The aim of the project “Future Improvement of Vocational Education” (further FIVE) is to raise awareness and appreciation of, as well as to increase the attractiveness of vocational education and training. Project FIVE consist of five European vocational education and training centres working with low qualified and unemployed persons.In regard to the European Union Common Strategic Framework 2014–2020, in order to improve the education policy, it is necessary to increase the attractiveness of vocational education and training, as well as to introduce instruments of transparency and recognition. By increasing the attractiveness of vocational education and training it is possible to reduce dropout rate and unemployment.Referring to European education strategy we need to raise attractiveness of vocational education and training in all European countries. All partner countries share the same challenges and this project will provide opportunity to improve our vocational education not only organisations level, but also regional, national and European.The general objective of the project is to research vocational education situation with aim raise awareness and appreciation, to increase the attractiveness of vocational education and training.During the project, we will summarize the vocational education experience of partners as to how to improve the training process and teaching techniques. Final result of project will be development of Vocational Education Improvement Plan. Vocational Education Improvement Plan will consist of research, conclusions and recommendation found during the project. Recommendation how to increase the attractiveness of vocational education and training is our project main result all project partners will share this information to stakeholders during final dissemination activities. Result will be available in English, Latvian, Austrian, Italian and Turkish languages.The main purpose of FIVE is to exchange of good practices and cooperate to increase the attractiveness of vocational education and training centres. Thanks to a European cooperation established by vocational education providers by sharing knowledges to improve the quality, supply, and availability of vocational education.FIVE aim is to develop smart and suitable promotion strategy. In this sense, FIVE is highly innovative in terms of the recognition of learning outcomes and instruments for improving qualifications system and thus the level of employability and integration into the labour market.In this way, one of the activities planned within the project is the research in order to overcome the growing gap between the content of education, educational technology, the structure of the educational sphere. Therefore, it’s important to research vocational educational problem in European level.It is important to gather knowledge, experiences, innovations and promising practices on how to increase VET role and impact in tackling unemployment and successfully overcame bias against VET.Cooperation and exchange of VET centres experiences will ensure new and creative activity working with people at risk of exclusion. Overall, the effectiveness and quality of the services provided by partners is expected to grow, while the involved organisation will become valuable future developers.During the 24 - month project, 5 transnational project meetings will be organized, they will last 2 days each + travel days and there will be 2 participants from each partner country. Each partner organization will host transnational project meeting to present their VET centres.The project activities are Project management; Compare and analyse differences of each partner country vocational education policy guidelines; Exchange of good practices; Vocational Education Improvement Plan; Evaluation and adjustments; Dissemination activities.

The project, according with the principles and recommendations of the 'Bruges Communiqué', was born from the desire to promote internationalization and transnational mobility. It was aimed at responding to the training needs of the staff of public and private VET organizations, educational institutions and company representatives, who had expressed a strong desire to develop transnational cooperation activities and improve their knowledge, skills and ability to implement and manage European mobility projects. The analysis of the needs realized during the project planning phase showed that they wished to know, adopt and apply successful methodologies and tools, already tested at European level by organizations expert in the field. SPREAD was promoted by a partnership of six organizations expert in the field of transnational mobility, each coming from a different European Country: Essenia UETP (IT), the Coordinator, Euroyouth (PT), Europa Training (UK), 3s (AT) , Danmar Computers (PL) and Paragon Europe (MT). Each of these organizations has been involved by virtue of their specific skills with respect to the topics covered by the project. The objectives of the project were: to update the competences and skills of the staff of VET organizations on specific and relevant issues related to mobility; develop and strengthen European networks; increase the capacity of VET organizations to operate transnationally; promote work-based learning through mobility projects. The activities implemented were: six joint staff training events held at European level, aimed at sharing and comparing tools, best practices and methodologies related to the implementation and management of European mobility projects between organizations operating in the VET field. The participants in these training events were n. 3 staff members from each partner organization. Each of the training has been organized and provided by the project partner in possession of specific expertise with respect to the subject of the training. The six topics of the joint staff training events were chosen basing on their relevance for transnational mobility projects: Competences of tutors and mentors; Intercultural issues in transnational projects; ECVET methodology and validation and recognition of competences; ICT tools for the implementation and management of European projects; Quality in mobility projects; Dissemination and exploitation of project results. After each joint staff training event held at European level, each project partner organized, in its Country, a local seminar aimed at disseminating the acquired knowledge and good practices shared at European level. The participants in the local seminars were: the staff of VET Institutes and organizations, Institutes and schools, representatives from local authorities, SMEs, associations, both already active in the context of European mobility projects, and newcomers willing to implement such initiatives. At each local seminar took part at least 15 subjects. At the end of the project a ' Guide of good practices for the implementation of mobility projects' was created, it has been translated in the languages of the partnership, and it is available free of charge on the SPREAD project website as Open Educational Resource. The project 'SPREAD' had the following impacts on the staff of the partner organizations and on the participants in the local seminars: acquisition of new professional skills and updating of the professional profile; improvement of the ability to manage and implement quality mobility projects; increased knowledge, integration and implementation of innovative methods and practices in daily work activities; increasing of the exchange of good practice, comparison and cooperation with other European professionals working in the training sector, particularly in mobility activities. Long-term benefits can be seen in the further application and testing of good shared practices, transferred and disseminated through the project, which will help to improve the implementation of transnational mobility projects.

