VISION - Visualising the Future Through Training

<< Background >>The project was applied for to address significant educational and vocational training deficits among prisoners. The primary needs identified include:- Lack of Qualifications: About 47% of adult prisoners report holding no qualifications.- Educational Failure: A significant percentage (42%) had been permanently excluded from school.- Employment Issues: 13% of prisoners reported never having been employed.- Learning Disabilities and Difficulties: There's an estimated prevalence of learning disabilities and difficulties among prisoners between 20% and 52%.- Low Participation in Educational Programs: The participation rate in educational programs within prisons is typically below 25% across many European countries.These issues underline the necessity for targeted Vocational Education and Training (VET) programs to help prisoners gain essential skills for employment and to facilitate their successful reintegration into society post-release. The project aims to leverage Virtual Reality (VR) technology to create realistic training scenarios that can enhance the learning experience and outcomes for the incarcerated individuals.<< Objectives >>The VISION project was designed with several key goals in mind. First, it sought to enhance prisoners' engagement with Vocational Education and Training (VET) programs by developing immersive virtual reality scenarios that could make course enrollment and participation more appealing. The project also aimed to bolster the educational and vocational skills of prisoners to better prepare them for labor market integration upon their release. Additionally, the initiative focused on supporting the successful reintegration of prisoners into society, aiming to reduce recidivism rates by providing them with the necessary skills to secure employment. An important component was improving the capabilities of trainers and educators by developing a comprehensive training program that utilizes VR technology to meet the specific needs of prisoners. Lastly, the project planned to engage a significant number of stakeholders, professionals, and prisoners in its activities to ensure broad impact and foster collaborative efforts across the participating organizations.<< Implementation >>All the proposed activities in the VISION project application were successfuly implemented. Specifically:WP 1 – Project Management: a transversal set of activities lasting the entire project lifespan and include those to ensure project and risk management, communication and evaluation; Activity 01-1: Development of mapping frameworks: motivation assessment and enrolment strategies (brief literature overview) Activity 01-2: Development of data collection design process and roll-out Activity 01-3: Motivation assessment and enrolment strategies online tool WP 2 – Research & Development: a set of activities that ensure coherent development of the proposed solutions according to the current unmet needs, both national and international and the setup of the prototypes for further piloting experience (PR1 and PR2); Activity 02-1: Selection VR suitable software for scenarios design Activity 02-2: Selection of VET priorities for scenarios design Activity 02-3: Development of VR scenarios and outcome analysis grid Activity 02-4: Piloting and fine-tuning VR resource WP 3 – Users’ Guides and Training Manuals: to ensure the proper suitability, usefulness, transferability and accessibility, it will be necessary to develop training manuals, pilot the training, including delivering the prototyped solutions (PR1 and PR2) to end-users (prisoners) and support their transition (PR3 and PR4); Activity 03-1: Review on VR resource piloting and manual structure designActivity 03-2: Drafting the Manual: definition of requirements, selecting information and co-designing guidelines and instructions Activity 03-3: Piloting with professionals (different from the first pilot) Activity 03-4: Fine-tuning VR resource manualWP 4 – Dissemination and Exploitation: based on the project’s PRs, the VISION partnership will focus on PRs sustainability: embedding on their daily activities and/or delivering knowledge, experience and practices transference actions pursuing project potential mainstreaming. Activity 04-1: Review pilots from PR2 and PR3 (PR 04-2: Design the ToT) Activity 04-3: Piloting with professionals (same from other PR) Activity 04-4: Fine-tuning ToT programme<< Results >>In line with the activities implemented in the project, the following results and outputs were obtained:PR1 – Mapping Inmates Motivation Assessment and Enrolment Strategies- UBI developed and created a web tool to map and access the inmates motivation and enrolment preferences in VETs. The Tool can be found in : https://tool4vision.com/- IPS contributed to the tool translation and peer review.- Additionally, IPS has revised the tool (testing it internally) in its different development phases, providing feedback for fine-tuning it (Activity 01-2).- As stated in the project application, IPS developed a report, with the collaboration of UBI, reviewing the empirical literature background about inmates’ motivation and adherence to vocational education and training, then explaining the developed tool (components and benefits) and its different step-by-step functionalities.- The tool was tested through a real test pilot by all the partners, and a report is annexed with a step by step guide and an analysis to the survey answered by the pilot participants.PR2 – Enrolment and motivation Virtual Reality resource- Discussions and decision-making about the best software and hardware systems capacity and specifications, security requisites and trainer’s IT level took place (Activity 02-1). All decision made took into account with the partnership validation.- InKlusion Entertainment (https://inklusion.pt/) was subcontracted for the VR scenario’s development. This company is specialist in VR development. UBI and QUALIFY JUST - IT SOLUTIONS AND CONSULTING LDA (aka IPS) monitored all the development and worked in collaboration with InKlusion during the development phase.