Within the EEAR Project we seek to promote Social Inclusion for some of the most excluded members of society by supporting them on their journey of re-integration into vocational training , employment and
self-employment by each of the partners sharing our current successful programmes, comparing what works well and areas for development in order to enhance the quality of provision for this specialist group and other disadvantaged groups within society. On February 24th 2021, the EEAR partners had a Teams Meeting with a.o. ChoiceWorks, presenting their programme ‘Employment and Empowerment in Addiction Recovery’

Employment and Empowerment in Addiction Recovery

James Crainie, Tom McBride and Derek Brown presented the ChoiceWorks programme, which is implemented since 2009 and is very successful. They presented their programme aims and process. They work with participants on an individual and/or group basis. The ChoiceWorks programme is based on joining voluntary (self-referral). ChoiceWorks guides the participants through 5 stages:

1. Engegament
2. Barrier Removal
3. Vocational Support (assistance with CV building, etc.)
4. Employer engagement / Job matching
5. In Work Support

The Benefits working with e.g. Govan Housing

• Learning new skills, imporved confidence. introduction to routine and structure and preparing to move into employment
• A year later 5 of the original 6 participants are still employed with Govan Housing association
• Level of Anti social behaviour in Govan area decreased

COVID Impact on organisations and clients

During the Teams Meeting ChoiceWorks summed up the impact of Covid19 on the project organisation and its clients. We would like to address the changes on the below points:

• Delivery model changed from Face -to- Face to distance engagement
• Increased demand on emotional support and signposting to
• widening partnership engagement with a view to increase referrals

The Impact Covid had on the clients were:

• There was an increased demand on emotional support
• No phone or no phone credit
• No IT equipment or internet access
• No appropriate skill level to use IT equipment
• EEAR Teams Meeting: February 24th 2021, click here to see what happened

Employability, Entrepreneurshio and Recovery (EEAR)

The Project Employabillity, Entrepreneurship and Recovery (EEAR) seeks to address Good Practices already developed by the partner countries in relationship to Empowerment, Employability and Entrepreneurship training programmes. EEAR brings together 5 organisations (among others the Dutch Foundation), expert in working with the most marginilised and excluded members of society.

The European Commission’s Europe 2020 Strategy focuses on reducing poverty, the challenge of reducing poverty risk is linked to the inequality debate. The European Pillar of Social Rights presented by the European Commission in April 2017 addresses income inequality more explicitly. The third principle of the Pillar sets out the right to equal opportunities for all. Of the 14 headline indicators in the accompanying Social Scoreboard, one relates directly to income inequality, while several others address policy areas closely related to combatting rising income inequality and providing more equal chances. This Project seeks to address this, in particular by sharing the Good Practices already developed by the partner countries in relationship to Empowerment, Employability and Entrepreneurship training programmes.

EEAR brings together 5 organisations expert in working with the most marginilised and excluded members of society from 4 partner countries: Scotland, Italy, Sweden and The Netherlands. Within this Project we seek to promote Social Inclusion for some of the most excluded members of society by supporting them on their journey of re-integration into vocational training , employment and self-employment by each of the partners sharing our current successful programmes, comparing what works well and areas for development in order to enhance the quality of provision for this specialist group and other disadvantaged groups within society . This will, in turn result in the development of relevant and high-quality skills and competences as the quality of the training programmes will be enhanced and further developed as a result of this Project in all four partner countries.

The Kick off Meeting in Glasgow, will be followed up by an EEAR meeting in Lanciano, Italy, March 1st -3rd. Soon more news.