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History and preparation of the CHARTE
: JAMO
We, Youth organisations implementing European volunteering, consider that
young people with fewer opportunities are persons who need a sustained support and follow-up
and that short-term EVS may be a mean to integrate them into the dynamic
of a whole project as for the sending and hosting structures.
This « tailor-made project » should take into account the dimensions
connected to the family, the social and even professional aspects, to involve
all the concerned persons/actors and to be part of an individual pathway
targeting socio-professional inclusion.
Our conceptions of the European volunteering, targeting young people at risk,
are those of the projects that may constitute:
1. A support for the building of a personal and professional project
·
Training experiences and opportunities (language, new professional competencies…)
·
Empowerment of youth (autonomy, spirit of criticism, responsibilities awareness,
awareness-rising of cultural identity, motivation, actors of their own-lives…)
· Re-socialization of youth (team working, rules respect, involvement
in a collective project)
· Acquisition and reinforcement of know how and behaviour
2. A fight against prejudice and opening to the others
· Acknowledgement of cultural diversity, apprenticeship of alterity (to
get to know better oneself and the others)
· Fight the social discriminations, especially the fight against racism
and xenophobia
· The promotion of a European identity
3. Citizenship and inter-dependence commitment
· Empowerment of young people to the local democracy and the European
construction
4. A tool for the development of the European Civil Society
1. The introduction of a European dimension into the local project
2. The transformation and updating of the practices (partnership work, accompaniment
and mentoring, methods…)
3. The development of partnerships and networks
4. The promotion/strengthening of social and inter-dependent economy at European
level
To achieve this, we think that it is necessary that:
THE VOLUNTEER SHOULD BENEFIT FROM:
1. A diagnosis (life story, evaluation of competencies…) provided by
the sending structure, in connection with specialized organisations leading
to the working-out of their EVS project
· Selection criteria: profile, life trajectories, social links, mentoring
·
Motivation criteria: personal reasons, referent (peer, family, mentor), goals
of the young people, competencies – capacities (diagnosis)
·
Starting from the young people’s project, to get to know which orientation
and orientate them to the relevant structure. To identify the information
to deliver upstream by the sending organisation to the hosting organisation?
(And the organisation’s diagnosis capacity).
2. A time for preparation and certification
·
Preparation: information of the hosting conditions, sending prospects (apprenticeship…)
· To provide a time for reflecting: in order to confirm the will of departure.
3. A referent
· During the project, upstream and afterwards
4. An agreement, signed by the sending and hosting structures, the volunteer,
mentioning aims to reach and the means to use.
THE HOSTING PROJECT SHOULD INCLUDE :
5. A tailored preparation:
·
Specific needs, advanced planning visit (and its limits…),
· Partnership reciprocity.
6. A sustained and tailored mentoring :
Possibilité d’utiliser l’accueil en groupe
· Possibility to consider the use of the hosting of groups
· The language support
· The support of a person (for providing specific health care for example)
· The working-out of tailored pathways: work on the competencies (competencies
evaluation), bridges to professional inclusion.
· Peer education (long-term and short-term)
· Relations between the different structures: the sending must remain
in contact with the hosting in order not to break the communication during the
volunteering
· Does the YOUTH Programme consider the possibility to fund intermediary
evaluations?
7. A relevant answer for the boarding facing the difficulties met for finding
apartments to host volunteers and especially short-term.
· Option to host several volunteers on the same projects to cope with
the boarding costs. Local resources: young workers houses, YMCA…
· Inhabitants lodging,
· Hosting families,
· Sharing of lodging with students?
· Network and/or implementing simultaneously several projects (low costs);
enabling the sharing of a boarding offer.
8. The setting-up of successful guaranties using possibly acknowledgement
of professional competencies, expertise and evaluation resources
· Discussion remaining
open: which expertise? Which acknowledgement of professional competencies?
· Need for foreseeing evaluation.
