Skillability is a in initiative which is based on project partners' expertise, shared values, commitment to equal opportunities and to design and development of innovative education-based solutions. We are well aware of the specific challenges that many people with disabilities need to overcome in their lives. Many such challenges are in the focus of national and regional policy measures, and within the EU there are a number of common frameworks on coordinated policies and strategies. With Skillability, we are addressing a niche group withing the wider group of people with disabilities: people with talents or skills which can, if supported, become for them an additional source of financial income, contribute to the development of entrepreneurial attitudes, open the road to greater financial independence, reduce the reliance on the social systems, facilitate the return to formal or non-forma education and training systems, provide direct opportunities for digital training in developing new skills and partial qualifications, extend their contact and social networks, help reduce the impact of inaccessible physical enviroment and geography-based challenges.We intend to create a digital platform where people with disabilities can present their talents, skills or products for the visitors of the platform - individuals and businesses - to purchase or to support in other ways. The platform will be people-centric with its main property being a solid centerpiece of a wider and more comprehensive support infrastructure. This infrastructure will consist of specially-deisgned digital training courses focusing on: Personal presentation skills, Digital sales, Product presentation (incl. copywriting, graphics and video), Terms of service in the digital world, Remote services, Logistics and delivery (National/International), Pricing and promotion, and a range of additional topics and subjects which will come up from the direct work of our organisations with the target group of the project. The platform will be focused on bringing the two parties in a typical marketplace together, but in a spirit of support and common purpose. No payments will be made through the platform - all purchases and other support will pass through other standard secure channels for this, and Skillability is not designed to be a commercial platform.We will develop a comprehensive methodology for individual needs' assessment and for designing individualised training paths for each Skillability platform member. A team of trained mentors in each country will then work with interested people and help them on the platform. We expect that this work will also include the various stakeholders in this very specific field - these could be parents or other family members, the immediate support network of the candidate, their case social worker, their doctors, physical or occupational therapists. We will then, based on a thorough assessment and the personal plans and aspirations of each participant, carry a complete training needs analysis and develop an individual training path for them. The training will be a product of the collaboration between key licensed education and training institutions and organisations who have joined the project, and who stand by to develop further digital training courses and resources for Skillability based on the aggregated results from all training needs analyses.To further support the Skillability initiative participants, we will carefully construct and anthology of stories, successes and failures, personal stories and achievements. This will be used to shed light on the potential, on the capabilities, and away from the disability. We expect that such a collection can have an imprtant inspirational and motivational effect for many others - in particular in countries and societies where a disability is still largely a drive for stigmatisation, or where there are still significat obstacles - physical and otherwise - to successful and seamless integration of all people with disabilities in the economical, social, cultural and educational systems.

Literacy and numeracy are fundamental skills for the human development as it enables people to live meaningful lives and contribute to their communities and in society. Research shows that low literacy and low numeracy are often connected. These skills are all essential for learning, as learning is mediated through texts and the use of numbers. In Europe, one in five 16-65 year-olds have poor reading skills. In Europe it is estimated that around 55 million adults between 16 and 65 years old have to deal with these difficulties. Research shows that Europeans between ages 26-35 ranked highest in low literacy, followed by those aged from 16-25, than by those aged 36-45 concluded by 46 years and older. This group can be seen as a group that also has the most interest and advantage by gaining digital, literacy and numeracy skills especially. People coping with these difficulties often also lack proficiency in digital skills. They already have problems with reading simple texts, retrieve simple facts, or make straightforward judgements and they are not able to deal with longer or more complex texts. The EU representatives in this project partnership will therefore create a modern and innovative platform - The RED platform (“Reinforce Europeans Digital, literacy and numeracy skills”) which provides an individual baselinetest to detect low literacy and low numeracy, educational materials regarding these topics, materials to present (via video, audio incl. concepts) the ‘digital’ services of social and public (governmental) organisations and provides a roadmap, in which all social and public (governmental) organisations in the local region applicable for this target group are categorized, can be found and contacted. This means the RED platform will be set-up as an innovative instrument, which teaches digital skills, tackles low literacy and low numeracy to finally increase social participation and empower the target group! These materials will be put on the platform, where by means of simple icons (or pictograms), and using