Self-Knowledge, as perceived through the data, show that respondents are generally satisfied or very satisfied with the dimension. Although a great deal of feedback with suggestions for improvements and adjustments will be taken into consideration, we can see that the overall idea of working with this dimension seems to be accepted as suitable by all respondents.

The data reflecting satisfaction with the dimension World-Knowledge revealed a high score from the majority of respondents. However, two respondents rated their satisfaction with the activities as a 3. The feedback that reflect this result will be studied, to find out how this can be adapted to better suit the needs of end-users.

Diagram 9 – Satisfaction with activities related to self-knowledge

 

Diagram 10 – Satisfaction with activities related to world-knowledge

 

In relation to Transversal SKILLS activities, a majority of respondents gave high and very high satisfaction ratings, with only a small portion of respondents rating the activities as a 3.

Diagram 11 – Satisfaction with activities related to transition Transversal Skills

Feedback from the workshops will be taken into consideration during the adaptation phase. However, a clear majority of respondents have related the activities as very satisfying, showing that for the broad majority of end users, these activities are of good quality.

Usefulness of the tools for daily work with end-beneficiaries

A large portion of respondents worked with refugees and/or migrants, and due to language and/or other barriers, the toolbox may not be entirely transferrable without adaptations. Seeing that some respondents may not have been able to transfer the L2W tools directly into their work, it may be reflected in the feedback on how useful the tools are for the respondents. Some respondents also informed us, that they already used these methods in their everyday work, and thus these were not new to them. 50% of the respondents, however, did find the contents relevant to their work, and not all respondents were familiar with the tools.

Diagram 12 – Relevance and helpfulness to job of participants

 

23% of respondents did not think that they would be able to use all the tools, although they informed us, that some tools could be used with adjustments and adaptations. 36% rated that they would likely use the tools, and 40% more than likely would use the tools upon return to their work. This is a good sign in regards to the probability for exploitation.

Further dissemination and exploitation of L2W tools also shows a positive outlook, with over 50% of respondents claiming, that they would be more than likely to share their learnings from the workshop with their colleagues.

A collection of feedback from the surveys

General comments collected from participant feedback forms:

Feedback on possible improvements

• Activities for “model identification could be improved”
• I emphasize the management of Self-knowledge. It is a very unstructured public, with little criticism and with little self-analysis. This thought may help to characterize them for your focus (this is an unclear part of the comment). SMARTE – I also considered it very important in the structuring of Being
• I liked less: Role Model identification”
• To improve: swot analysis, final Framework, Network relationships and Role Model identification
• More positive activities: values
• Less positive activities: SWOT analysis, Diamond
• I would have liked to have time to try all the exercises, but that would probably take very long time. I will be happy to test these materials in my work

Positive feedback

• I highlight positively the Solitary activity and the Diamond
• activities that I liked more: exploration and clarification of Values; Solitaire game
• In general, the instruments are well organized. The improvements / critics were extensively debated in the 3 sessions
• I liked the fact of relating the activities in each theme being always optional to your choice
• Activities that I highlight: 4 Steps to identify career possibilities; Solitary game; SMARTE goals.
• Positive: Bring together a set of instruments which would be otherwise more dispersed
• To be able to use them in a non- watertight way (separately , not all together)
• I have no (specific) comments, course was really interesting and great. Thank you!
• I was impressed by ideas related with our field of work
• Thank you, it was really nice afternoon full of discussion and great ideas.
• It was a long trip to Copenhagen, but the course was very interesting. Would love to attend the next event! Working only with refugees, I would not be able to use all the tools, unless we have access to an interpreter, the visual tools and the options and suggestions on how to use the tools with people with less language abilities were good for me. So at least some of the tools we can use.

Feedback deeming tools useful

• encourages reflection
• consolidates reflection
• clarify and gives a perspective of the future to those who are discredited”
• will be very useful and will make possible a more systematic and guiding work for the trainee
• according to the public with which you are working, you can adapt these tools, possibly complementing with existing ones
• I think it will help in the internship in personal and social development classes
• the intervention program implemented in its entirety, I think it can effectively promote some change in the trainees
• it is always good to have a model that already has a theoretical and tested component in which it is possible to be accessible to any technician with good development skills to perform
• these tools can be very useful in improving the soft skills of the trainees with whom I work, in their preparation to integrate or reintegrate the labour market
• All of them can be helpful for our work with refugees.
• They will certainly be helpful because they have expanded our awareness of the possibilities of working with the target group. new ways and approaches, breaking the border, it was a training course!
• Some of the tools might not be useful in regards to my target group, as they are in detention centres, but the tools can be used and be adapted to their needs. We might need to use different methods, when they are in the situation they are in.
• These tools would be very relevant to introduce to my employees and would be interested in attending the next event.
• If we have an interpreter, I think we can use all the tools.
• It will be relevant to share with the employees that I work with in job centres

