Mental disorders are highly prevalent in Europe and impose a major burden on individuals, society and the economy. Family caregivers play a central role in the care of persons with severe mental illness. The majority of caregivers live with the illness of their affected relative 24 hours of the day, each day of the year, and they spend, according to a survey, an average of 6 to 9 hours per day providing care. Despite their important role, caregivers frequently feel undervalued by the health care system. Research shows that family members who provide care to individuals with chronic or disabling mental conditions are themselves at risk. Emotional, mental, and physical health problems arise from complex caregiving situations and the strains of caring for frail or disabled relatives. In most EU countries the support of family caregivers concerns mostly financial and insurance aspects. Apart from information in monetary or insurance matters, family members are left alone without the possibility to get instant access for social and psychological support. Therefore, the overall objective of this project was to empower family members as caregivers and to give them instant and easy-to-understand access not only to relevant medical information, but also to psychological support for their own needs, and to give them self-confidence and patients competence in their caring for family members with mental illness.We developed a Guide and a Resource Pack to support caregivers. The Guide provides secure quality information, support, and resources for family caregivers of patients with chronic mental diseases and cognitive conditions for the following mental disorders:• Dementia and Alzheimer• Substance abuse• Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders• Depression and bipolar disorder• Post-traumatic stress disorder• Intellectual disabilities• ADHD• Autism• Eating disordersThe Family Caregivers Support Resource Pack has been designed as interactive e-learning course. Each of the nine modules consists of various units for each of the above mentioned disorders: • Understanding the disorder• Concerns of the caregiver• Role of nutrition• Activities for the caregiver• Activities for the care receiverThese contents are available at the e-learning platform in the languages of the partnership (English, German, Italian. Greek, Portuguese, Croatian, Slovak, Slovene) and also in Arabic and Pashtun. In this way, the project reaches also refugees, asylum seekers and migrants who have no or only little command of the host country’s language. Moreover, access to the Resource Pack is also possible through a multilingual mobile app. The primary target groups for our project are adults who are caring for a family member with mental disease. The secondary target group have been people working in health and social care organisations who can inform family caregivers about the existence of our Guidelines and Resource Pack or use the materials in their information and counselling activities. Also refugee and migrant counsellors belonged to this target group, as they can disseminate the materials among their clients. The stakeholders were the key actors in public health care and institutions dealing with migrants and the integration of refugees. During the lifetime of the project, i.e. from November 2018 until December 2020, the consortium organised more than 400 dissemination activities. More than 90,000 people were reached through online dissemination activities, while almost 5,000 people received printed project material, and more than 2,500 persons were reached in face-to face meetings or lectures. In addition, the project was presented at exhibitions or fairs with a total of 64,000 visitors. Two newspapers reported about the Family Caregiver Support project, with a total of more than 650,000 readers.

The integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in counselling and therapy is yet an incomplete process. The only activities pursued up to now in this area have been related in most of the cases to applications of personal computers for emails and internet tools. Counsellors and therapists still rely almost exclusively on traditional talking and interaction with their clients (“the couch”). While this approach may still lead to satisfactory results with adults, especially older persons, there is a growing danger that the younger generation, the “digital natives”, may not be reached to the full extent. They have a fundamentally different communication behaviour that makes the various Web 2.0 communication tools (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, Skype, etc.) to a daily extension, or complement, of their oral communication. Therefore, any counselling and therapy for the younger population that seeks to be successful should eventually include ICT based activities between the expert and the client. The Therapy 2.0 project raised the awareness of the potentials of ICT based approaches in therapeutic and counselling processes. It produced concrete and tangible results that can be incorporated immediately into counselling and therapeutic practice, and support practitioners to make sure that the lack of full visual or verbal communication that occurs over video or email does not negatively affect how the message of the therapy is received by the client. It provides a practical guide to the different ways in which technology can be used in therapeutic work. It shows best practice examples that go beyond e-mail and internet chat, video-link and stand-alone software packages, and includes mobile applications for smartphones. In addition, it reflects on vital ethical, theoretical and practical considerations for practitioners that include safety and data protection issues. Such approach is also needed in handling new challenges rising from refugees and migrants. With Therapy 2.0 tools and materials, counsellors will be able to reach this new target group, i.e. young