the 'flipped classroom' method (whereby online classical instructions are offered in videos with voice explanation, written concepts and additional materials This three-dimensional approach (a combination of a voice-over, screen recordings such as the cursor of a mouse moving across the screen or clicking on something, and reading basic language concepts) will be offered online on the RED platform for all socially relevant themes that remain inaccessible (in all completeness) for the low literate, low numerate and low digitally proficient audience. By being able to hear the explanation, see and read, but also to continuously repeat (replay), stop when necessary and use it at any time and place - the information suits this group very well and is more sustainable! Finally, the explanation of each part will also be provided in a hand-out (with the focus on the same icons, images, language concepts and narrative) presented as a download-able file on the platform. The innovative nature of the RED platform is that this platform provides information in threefold and empowers the target group namely regarding their self-sufficiency. Not one platform offers the combination of the following elements, including the focus on self-sufficiency, autonomous learning opportunities, commitment and reinforcement. A European offer for this target group, including all relevant stakeholders and information on this level is not provided yet. Eventhough this problem is recognized all across Europe and it is therefore important to develop a format throughout Europe that can be applied, offered and maintained throughout this union of course with a local / regional and national subject implementations on low literacy and numeracy and digital skills development can be used directly because they are international.

We live in a world which is increasingly governed by information. It flows in every direction and imprints on every aspect of our professional and social lives. Information is also the key ingredient in education and training. This is why it is very important that we can rely on its accuracy so that we can make our decisions, form opinions, produce arguments, participate in positive debates. Yet there are those who, willingly, produce disinformation. Their objective is to deceive, to confuse, to spread fear and uncertainty. And there are others who, unwillingly, help them by repeating what they believe is true, spreading disinformation. And form opinions which are misinformed, and, ultimately, believe things that are not true to be true. We believe that education and training contexts should be free from misinformation and disinformation. And that we should try and find ways to avoid being consciously or unconsciously manipulated. That's why we created De Facto. It is our way of putting science in service of educators to improve the quality of teaching and learning. This is an oversimplification of very complex processes which Cognitive Science has began to understand in the last few decades, but which remain unknown to the wider audience. Cognitive science tells us how our brains receive and process information, how they decide which information to keep, and which to reject, which are the factors that weigh in when we decide whether to believe an information or its source, how our brains make a lot of decisions for us and without us even consciously knowing that this is happening. We have identified four major scientific concepts, the four pillars around which we built our project:> Frames (Batheson, Lakoff)> Systemic Causality (Lakoff)> Motivated Cognition (Hughes, Zaki)> Equivalency and Emphasis Frames (Chong, Druckman).We have developed explanatory texts and examples on these pillars to make them easier to understand, and made sure that these pillars underpinned the entirety of our work on the project deliverables. That brings consistency, reliability, validity and scientific backing to the method. Based on these 4 pillars, we developed a comprehensive resource base and a toolbox for educators which will consist of: - A full-blown Framework with classification of types of misinformation and disinformation, education-related layers, harmful impact assessment, and the Eggshell model for source- and fact-checking - A digital and an analog game demonstrating the detection algorithms challenges and limitations - Disinformation case studies, a rich collection of around 40 individual ready-to-use lesson plans in 7 major categories - Disinformation production kit for leading learners through the mindset and techniques of those who produce disinformation - Guidebook to fact-based reading and teaching with focus on the cognitive science pillars, ready-to-use examples, and a guide on how to use each of De Facto resources and tools - Blueprint for the entire project, so that other professionals can replicate and expand on our work- A set of cognitive cards (digital and printed/paper-based) to assist educators and learners in any activities under the De Facto method We have conducted 4 trainings for educators where we demonstrated the 4 pillars and how they work, and we presented the rich collection of resources and tools which we have developed. We reached directly 43 educators (a total of 87 training mobilities, with participants in C1-C2 also attending the advanced level course (C3-C4). In the Multiplier events, we reached directly a further 268 (with 140 initially planned) educators and stakeholders - 42 in 2 physical events, 226 in webinars. Further, we have started the process of sending these resources and tools directly to adult, SE, HE and VET education and training organisations. We already see that after the educators - when they set a new learning project or assignment - demonstrate how powerful they are, the learners willingly adjust their behaviors and habits with regard to information they receive and produce. We are seeing (albeit in smaller scale due to Covid-19 school closures and restrictions) cascading impact effects on their immediate contact circle (incl. family, friends, local communities). The behavioural change is also very prominent.