Adolescence and pre-adolescence are crucial moments for the promotion of mental health and the prevention of mental disorders, taking into account that up 50% of common mental disorders have their onset in adolescence, around 14 years of age. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that, worldwide, up to 20% of children and adolescents suffer from a problem of emotional development or behavior and one out of eight suffer from a mental disorder.The project aims to provide secondary school students the appropriate skills to monitor and manage their level of mental well-being, through the development of a pedagogical tool that will use as a basis the good practices and expertise in the field of mental well-being exchanged among the partnership. Partners will share knowledge concerning mental well being management in school as well as strategies to involve in the best way all the actors that play an important role in the mental well-being of students, i.e. teachers and family members. Project objectives are:1) to exchange good practices for mental well-being management in the school context, in order to collect methodologies aimed at the students’ well-being with the direct support of the actors involved in the well-being and learning process of students i.e. teachers and parents;2) to provide students with tools to manage mental well-being, improve communication skills, increase self awareness and problem solving abilities;3) to produce high quality resources for professionals and improve their competencies to deal with diversified groups of students, making use of new technologies and learner-centered pedagogical approaches.With the active participation of students, the pedagogical resources collected among the partnership will be adapted and transferred to multimedia tools (website, videos, apps), available in 5 European languages, in order to have an innovative and more attractive approach with the target group and cater their needs and expectations.The analysis carried out in the first phase of the project will help to identify the key needs of students while the exchange of good practices will facilitate a more efficient strategy to address target groups’ well-being needs. These results will provide a ground on which build the educational resources and adapt the programme. The training activities targeting teachers will help the first target group to better understand well-being needs of students, the best approaches to operate within school settings and guarantee the well-being of their learners, the use of ICTs in educational contexts. Teachers will deliver focus groups with students in order to identify the most appropriate communication methods for their age group and to develop multimedia material.The pilot course together with the multimedia resources based on the manual will increase students’ psychological well-being and quality of life, thus fostering a healthy environment for teaching and learning. The activities foreseen in the project will produce the following results: - improved learner-centered resources for well-being management in the school context;- improved competencies of teachers/educators in managing mental well-being in school settings by using different approaches and ICT-based methodologies,- increased ability of secondary school students to manage their mental well-being.

Transnational mobility has over the last decade become a household byword in VET policy discussions not only in EC context, but also at national and regional policy level. Nowadays, being increasingly employed as a pedagogical tool in formal and non-formal contexts, issues of quality in mobility become a pressing concern. Although considered quite important it is very difficult to pin down precisely what good quality in mobility actually means. Here comes the correlation between quality and quantity: the more is known about quality and how to achieve it, the more confident and effective organizations can be in their efforts to reach out and offer mobility experience as a meaningful opportunity for strengthening future employability and personal development. According to EC Mobility Scoreboard that monitors progress in IVET mobility based on 10 key action areas, the average EU performance for 2016 in terms of ensuring mobility quality is considered unsatisfactory. As regards partners, only Lithuania and Italy performed very good in mobility quality, followed by Germany and UK classified as performing good, and last in the ranking are Bulgaria and Portugal with no data provided. Given this conceptual problem and relying on EP Resolution of 12 Apr 2016 on Erasmus+ and other tools to foster mobility in VET, STAYMOBIL concept was prompted by the importance of: +a common European education area grounded in a strong mobility component for developing stronger European identity and enhanced citizenship +improving VET mobility programmes so as to deliver added value for all participants as regards qualifications, recognition and content +improving social responsibility (SR) skills as part of mobility learning outcomes. Thus, STAYMOBIL project sets the overall aim to improve quality assurance in transnational VET mobility through socially responsible behavior of all VET mobility actors, thus promoting and further developing quality in mobility and sustaining learning outcomes. Specific objectives ~to provide mobility organizers with an innovative framework to assess, monitor and promote QA and sustainability at all stages of VET mobility ~to foster mobility organizers to verify and continuously improve quality of mobility activities through the development of a new to date practical approach for self-audit ~to enhance applicability and facilitate transferability of the project innovative approach through the provision of a set of recommendations, strategies and good implementation practices ~to enable mobility users to assess their SR performance as essential part of learning outcomes, thus increasing broad awareness of good ethical and socially impeccable behaviour during mobility. Project is aimed primary at: 1.Mobility organisers: +VET institutions, sending and/ or receiving VET learners and staff +Intermediary organizations involved in mobility +Companies providing mobility placements 2.Mobility users +VET learners (apprentices and VET students) +VET staff (teachers, trainers, etc.) 3.VET policy makers at national and EU levels. Within project lifetime 4 IOs will be developed: 1.Reference Framework for Sustainable Transnational VET Mobility setting up a series of quality indicators to assess, monitor and promote QA and sustainability at all mobility stages. 2.Practice Kit aiming to verify, assess and improve the quality of activities provided at all mobility stages based on O1 quality indicators matrix. It will comprise: Guidance Manual for Implementation, Evaluation and Review, Web-based Self-Audit Tool and Progress Portfolio. 3.Recommendations Booklet providing guidelines for applying and facilitating transferability of O1&O2 outside project consortium. It will comprise: Good Practices Dossier; Strategy Cards for Successful Employment of O1&O2 and Tips Packet for Enhancing Transferability. 4.Performance Skillbox serving to raise awareness, evaluate and enhance mobility users’ level of SR before and after mobility as essential part of learning outcomes. To ensure visibility and encourage wider uptake of project IOs a series of multiplier events will be held: 1.Small-scale conferences in 5 partner countries to popularize the project to relevant stakeholders 2.Open Event in Brussels to gain wider publicity of project results and attract the attention of EU authorities and VET related alliances at EU level 3.Final Conference in UK aiming to spread information to a wider audience about the project results, seeking further exploitation of project IOs and follow-up activities. STAYMOBIL project will result in raising the issue about common understanding of ‘quality through SR’, provision of high quality mobility and higher level of satisfaction from the experience, thereby sustained learning outcomes and increased number of mobility organizers and users, contributing to European internationalization of VET organizations in Erasmus+ Programme countries and creation of a genuine European labour market.