and / or unaccompanied refugee minors. Most of them, specifically young women, have made traumatic experiences and many of them suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder in various degrees. Their most important communication tools are smartphones. Given the fact that their language levels of the host country language are often still poor, conventional “speech counselling” needs a complementary approach that uses the media where these young people are at home.The most important outputs of the project are -Therapy 2.0 Guidelines that enable social, pedagogic and psychologic counsellors, advisers and therapists to transfer their face-to-face skills to the online environment, and to deliver counselling or therapy services via digital technologies. They explain the integration of mobile devices in the counselling and therapeutic process, considering how their technological features support client activities like behaviour assessment and informal mobile learning. Another important aspect is to approach the socio-cultural levels of “digital natives” and how to make sure that they accept the therapist’s or counsellor‘s advice.-Therapy 2.0 best practices collection and training materials as a complement to the Guidelines offering a modular range of awareness raising, training and demonstration materials for therapists and counsellors-The Therapy 2.0 e-platform supports the delivery of all materials of the project and make online interactive tools such as forums, blogs, social networking applications and chat rooms possible, while it is combined with the project’s website. The online platform can be used both as a means of disseminating the project outcomes and as a virtual learning environment. -Mobile applications for counselling and therapy processes that provide greater validity since data are collected in the client’s natural environment. The apps support the delivery of a set of counselling and therapy actions that is regarded suitable for transfer to mobile devices. They are used as a virtual information and learning environment as well as a means of disseminating the project features. The partnership comprises a multi-disciplinary team of mental health and social counselling organisations, education and pedagogic expert partners as well as ICT and multimedia specialists. The European dimension is achieved by the fact that the partnership reaches from South (Greece) to North (Germany) and from East (Croatia) to West (Portugal). The project therefore developed Guidelines, best practices collection, and training material in localised solutions for the seven partner countries, with the ultimate objective to integrate ICT based counselling into vocational education for psychologists, therapists and counsellors.

In the past decades, the philosophy of the European welfare state included the objective to help people in need, in which a common attitude was to take over responsibilities of people in needwhenever they weren’t able to solve their problems themselves. The focus was not in the first place to increase the independence of people in need but to help them participate more adequate in society. Rendering help was paramount, in which the professional was the expert. The drawback of this development became apparent during the last few decades: A part of the welfare state cracked because of the expanding costs of professional support to families. Reducing the expenses of the state and making the welfare system more flexible became a necessity. The organization of the welfare state is being reviewed, and professionals have to render help in a different way with lower costs, with a stronger focus on strengthening families and training citizens to become less dependent of professional help.The FamilEU project aspires to integrate the potential of digitally-mediated social environments into the fostering of innovative learning communities for the EU Citizens. FamilEU is an online training package to build the capacity of adult member of families with socio-economic problems to act as social workers. It focuses on providing training to adult members of families with some social or economic problems and by doing this improving social inclusion and participation of citizens, as promoted in Horizon 2020. The core product of FamilEU is a digital training toolkit for adult trainers and professionals who work in the areas of family care, with the aim to provide training to family members, in order to enable them in their turn to provide a peer to peer support to members of their families who are in need, facilitate their (re) integration both in the society and in the labour market where appropriate. FamilEU is built on an online e-learning platform, which hosts online training modules, social network applications and information material in order to provide internal support to their family members in need. Additionally, FamilEU is also available through a mobile platforms application. The FamilEU Online Curriculum consists of eight modules that have been identified based on the Transnational FamilEU State of the Art and Gap Analysis Report. They cover the following areas:Basic Principles of Social WorkCommunication & CollaborationFamily IssuesHealth IssuesMigrants & IntegrationLabour Market & EntrepreneurshipFinancial IssuesDigital LiteracyThe basic units of each module have been translated into all partner countries languages, while the subsequent units are available in English.The consortium of the FamilEU consists of eight partners from seven different EU countries. They come from a wide range of backgrounds including training centres, family care centres, research and development centres, and SMEs. The philosophy and the approach of the project is in the same direction of the EU policies and the Horizon 2020: an inclusive, innovative and secure society in which citizens experience social cohesion and possibilities for productivity and employment.

