Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work by Turku_projektitoimisto

Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work Guidebook for Trainers and Management

Publisher: Network QA project Project Manager: Nuala Whelan Editors: Matti M채kel채, Anu Parantainen, Timo Haukioja Layout: Mia G채stgivar ISBN 978-952-5892-49-9 (nid) ISBN 978-952-5892-50-5 (pdf) Network QA project is funded with support from the European Commission. This publication is the sole responsibility of the publisher and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. www.n4qa.eu

Contents Why You Should Use This Material?

About the Project

Quality Assurance

Interagency Work

Examples of Excellence in Interagency Work Projects

Example of case: part one

Example of case: part two

Learn, Listen and Share

Make Your Own Presentation

European strategy for the VET environment

Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work

Why You Should Use This Material? Young people increasingly need various forms of support to cope with the demands and educational tasks they face. Previously, problems used to be subdivided and allocated to individual disciplines; now, we have developed a much greater understanding of educational work in interagency networks.

Interagency work forms an essential part of VET quality assurance at the European level. In order to facilitate mobility, the recognition of qualifications across educational systems as well as Member States is critical. This cannot be achieved without mutual trust â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the foundation of all interagency collaboration.

This does not mean collaboration between agencies not used to networking is easy; in fact, it is fraught with pitfalls ranging from lack of resources and/or interest to conflicts arising from different practices and working cultures. Despite this, issues of educational support for youngsters can be more effectively dealt with when several professions work together. The material at hand is meant to guide trainers and managers around common stumbling blocks whenever possible and prepare them to deal with potential problems. Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work

Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work

About the Project Network QA – an EU Transnational project (Oct. 2012–Sept. 2014) Partners: »» Ireland: Ballymun Job Centre, Dublin Nuala Whelan, Peter Nolan »» UK (Northern Ireland): GEMS, Belfast Susan Russam, Anne Downes »» Italy: Antares, Rome Pietro Ragni, Delia Zingarelli »» Romania: CTANM, Bucharest Tom Savu, Bogdan Abaza »» Finland: Turku Vocational Institute, Turku Matti Mäkelä, Anu Parantainen »» Spain: Fundacion Tomillo, Madrid Belen Gomez Penalonga, Barbara Muños

Goals: »» adapt and transfer the results of EQUAL YOUTH to Quality Assurance in VET »» demonstrate the value of interagency collaboration »» promote a commitment to and enthusiasm for QA in VET stakeholders »» map QA frameworks across Europe »» develop a training course on QA in i-VET and interagency work

Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work

A Quality Assurance Framework, namely EQAVET, allows local, regional/national authorities as well as local VET providers to look at their strengths and weaknesses and continuously improve their VET systems and the quality of VET provision.

EU Quality Assurance in Vocational Education & Training

Quality Assurance Main questions: »» How are we doing? »» What are we doing well? What do we need to improve? »» Where do we want to be? »» How and when will we get there? Who do we need to talk to? »» What evidence/data are being collected and what additional information would be useful to inform planning?

European Quality Assurance Reference Framework for Vocational Education and Training (EQAVET Framework) seeks to stimulate: »» the creation of more developed and consistent quality assurance and improvement systems across countries, to contribute to increased effectiveness of training and thereby to enhance the status of VET in the European Union »» increased transparency of quality assurance and quality improvement systems and approaches in VET, to improve mutual trust and facilitate mobility »» co-operation and mutual learning, to foster stakeholder involvement in a culture of quality improvement and accountability at all levels

Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work

Interagency Work Interagency work is

Key factors of efficient interagency work

»» coordinated and practical involvement of different specialist staff in the pursuit of a jointly defined goal »» a response to the experience that some challenges are better met together rather than alone

»» all activities are based on trust »» the aims of activities are known by the participants »» networking must be fully open and a focus of attention must be the efficiency of communication »» a network must have common ground rules and clear division of responsibility »» members of network are committed and are allocated sufficient resources »» the organizations and their management are involved »» network meetings are arranged regularly and activities are constantly updated »» attention must be paid to the visibility of the network Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work

Examples of Excellence in Interagency Work Projects Equal Youth The Equal Youth Development Partnership (DP) was financed by the EQUAL Community Initiative through the European Social Fund of the European Union. The aim of the Equal Youth project was to bring together the main stakeholders in the provision of services to young early school leavers in two areas in Ireland. The DP was aiming to develop a model of interagency cooperation that will address the deficiencies in current services that discriminate against progression into training and employment for the target group. The project specifically targeted those in the 16 to 24 year age bracket.