Feedback deeming tools as familiar yet useful

• The course was very beneficial. Showed us the tools we already know, but also introduced new methods that we can use. We have confirmed the importance of accessing the group we work with.
• A lot of knowledge was not new for us – we are already using these methods when working with our target group. Still, we have seen a lot of new approaches. In particular, the work of cognitive and positive psychology was very interesting. Also ways to analyze or work with strengths and weaknesses. Everything was very helpful!
• For the most part, psychological approaches are already known from other projects; in the context of Czech social work, this is nothing new, but still very helpful and useful.
• In the Czech Republic, the procedures of positive and cognitive psychology have been used for a long time, but there are still new methods and interesting ideas.
• The course has shifted our knowledge to the next level. He gave us the chance to see the things we already know, another way. Now we can use the new approaches in practice, talk to them with colleagues, and move the goals of our work together.
• Some of the tools I already know, but it was nice to see how they have been set up in dimensions and with the detailed explanation for using these is very helpful for trying out the new tools

Feedback deeming tools not useful

• I do not know how useful I can be, since I have not yet had the opportunity to explore the professional environment in which I will be working not useful

Comments on key take-away from the course

• positivism
• personal knowledge
• investment at the personal level
• organization of a course with a view to something concrete”
• willingness to try the tools that I did not know
• access to theoretical reference (gives me greater security and support in the use of tools)
• Greater knowledge of oneself
• Provide adults with knowledge and skills to be more autonomous and competent in the future
• Allowing people to have a positive image of themselves
• Helping to cope with unpredictability”
• having a good knowledge about ourselves implies knowing of the ways, forces, competences and attitudes and knowing how to exploit them in the scope of achieving objectives
• want to try out the tools and share them with other colleagues. Further learning of other intervention models
• ideas / creativity, personal training, sharing
• how to see things from a different perspective (using materials to help this population see things differently and positively)
• on the whole, I think the key message is that change is possible: we can change things in our life, in the environment around us, as long as it is achievable, if we make a planning and if it is perseverance when putting it into practice. To use these tools in context of diagnosis and guidance, I think that it will be necessary to rethink the way this stage is currently structured (in my work) and what possible goals to achieve
• have a methodology already done and be possible to adapt to the new public. The fact that it is theoretically tested and supported is fundamental
• new ideas to work on the skills of the target population with whom work can impact not only on their professional integration, but also on improving their self-esteem, self-perception and other dimensions of their life, definition of life project in general
• theoretical anchor, psychological procedures at work
• Value cards, strength cards, wheel, positive emotions.
• new methods, cognitive psychology, positive psychology, theoretical and practical work
• Support network, goal setting, SWOT analysis, assessment for optional future jobs.
• positive emotions, future job, value cards, strength cards
• new methods, support methods, importance of the practical work, positive psychology
• value cards, strength cards, wheel, positive emotions, assessment for optional future jobs, analysis, support network, goal setting
• importance of psychology, procedures at work, refugees, migrant, problems and solutions
• The strength and value tools were very interesting, and the visual aspects were especially useful, I also found it inspiring to attend the workshop, as it gave me insight into the professional reality of others and have time to share.
• I like the positive outlook that the tools create
• The focus on the positive and finding strengths is interesting to me

Feedback reflecting considerations regarding the tools

• I believe that these instruments can be effective if they involve mediation and articulation with other dynamics (related to training activities
• This training could have a continuity to measure whether the participants after paling the instruments continue to feel the same or the difficulties experienced
• taking into account the target public I have some fear that these tools are not applicable and perceptible by all of them. However, although with the proper support of the technicians may be applicable. Have some care with graphical aspects, use simple and direct language. Adapt these tools to existing ones that may be complementary. Give congratulations to the whole team for investing in the project and for the results presented
• We should have the opportunity to apply the tools and after some time we can evaluate with the project team the advantages and difficulties of their applicability, thus contributing to a well-founded experimentation and refining of tools before their dissemination
• I found the structure and activities better (previous version) however I don´t consider them innovative or creative. The possibility of adapting and combining them with another resource is an asset. The ones I find most interesting I will use them in my sessions to realize their potential
• It would be interesting to test the entire program