Education and training welcome learners from different backgrounds facing social integration difficulties, with a low level of education and limited employment prospects. Tensions in society interfere with the creation of a favorable learning climate. A growing number of young people are losing their critical attitude by adhering to conspiracy theories and seeking answers in extremist ideologies, most often religious or political. The lack of visibility of positive role models in the media can lead some of them to fall into violent radicalisation.For many experts, teachers and trainers, in direct contact with vulnerable groups and potential targets, are best placed to combat radicalisation.They must be able to conduct their work in a peaceful, non-discriminatory and optimistic environment in order to prevent radicalisation. But they also need to be better prepared to deal with tensions with and between learners. They must be able to detect indicators of radicalisation at an early stage and act appropriately. They must be able to counter conspiracy theories that disrupt the educational process. However, they are not always prepared and all of them do not have easy access to appropriate lifelong learning opportunities. Our aim is to provide teachers and trainers with tools to:- transmit to young people the desire to live and work in a pluralistic society,- create a learning climate favourable to all,- deal with tensions between learners and between groups of learners,- detect indicators of radicalisation,- identify who is at risk and how to help those in need of support,- to reduce racism and xenophobia.The partnership brings together 9 organisations from 9 different countries to cover different radicalisation contexts. They are all active in the education, training and youth sectors.Based on an analysis of needs in each country, we have developed guidelines and a set of resources to intervene with groups of young people facing difficulties, with social, cultural and religious differences generating risks and tensions. These resources include theoretical and practical elements, case studies to prepare for different situations and pedagogical activities to be implemented in the classroom, usually with a view to preventing radicalisation.Guidelines and resources are available in 9 languages (DE, EN, ES, FR, IT, GR, PT, RO, SL). They are organised on the multilingual platform www.allo-tolerance.eu providing open and free access, without registration. The whole was tested in real situation in all participating countries in order to validate the concept, to improve its ergonomics and to propose actions for the future, the platform being designed to easily add new contents and to facilitate exchanges.

CONTEXTThe provision of learning mobility opportunities – through Erasmus and other programs – has been an exceptionally successful initiative of the EU. Yet, even though the number of international mobilities has been steadily increasing, disadvantaged groups continue to be relatively less likely to participate in them. After 2020, the Erasmus program plans to focus on creating more mobility opportunities for disadvantaged groups. However, making mobility more inclusive requires additional efforts for the preparation of disadvantaged participants, as these learners typically face multiple (often mutually reinforcing) challenges and constraints that prevent them from fully benefiting from the experience.The project is based on the rationale that suitable training resources need to be developed to prepare disadvantaged learners for implementing and benefiting from mobility. Specifically, the project proposes to introduce game elements into the mobility preparation training experience.PARTNERSHIPThe project is a joint initiative of a VET provider, an organization active in mobility, 2 public authorities responsible for education, a technical university and an institute specialized in working with disadvantaged and disabled persons. These six partners represent four European countries: Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey and Slovenia.TARGET GROUPSThe project is mainly targeted at:-VET learners exhibiting mild to moderate learning difficulties that lead to low achievement-VET learners belonging to socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, including minorities and migrants-VET learners in remote and rural areas-Organizations and educators working with disadvantaged learners.THEMATIC FOCUSThe project activities concern VET in the field of tourism and hospitality.OBJECTIVESThe project’s overall objective is to promote the participation of disadvantaged tourism and hospitality VET learners in learning mobility and training placements abroad and to enhance their capacity to benefit from the experience, specifically by facilitating their effective training and preparation prior to the mobility.The specific objectives are to:-Develop an effective training curriculum for the preparation of disadvantaged tourism and hospitality VET learners prior to their participation in learning mobilities-Develop a gamified e-learning training program for the mobility preparation of disadvantaged tourism and hospitality VET learners-Raise awareness and develop comprehensive guidelines for educators and VET providers looking to organize effective international mobilities for disadvantaged learners.MAIN ACTIVITIES AND RESULTSIntellectual outputs:- IVET and CVET mobility preparation training curricula for disadvantaged learners- Gamified mobility preparation e-learning training program- Educators’ toolkit on facilitating mobilities for disadvantaged learners and introducing innovations and gamification in mobility preparation trainingDissemination events:- Gamification Co-Design workshops and Pilot Mobility Preparation Trainings for disadvantaged learners and their teachers (respectively, 45 and 75 participants)- Dissemination conferences for 140 representatives of target groups and stakeholders METHODOLOGYGamification refers to the integration of game elements and mechanics in e-learning. Gamified learning has a number of advantages that can make a difference with any learner, but especially so with disadvantaged learners. It requires active learning, increases motivation and engagement, allows the learner to experiment and fail without negative consequences, allows for micro-learning in the case of short attention spans, facilitates instructional scaffolding to reflect each individual learner’s needs and is appealing to the new generation of ‘digital natives’. Due to the above advantages, the project opts for a gamified e-learning program over conventional instruction. The benefits of gamification will be augmented by relying on non-conventional learning resources, such as multimedia and situational judgement tests.EXPECTED IMPACTSThe project will target VET providers, educators and learners at local level, and regional public bodies responsible for education at regional level. At national and international level, it aims to raise awareness of the benefits of providing mobility preparation training for disadvantaged learners.The project is expected to have the following impacts:Short-term:-improved process of preparation and organization of learning mobilities for disadvantaged persons-introduced focused and effective preparation training for mobilities in the areas of tourism and hospitality-more mobility opportunities for disadvantaged learnersLong-term:-improved international competencies and employability of disadvantaged learners-increased internationalization of VET-increased willingness of VET educators to use gamification in the learning process