The OBJECTIVE of the project is to share good practice among (new) partners in the establishment of sustainable and mutual beneficial relations between people with a labour disability and small and medium enterprises (SME’s). The focus is on WORK BASED LEARNING; This includes workplace experience for the participants as for example the training on hard skills like knowledge on the job as well as soft skills like team work, flexibility, stress reliance, creativity etc. This project will increase the experience of people with a labour disability on the labour market demand. The project will be executed in cooperation with social partners as supplier of the participants and as local stakeholders involved in the project. So, the people with a labour disability will no longer be judged on their disability but on their competences. The main purpose is to increase the employability of this target group by a smoother and more effective move to work transition. A partnership has run a successful project in the Erasmus + called ‘Para-Skills-Competition’ with 6 EU countries in 5 professions (job types: Green Jobs, Hospitality & catering, Electro, ICT and Health & care). They disseminated the results among stakeholders among Europe. Now these stakeholders are so interested that they want to share the good practice by education among the methodology and executing pilots. This will have a great impact all over Europe. The idea is to couple the partners from the first project to a ‘buddy’ country (new introduced in the project) and transfer the knowledge (methodology) and repeat (partly) what has been performed (National and European Skills Competition), which will be described in the application. This project connects to the broader mission of the EU that inclusion and diversity are milestones of an advanced and fair society. In many countries, organisations need to comply with established quotas and must employ people with a disability. In the Netherlands for example, the Participation Law is introduced in 2015, but it seems to be difficult to reach the targets stated in this law (Rijksoverheid (2017) Beantwoording kamervragen over problemen participatiewet). Next to that, the Council of Europe created an Action Plan (2006-2015) to promote the rights and participation of people with disabilities in society. The EU has adopted the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020. But people with disabilities still face many difficulties in finding jobs, due to negative stereotypes, which make the labour market reluctant in employing such people. The Sheltered Workshops (SW) employ people with disabilities and are responsible for the development and guidance of disabled people into the general labour market. The SW need additional support from the society in this task. The SKILLS+ project supports the goals of these political priorities, and addresses some of the key issues leading to what is, in effect, an open discrimination. To realize this, we want to, again, support the SW, the employers, and peer employees in their challenge to create an inclusive society and therefor it is necessary: 1. to improve the knowledge and basic skills training of disabled people and provide them with the skills to enter the open labour market; skill assessment must become fully transparent by use of a INGOTS certificate, which is awarded by ECVET to allow flexibility on the job. People with a labour disability have many skills, but are often poorly certified or not certified at all, due to early school leaving or other social and medical reasons. This enlarges the gap with the labour market, whereas ECVET-compliant and EQF-referenced certification increases the chances on the labour market. 2. to increase the number of working people with a labour disability on the sheltered market by exchanging and sharing knowledge on methods and strategies on a larger scale in EU, preparing these people for the open labour market. This concerns skills training, and connecting and motivating employers. It means, that in all new participating countries in this project, with the help of the experienced partners (1st level), there will be a National Competition in every participating country (experienced- as 1st level and buddy country as 2nd level) and 1 European Competition in one of the participating partner countries. Both including at least 150 participants in total, 1 team existing of 4 persons; 3 participants and 1 buddy. The new participating countries will be directly involved in creating the set-up of 2-5 existing job types competitions, Green Jobs, Hospitality & catering, Electro, ICT and Health & care; at least 40 job coaches/buddies (per profession/per country) will be directly involved in pedagogical advice to the work-based learning/competition process and the assessment of the participants learning outcomes; and 20-40 SME’s/Sheltered Workshops will be involved to enable the work-based learning/competition creation and implementation (incl. judging)