THE SUPPORT MAY BE REALISED THOUGH:
9. places and time for preparing meetings, exchanges, training:
· Mentors training adapted to the target group realities : action 5, national
agencies, local and national experts
· Contact-making seminars for short-term action 2 implemented by the future
hosting organisation
· Implementation of action 1 projects: meeting of small groups prior to
further short-term EVS within a future hosting organisation
· Feasibility visits
· Access means facilitated for action 5: reciprocity, flexibility, adaptation
10. the implementation of tools for professional certification and sustainibility
· Local network creation with a local expertise and the promotion of the
device
· Quality Charta
· Adapted database
· Evaluation procedure
· The insurance contracted by the European Commission: enable the volunteer
to get their cards prior to their departure
· Additional investments: preparation of short-term projects and crisis
prevention development
· Seminars for presenting and sharing the results, competencies transfer
· Setting-up of seminars by the national agencies: outcomes, funding…
· SOHO (Sending Organisation Hosting Organisation): training investment
· Dissemination - information on the funding for local initiatives for
the device (training and preparation)
Aix-en-Provence, September 20, 2003
The organisations participating to the seminar
“ EVS and social inclusion of disadvantaged young people”
I - INTRODUCTION
The
insertion of young people in the European cities which have contributed
to the project is organized as a result of a chronic lack of any solution
for those young people who do not succeed in using correctly the existing
systems of education and vocational training. The solutions which have
been investigated are of extremely different natures, but have in common
the facts that they associate the competence of State, regional and city
authorities, mobilize multidisciplinary human resources, and are financed
with public money. Certain organizations have spontaneously set up systems
to assess the results obtained by young people in terms of acquiring
or progressing towards qualification and employment. However, the evaluation
of the organizations themselves, within the context of national and local
employment policies, required a new approach. The assessment process
shared
by the cities has allowed the emergence of the main directions for considering
quality as well as the importance of evaluating them.
II – GENERAL
CHARACTERISTICS
In the majority of cases,
private organizations operating with public funds are responsible for the
insertion of young people in
Europe. Regulatory supervision is flexible and insertion is composed
of an assembly of services for guidance, vocational training and support.
With no pre-established programmes or procedures, its conception
and implementation
are left to the initiative and skills of professionals possessing
various specializations. Generally speaking, it is based on the principle
of dealing
with the deficiencies affecting young people, with little intervention
in the fields of job offers or vocational training. Insertion consists
in providing young people with the qualities they lack with regard
to the requirements of the job market in order to give them the same chance
of
finding a job as others. And although some organizations obtain the
collaboration of companies and economic actors (or at least cooperate with
them) in order
to prepare young people, none of them has the objective of modifying
the jobs, their nature and their accessibility. Insertion seeks to modify
young
people and not the job market. This having been said, the general
characteristics which constitute assets for the insertion of young people
are the same
for several cities.
- The determination of local political authorities
which, beyond the scope of national policies, is the only means of
developing cooperation between public and private protagonists, and between
specialists
in the fields of the economy, youth and social work. Depending on
each particular case, this determination may appear in the decisions made
by
municipalities, or arise from the pooling of trade union initiatives
or from the creation of a specific municipal department.
- Partnerships
- Networks
The insertion of young people is achieved by creating itineraries
to be followed within geographical areas and within networks. It
gives young people guidance so that they can benefit from everything that
local
institutions can offer them. At the same time, it involves the capacity
to bring the opportunities for insertion to the young people who
are unable to find their own way autonomously in the networks and institutions.
In
order to succeed in such a venture, the insertion of young people
requires the setting up of networks capable of pooling their resources
and creating
continuous paths towards employment.
- Professional project and the
individualization of support Unlike vocational training, which places the
needs of the local
economy on the same footing as people’s needs, insertion focuses
mainly on the professional project of the individual young person
and takes into account his interests, his aspirations and his capacities.In
this
way, it cultivates the project, refines it and enriches it so as
to raise the capacities of the young person to the level required.
A corresponding
offer will then be sought to provide a position for the young person.
Having said this, experience has shown that sometimes the system
of insertion
causes the project to be modified in order to adapt it to local vocational
training and job opportunities. This method, which is particular
to insertion, involves the need for an individualistic approach to
the programme to be
followed and this entails consequences with regard to the type of
organization and the skills required of professionals. Indeed, it
is necessary to make
a clear distinction between methods of assessment and guidance and
those used in social support, therapeutic care or health assistance.
- Analysis
of needs and assessment of results The insertion of young people
is a result of interventionist policies and does not constitute a positive
right. As
such, it should have the capacity to measure the needs it intends
to satisfy, not merely by identifying the young people who have neither jobs
nor training
but also by devoting adequate means to characterize them. The adaptation
of the insertion programme, and thus its efficiency, will depend
on the quality of the observations made regarding the difficulties with which
the young people are confronted
– how far they are from finding a
job – economic insecurity – cultural poverty – social
or behavioural problems. This is also the only way to be able to
make an assessment of expectations and transformations brought about
by the insertion
programme. If needs are not assessed, then no assessment of the results
of the system is possible. However, the existence of a system to
assess the insertion policy, programme or organization has obvious
repercussions
on management quality and efficiency.
By comparing observations made in
assessment with the objectives and means deployed, improved management
and greater overall efficiency and effectiveness are obtained. This
requires a body in charge of the assessment, an assessor, a method and means
which
are independent of the structure being assessed.
