On Monday, March 28th and Tuesday, March 29th, for the first time in a long time, a physical meeting of the project could take place in Bochum. Most partners were able to attend live, some were able to actively participate in discussions and brainstorming sessions thanks to Teams and nice digital tools.
There was a full program, with lots of news and great presentations from the partners. After a short tour 'along the fields', where it became clear that Covid-19 has influenced internships and working with the portfolio for a long time to come, we were introduced to the latest developments.
Mulvany has developed a Curriculum and in which young people work in a structured way on their career development and can place their experiences and assignments in the CoZiMa portfolio. From a German partner school, the Alice Salomon Berufskolleg, which works in parallel with Mulvany, an interesting extension of this approach was reported. Students complete questionnaires about their interests and values based on Holland's personality typologies. With the results, they are shown 3 preferred professions each that fit them and that they can orient themselves to.
Harreveld presented a film about the Future Me approach. Here young people work together with artists and sports coaches in an inspiring and innovative way to discover who they are and what they are worth. This is important for the target group in closed Youth Care, because it enables them to gain positive experiences.
The Limburg partner PSW showed an instructional film about making a CV within CoZiMa. The instruction focuses on employees and candidates with a mild mental disability. They usually have too much difficulty working independently with the portfolio. The coming period the working with this film will be tested in practice.
The Italian partners showed the results of their research to (future) users of the portfolio. Teachers, supervisors, students and employers were asked what the added value of the CoZiMa portfolio could be for them. The research showed that a specific portfolio for the target group is still difficult to implement in practice. On the one hand because larger companies use their own systems and smaller employers mainly use intermediaries.
In Lithuania, a nice project has been started together with employers in the steel industry. We were briefly updated on this. The other partners will soon receive more detailed information.
From Paragin, the ICT developer of the CoZiMa portfolio, examples of the applications of the portfolio were shown, as they are now being used by partners. This gives partners the opportunity to get to know how things are done in other countries.
A nice new development in this respect is that in the Netherlands all pupils of VSO schools who move on to employment receive a real diploma, with a portfolio. The Aloysius Foundation, together with Paragin, has developed an approach for this, which all schools will use. The new portfolio design is ready and will especially appeal to young people.
The brainstorming session of the first day focused on what partners are still missing in CoZiMa, what concrete measures are seen as solutions and what the envisaged multiplier training might mean.
Day one ended with a nice evening, where we had dinner in a local restaurant and got to know each other better.
On day two we were gathered in Herne at the Mulvany. The program was to discuss the VET systems and especially the teaching of SEN target groups. On both sides of the table a nice overview was given of how this is arranged per country.
This made it clear that there are interesting differences between policy and practice. For example with regard to inclusiveness or specific educational offerings for target groups.
A digital padlet was used to answer the question of how best to create a transition platform and especially how to find new stakeholders.
Finally, joint consideration was given to what the new concrete objectives for the next three months are for each partner. Agreements were made about the next meeting and people expressed the wish to organize an online meeting in the meantime.
We look back on a successful meeting!
Please take a look at the site of Lithuanian partner for a summary in Lithuanian.