ICT is among the leading sectors in Europe making an increasingly important contribution to the economic growth and jobs creation in advanced economies. According to the UK Commission for Employment & Skills Report “ICT: Sector Skills Assessment 2012”:“Technological change is at the heart of changing skills demand in the Information and communication technologies sector. The sector itself both drives technological change and, on a wider scale, has to respond to the new innovations, products and services developed in order to deliver high quality goods and services to both business customers and consumers.” (Gends et al, 2011)”. In order to adequately respond to the dynamic changes and challenges posed by environment, ICT companies must promote human talent so as to nurture not just the best technical skills but also the creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship necessary to create and adopt to innovation and thus to grow ICT businesses and make them more competitive.To respond the new challenges, INNOSPARK project sets the overall aim to spark creativity thinking skills in ICT SMEs, so as to foster innovation and contribute to increasing the growth and competitiveness of European high-tech industries.Specific objectives:~to provide employers and employees in European ICT SMEs with reliable tool to assess their level of creativity skills and identify areas for improvement;~to enhance the competitiveness and the innovation capacity of ICT SMEs in the EU through practical training tailored to their needs;~to increase the awareness of European ICT SMEs and VET community about the importance of creativity thinking as a catalyst of innovation processes through provision of state-of-the-art country analysis;~to inspire ICT SMEs to learn from the successful experience of peer companies which have faced similar sectoral challenges but thrived on knowledge, skills, innovation and creativity.The project has aimed at two major target groups – ICT micro, small and medium sized enterprises and continuing VET providers. SMEs are the true pillar of the European economy as ICT companies represent a highly significant part of them. VET providers, on the other hand, are one of the main and logical providers of labour force training required to enhance the competitiveness of nation’s businesses and industries. The project methodology envisages sequence of activities to design, plan and implement project objectives with the active participation of all partners and stakeholders, as a result of which four intellectual outputs have been developed within the project lifetime:1) State-of-the-art report providing an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of the ICT innovation capacity and creative performance in the partner countries;2) Self-Diagnostic Test - an interactive self-assessment tool for ICT employees and employers to discover the creativity skills they possess especially with regard to the ICT sector identifying at the same time those that they need to develop and boost so as to foster innovation in their work. 3) INNOSPARK Toolkit: Guidebook for Developing Creative Thinking and Innovation in ICT through interactive exercises focused on brain training and improving creativity skills with the purpose of learning practical techniques to stimulate one’s imagination and innovative thinking. The Toolkit will also contain A to Z of Creativity and Innovation techniques and tools for creative thinking.4) Compendium of Best Practices and Innovation containing good proven, effective and evidence-based examples of innovations in the ICT sector reached through creativity thinking techniques. The booklet will serve as a valuable reference tool of the INNOSPARK project for ICT managers and employees seeking to implement successful practices in their professional life.INNOSPARK products are freely accessible through the project website available in the six consortium languages (EN, BG, IT, ES, EE, HU).In order to ensure visibility of the results and encourage wider uptake of the products a series of multiplier events have been held in each partner country:1) Professional Development Workshops to popularize the project to relevant stakeholders and explore the functionalities and content of the developed INNOSPARK products.2) “Sparking Innovation” – national promotional events to disseminate information on the project and its outcomes among ICT SMEs, ICT associations, VET providers in the field of ICT and other stakeholders.3) INNOSPARK Final Conference in UK aiming to spread information to a wider audience about the project and its results, providing networking opportunities for many multiplier agents so as to establish the grounds for further exploitation of the project outputs and follow-up activities.INNOSPARK project has result in attracting new talents, training European citizens with the relevant creativity skills need in ICT sector, and as a consequence fuelling innovation, productivity and growth in the EU.