DOCUMENTA, Instituto Europeo de Estudios para la Formación y el Desarrollo is currently working on an Erasmus+ project funded by the EU. The main aim of IGMA 3 is to improve the efficiency of labour market integration processes for young adults (18-30) who are at risk of social exclusion.
As part of the project´s activities, DOCUMENTA has held a workshop to make an assessment about the current situation of available services for job placement among young people in Cantabria as well as to gather all the concerns of the professionals who work in the fields of guidance and job counselling in order to determine the needs and the most appropriate training for the professional development of practitioners.
The conference took place on Friday 1st July at the Fundación Caja Cantabria facilities located in Santander. We were accompanied by a wide group of leaders from different entities that deal with job placement for young people, namely: Cáritas, Servicio de Inclusión Social del Ayuntamiento de Santander, Observatorio del SEPE, AMICA, ADL de Los Corrales de Buelna and Cruz Roja Cantabria. Al these organizations took part in the discussion and contributed to make the conference productive.
Their contributions form part of the IGMA 3 project and we hope to keep the bonds initiated in the project.
The most relevant conclusions drawn from the conference are listed below:
- The problems to achieve a better coordination and collaboration among entities in Cantabria have been clearly identified. They have been dragging on for a long time and are known and shared by all professionals.
- There is a need of a methodology and common management information system, respecting the organizational models in every institution. In addition, a local network to improve coordination among the different institutions should be created.
- As work procedures, there are several requirements that are possible to avoid: duplicity in bureaucratic demands, introduction of the same data in different management platforms or different measurement indicators depending on the programme. These tasks increase the time spent on management at the expense of the direct orientation work with the user.
- There are also good practices and programmes that incorporate coordination processes among entities which have been proved useful as well as ICT tools that can help implement coordination and get the job done in a more efficient way.
- With regard to the administration´s participation (public employment services), they tend to be too strict and bureaucratised. This will end up weighing down on the ability of some actions, as in the case of the Integral Employment Plans with Job Placement in Cantabria. This action was considered very appropriate during its firsts editions. The Administration tends to oversee due to suspicion when it should manage trust.
- There seems to be an agreement for which the Administration could lead a network using clear methodologies and tools. It has also been proposed to improve the evaluation procedures in order to become a learning process itself.
- As for the workers´ training, ICT abilities and knowledge on social networks are considered important.
The Intellectual Outputs of the IGMA3 are:
O1_ IGMA3 methodology for professionals
O2_ IGMA3 training curricula for regional stakeholder networks
O3_ National survey of existing counselling services available for young adults and the role of different regional/local stakeholder organisation in the guidance process
O4_ Booklet with marketing information for employers
O5_ Promotion website with link to Moodle platform.
IGMA3 is currently in the phases of adaptation of the methodology, elaboration of the training programme for the networks and the design of the Moodle platform that will host it. The platform is due to begin operating at the end of 2016.
Eventually, we would like to express our gratitude to Fundación Caja Cantabria and their team for the use of their premises and all the facilities they gave us. Without them, this conference would not have been possible to take place.
