Life Skills for Europe - LSE

Description:

The LSE project will explain, further develop and upscale the life skills approach with the purpose to support three different groups:

• People from a disadvantaged background who have few possibilities to escape the low skills trap and often lack the know-how to access social services, proper health care that goes beyond urgencies, and democratic participation.
• Refugees who not only need to learn the host language, but also acquire the knowledge on how to make a home in their new countries.
• ‘Native’ population of Europe that respond aggressively to ‘foreigners’ through xenophobic and violent actions.

In order to support these three groups to access learning and other services, increase their participation in a democratic society and develop greater intercultural understanding; partners invite providers and policy-makers to develop comprehensive learning offers. Those should combine basic and digital skills with problem solving, critical thinking and interaction with other people as well as information and support on how to access health and social services, developing family competences and fostering intercultural dialogue and active citizenship.

LSE at a glance:

The LSE project leaflet is available in English, Greek, Denmark, Slovenian and French.

Aims and objectives:

LSE aims at:

• Increasing the participation rates of adults in lifelong learning
• Fostering cooperation between agencies and stakeholders dealing with refugees on the one hand and the low-skilled on the other hand
• Improving health situations, better school attendance of children, more chances for employment of the life skills learners
• Increasing the recognition of the role of non-formal (adult) education in achieving social inclusion in the EU

LSE has the following objectives:

• Collecting, comparing and further developing the life skills approach to learning for adults (more comprehensive provision of basic skills)
• Provide tools and recommendations that can be used for and with the three target groups
• Develop an overarching life skills learning framework and modules that are transferrable across Europe
• Concrete proposals how to devise and implement a life skills strategy on the local / regional / national levels as well as a concrete advocacy tool to target regional, national and European policy-makers

Outputs:

The project will produce several concrete outcomes:

• a ‘glossary’ of ‘life skills’ based on a survey among adult education organisations, desk research and interviews, to present the different approaches and understandings of life skills across Europe (IO1-a)
• a collection of good practices of life skills initiatives across Europe, and an analysis of the practices to help understand what works and how to make it work (IO1-b)
• a collection and analysis of tools that are being used across Europe in order to promote and enhance life skills and intercultural understanding (IO1-c)
• a provision framework and transferable modules to create an indicative framework for life skills provision, incl. modules on; e.g., language, literacy and numeracy skills; financial, digital, health and civic capabilities (IO2)
• an Awareness Raising and Strategy toolkit that will not only provide summaries of the lesson learnt through O1 and O2, but also contain recommendations as well as proposals for life skills strategies at different levels (IO3)

Two multiplier events will ensure a wide and in-depth dissemination of the project outcomes:

• Workshop in Patras (Greece), April 2018
• Workshop in Brussels (Belgium), October 2018

Meetings:

Four partner meetings will facilitate the smooth implementation of the project:

• Kick-off meeting – Copenhagen (Denmark), 9-10 February 2017
• Second partner meeting – Leicester (UK), September 2017
• Third partner meeting – Patras (Greece), 18-20 April 2018
• Final partner meeting – Brussels (Belgium), October 2018