- After a collection of the prison VET offers in each country by UBI and partners, IPS contributed to reducing this list by analysing exactly which offers were the most common in all countries (Activity 02-2), resulting in kitchen and hospitality being chosen as the VET area for VR training. Specifically the following areas were selected: cooking, bakery and pastry, kitchen health safety and catering assistance.- Four storyboards were written by IPS and supported by images, in a user-friendly language and as much as interactive as possible (Activity 02-3). Each storyboard was sent to partners to provide feedback/validation and translation, for then Greta du Velay to record it with a 360 degrees camera. The recorded videos were sent to InKlusion for VR editing and added interaction and immersion. - After all videos were recorded, partners were asked to internally test the equipment and the scenarios, in which after fine-tuning took place for some scenarios. A pre-pilot was also done with prison VET professionals (at the staff training in Italy and online) about the VR solution in order for them to assess its usability, functionality, design, performance, and overall satisfaction.- IPS developed the assessments for the pilots in each country (Activity 02-4) in order to evaluate participants’ interest and motivation in relation to receiving VET education/training in the kitchen and hospitality sector. These assessments included informed consent, pre-and post-test with the motivation questionnaire (developed within PR1) and the certificate of participation. Partners piloted PR2 in each country, sent the data in a collection spreadsheet for IPS, which in turn analysed the data and developed a report for fine-tuning. The results of the PR2 pilot are annexed.PR3 – VR Resource User Manual- IPS developed the structure of the VR user manual, specifically each module and chapters’ contents. After sharing with partners for feedback and validation of the structure, IPS began working on each module and, as each chapter was finalised, also sent these to partners to gather feedback and validation.- After each module validation, IPS proceeded to send to partners automatic translations to be peer-reviewed.- The final version of the manual was sent to different prison professionals by partners and feedback was collected to assess the manual’s effectiveness and utility. The results of this assessment is annexed.PR4 – Train the Trainers (ToT)- Based on the pilots implemented previously on PR2 and PR3 (Activity 04-1), as well as the STJST and MEs, IPS developed the e-learning course structure, dividing it by modules, chapters, activities, resources and feedback surveys (Activity 04-2). Each module represented each of the project’s PR and results. After partners’ validation, IPS worked on the course by developing complete scorms for the multimedia contents, reports, activities, etc., for the theoretical contents. - ALLI reviewed the guidelines for the synchronous sessions that IPS sent in order for partners to organise their sessions with potential participants if this was their case. - IPS managed the online course by adding all of the content and resources in each language, adding the participants from different countries for the pilot (Activity 04-3), sending reminders for them to finish the course, and finally developed a detailed report about the course and the participants’ feedback (its structure, utility, format, usefulness, etc.). Fine-tuning took place based on the participants’ feedback (Activity 04-4).Transnational Project Meetings:In total 8 transnational project meeting (TPM) were organized, five meetings were online and three in the format of face to face.- The first (project Kick-off), the 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th TPMs were all online.- The 2nd TPM was organized and done in Lisbon, Portugal on 22 and 23 of May 2022.- The 4th TPM was organized and done in Barcelona, Spain on 16 and 17 of January 2023.- The 8th TPM was organized and done in Iasi, Romania on 11 and 12 of March 2024.Multiplier Events:Each partner organized national seminars, called, multiplier events. These events aimed to disseminate the VISION project background, findings, and products at the national level. Additionally, partners promote the exchange of good practices between professionals engaged in VET, trainers, prison educators, NGOs, prison officers, educational institutions, local and central public bodies and agencies, and any pertinent national multi-agency stakeholders. More detail on MEs on the dissemination report and Vision website: https://www.visionvrproject.org/. Staff Training Events: Two staff training events were organized. The first was organized and hosted in Covilhã, Portugal, from 22 to 25 of May 2023. - The training centered around introducing the innovative virtual scenarios developed by the VISION project. These scenarios have been designed to inspire and motivate inmates to actively participate in vocational/educational programmes. We focused on key areas such as commercial cooking, bakery and pastry, catering clerk & operator, and health and safety. The participants enthusiastically engaged in practical sessions within the cooking scenario and provided invaluable feedback that will guide our ongoing improvement efforts. One of the highlights was the testing of a tool developed by the VISION project for assessing inmates’ motivation and devising effective strategies for their enrolment in suitable training opportunities. We successfully tested the tool in multiple languages, igniting a stimulating discussion among participants.The second staff training event was organized and hosted in Pietramontecorvino, Italy, from 9th to 12th of October 2023. -The training introduced participants to an online learning management platform, employing a blended learning approach aimed at inspiring inmates toward Vocational Education and Training (VET) paths. Beyond the enriching training sessions, this event provided an opportunity for collaboration among project partners and offered a glimpse into IRFIP’s cutting-edge laboratories in Troia.Dissemination:- This activity lead by IPS aimed to disseminate the project, its results and events throughout its 3 years on its social networks. IPS developed a final report on all partners dissemination actions.- All project information can be consulted in: https://www.visionvrproject.org/