- ServicesIn any
insertion system it is necessary to distinguish the services that have effectively
been rendered to young people and on which they can rely whenever
they
request them.This identification and this clarity are essential both
in accompanying young people in their access to the services and in evaluating
their impact. In all insertion systems in European cities three main
types
of service may be found:
- reception, guidance, advice, help in defining
the professional project;- training either by traditional means of
vocational training or by placing the young person in work experience or
production
process situations;
- providing access to complementary services such
as housing and health or attenuating antisocial behaviour. Depending on the
insertion organization, a service giving direct access to employment
may
or may not be provided, and none of the organizations associated
with this project offered jobs to young people – whether marketable
or not.
III – RECEPTION
- GUIDANCE
When a young person is
received his or her request and project must be respected. The organization
of the project
in material and human terms requires an adaptation to the young
person’s
needs and degree of autonomy with:
- accessible information concerning
offers of reception, guidance, training and employment;- access
to advice, guidance and support in formalizing the professional project;
-
the provision
of basic services with regard to general knowledge and techniques
for seeking vocational training courses or employment;
- the referring of
young people
to specialized health and social departments as required. This
must be done confidentially and by qualified professionals. The young people
should
be given access to the initial and final assessments made of
them. Reception, guidance and support are not limited to first arrival. They
should be provided
with the same quality to any young people who make the request
during their programme until such a time as they have become fully autonomous.
The systems
set up to receive young people should also be designed to ensure
that existing offers are monitored, hidden offers may be sought out and new
offers are
thus developed which correspond better to young people’s
requests.
IV – MANAGEMENT
The executive boards
of insertion centres are designed to enable the governing authorities to
play their part and be in a position
to guarantee their stability. It is important for all political,
economic and social organizations concerned by the insertion of young people
to
be represented on these boards. Depending on each particular
case, centres are more or less linked to actors in the economic field.
It is important
for these centres to develop cooperation with them in order
to bring their influence to bear on insertion processes. Running the human
organization
of the centre should be done democratically, based on the
participation of staff members so as to develop their capacity to encourage
the young
people to feel involved. Thus a strategic and pedagogical
project is drawn up by each centre and presented to its partners. It is
based on the notion
of an itinerary including means of insertion which have been
correctly articulated to allow access for young people to qualification
and employment.
It define the terms of the service contract signed with the
young person in respect both of his or her commitments and of the obligations
undertaken
by the centre towards him or her.
V – THE SKILLS
OF THE PERSONNEL
The
personnel who are entrusted with the future and support
of young people must have the necessary qualifications in the fields of
vocational training,
specialized teaching, social work and psychology. It
is highly recommended to set up multi-disciplinary teams which are coherent
both in terms of
quantity and quality. Considering the rapid evolution
of jobs, the economic environment and the orientations given to policies
for the insertion of
young people, special attention must be paid to several
points when providing training to agents: - knowledge of young people and
their relationship
with training and work - mastery of the different processes
of insertion - work methods used in internal teams and in cooperation with
external
services The means employed by the organization must
include a training plan in these fields.
VI - THE DIVERSITY OF
THE MEANS OF INSERTION
The
diversity of the situations of young people, the
rapid evolution of their aspirations and behaviour require a high level
of
adaptability in the responses
proposed. This is partly found in the diversity of
the means and services of insertion that are offered, which, based on
the principle
of individualization,
must include: - self-documenting - sequences of mobilization
and construction of the professional project - sequences of vocational
training - work experience
in companies - information on one's rights - individualized
support of the young person - guidance towards medical and social services
These means
and services are provided either directly or by other
organizations. In the latter case, agreements should be drawn up in
order to guarantee young
people access to them.
VII - METHODS OF FINANCING
Public
financing is used for the insertion of young people and, depending
on the country, comes
from several sources: the state, local authorities
and the European Social Fund. It is essential
that the organizations have stable and homogeneous
financing at their disposal for their everyday
operating costs. They may
also find funds which support particular projects
or partnerships.
VIII - EVALUATION
Insertion
organizations have developed means of evaluating
the progression of young people in the insertion
programme. They draw up
reports, individual evaluations, recognition
of acquired knowledge and skills for the
young people. But, the assessment of the organization,
the
programmes and the results obtained also
deserves to be considered as one of the main aspects
of insertion policies. Organizations should carry
out
an annual assessment of their action by measuring
the quality of their different component
parts:
- the functioning of political and technical
executive bodies
- the objectives assigned
to the organization
- reception, guidance and individualized
support
- vocational training provided or
made accessible
- development of partnerships -
material and human means
- results
in terms of jobs, qualifications and rendering
the young people economically and socially
autonomous
In order to achieve this, they must provide themselves
with a specific entity, with a method and
with the assistance of a specialized
organization.
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