The project operated in an urban (Ballymun) and a rural (Mayo) site and focused on three distinct clusters of early school leavers: »» young early school leavers who were unattached to any services; »» young early school leavers who were attached to an agency providing education or training, and »» young early school leavers who were job ready or already in low pay/skill employment. The Development Partnership comprised of statutory agencies and community organisations at both local and national level in order that lessons learnt at local level could be translated efficiently and effectively into national policy. www.equal-youth.ie/

Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work

Youth Guarantee projects in Southwestern Finland 2005—14 (VaSkooli, VaSkooli for Immigrant Youth, MAST) »» main result: a regional training guarantee model with • multi-disciplinary guidance and support methods • flexible job market interactions • support methods for students in their personal growth and life skills acquisition • support for parental involvement • tools for transferring the model to other districts »» the application of the model in, for example, the Turku Vocational Institute led to tangible improvements in graduation rate and a significantly lower drop-out rate »» the best practices of these projects were disseminated to Noorderport College in Groningen, Holland and during the academic year 2010–2011, after expert trainings and workshops held by Finnish experts, the College’s drop-out percentage decreased from 9.6 to 4.2. »» www.koulutustakuu.fi/training-guarantee/

Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work

Example of case: part one What to do with Laura? Laura (fiction name) is 16 and lives with her father and her brother in the city center of Madrid. Her parents got divorced two years ago when her mother began a relationship with another man. His father has not got over this fact and has an aggressive attitude towards her daughter, blaming her for hers mother´s leaving. The relationship between Laura and her father is very bad, he works every night at a transport company, gets home at dawn and goes to sleep; so they don´t see each other till noon. When they are together they argue all the time. Her mother has not frequent contact with Laura as she lives far away from her.

Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work

Laura´s brother, who is 19, doesn´t have a close relationship with her. When Laura and her father argue he supports his father and blames Laura. Laura relates that she feels alone and that she misses her mother. Last year she wasn´t motivated, missed many classes and failed on secondary school. This year she begins Initial Vocational Training on Administration in our Training Center. She was referred by the guidance practitioner of last year´s Training Center. At the beginning, she comes with a passive and poor motivation, but a friend (that has studied with us in the past) encourages her a bit.

Laura has a very reserved attitude and uses hashish, even, sometimes, between classes. Her tutor and her social worker have several meetings with her at the beginning of the year so that she feels confident. Afterwards we tell her that hashish will damage both her health and her access to a future employment. Laura is in contact with a social educator at social services, due to her frequent arguments with her father who, sometimes, left her sleep in the stairs of the building if she gets late home. His father went several times to the social services threating with leaving her ward. Laura, however, doesn´t go to the interview with the social educator. We decide to network so that Laura goes to the social services and the situation at home can be improved. We achieve that the interviews with her social educator take place in the training center. Slowly, Laura stops using hashish and missing classes. She relates feeling good at the training center and seems to have hope for the future, wants to finish her studies, get a job and be out of her father´s house. When a violent discussion with her father takes place the case is taken by the teamwork of minors and family of social services. The social educator,

the social worker of the training center, center childcare and the social worker of the social services are called for a meeting. At it, is decided that Laura could to be sent to a child protection center. When Laura, who is already 17, is asked for her opinion on this option she doesn´t agree with it. So we decide to support her for a better relationship with her father from the training center and to support her father for a better relationship with her from the social services. Due to all this situation, Laura doesn´t pass her exams but she is motivated to continue secondary compulsory studies. As she can´t go to an adult studies center we contact an organization that has tutorized programme studies to pass this exams. Nowadays, we have still a close cooperation with social services and with her actual training center to guarantee her progress and we still have recurring tutorships with her. In a general evaluation of the case we observe great improvements: she doesn´t use drugs, has a better mood, has confidence on her personal and professional pathway and relies on the agencies that support her.

Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work

Example of case: part two Fundacion Tomillo (Madrid, Spain): Building an Interagency Group specifically for the NQA Project to look at Quality Assurance in VET Our social worker for VET was very involved in the creation of our local interagency group, identifying the organizations that should be included in this level. The following organizations were invited to attend the meetings: »» A non for profit organization with non formal education professionals cooperating with Social Services. »» An Adult Education public agency. »» A non for profit organization with market guidance practitioners. »» A VET public center.

Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work

The project was presented as an opportunity for reflecting on how it could be offered a more comprehensive work with students with a quality framework. The main strength of the group was the engagement of the persons attending to its meetings and their practical focus. The meetings were real working sessions. Our way for keeping them involved and motivated was clarifying expectations, allocating time for guided reflection, promoting participation, having practical sessions, providing products, keeping minutes and sharing materials.

The following topics were discussed in the group: »» A comprehensive and quality work can´t depend on a certain professional, the process and engagement must be of all the organization so it remains alive with new workers. Coordination between actual and future workers is important for a better care of participants. »» Working groups usually don´t tackle specific cases, having only a general coordination or information exchange, we have to go further. »» A new PARTICIPANT PROFILE is created taking into account products to be transferred from Equal Youth and partner´s already existing tools. »» Network for quality CONFIDENCIALITY POLICY »» QUALITY: general approach to quality and particular focus on EQAVET framework.

Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work

Learn

…to foster mutual trust.

…to establish a proper division of responsibility.

Listen

…to create an atmosphere of openness and co-operation.

…to ensure transparency of Quality Assurance.

…to promote a culture of quality improvement and accountability at all levels.

Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work

Make Your Own Presentation/Training You can start with, for example, following questions: »» Why do we do interagency work? • What are the main values of interagency work? How are they visible in my organization? • What do we hope to achieve? How do we make sure we achieve it? »» Why should we care about Quality Assurance? • Why do we need quality? • How do we measure quality?

To make your own presentation/training you can use all or parts of the materials provided to YOU in our project’s web-site www.n4qa.eu

Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work

European strategy for the VET environment Our project â&#x20AC;&#x153;Network QAâ&#x20AC;? aims to give its little contribute to the impressive effort the EU is doing in these years in order to empower the VET system. Starting from 2010 a new approach to VET was drafted by EU authorities through the Bruges Communique and the Europe2020 strategy1: the quality, the efficiency and the attractiveness of VET have to be increased in order to cope with the European labour market upturn. Each EU citizen has the opportunity to develop his/her education and training course and to implement his/her career and the common key to show his/her progresses is the qualification: the full set of knowledge, competences and skills acquired through formal, non-formal and informal education and training experiences. Since the 2004 with Europass Portfolio the EU started to promote suitable tools to help the citizens to plan their training course and to value it, showing to the employers and/or the 22

Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work

colleagues what was learned and what they are able to do. In the period 2008-10 three new tools were promoted within the VET system: EQF (European Qualification Framework), ECVET (European Credit Transfer System for VET) and EQAVET. These four tools, as state in the recent ISFOL Report2, contribute to let the qualifications, expressed in learning results, more easily comparable, achievable and answering to common quality standards. In particular (and in a nutshell) Europass Portfolio allows to show in a direct and transparent way the acquired qualifications, EQF helps the benchmarking of qualification levels, ECVET is able to connect the different steps of the individual education and training experience, taking into account also the different contexts, then EQAVET contributes to suggest common quality standards for the qualifications and for the institutions which granted them. One year ago (October 2013) a new classification system was launched: the ESCO3, it is able to identify and connect skills and competences, qualifications, professional profiles all over Europe. Dr. Pietro Ragni

http://ec.europe.eu/europe2020/index_en.htm ISFOL “Trasparenza delle qualificazioni e delle competenze”, Roma 2014 ISBN 978-88-543-0198-6 3 https://ec.europe.eu/esco 2

Partners:

Quality Assurance in VET Through Interagency Work Guidebook for Trainers and Management

For further information, please contact: www.n4qa.eu