Valueable Safety at Work

"<< Background >>WHY THIS PROJECT People with intellectual disability -ID- (0,1% of EU citizens) are discriminated and marginalised. Pandemic has worsened their condition and their digital exclusion is even more evident. The e-learning about Health and Safety at work, developed whitin this proposal and included in the set of tools aimed at supporting a successful job inclusion, helped them to get basic skills at home or at the training centre with their tutors, increasing their employability also with a facilitated access as trainees or workers in the hospitality companies of the Valueable network, with internships duly prepared and managed. NEEDS ADDRESSED When employed, workers with ID are among the most vulnerable. There are almost no examples of Health and Safety training being provided to workers with ID in a manner they can understand. Vocational training for people with ID has been carried out exclusively through face to face or on the spot activities. The lock-down period has highlighted how the time ""suspended"" both in training and at work could be quickly turned into digital mode. However, people with ID have been struggling to cope with the poor or total lack of accessibility to digital education, particularly in vocational training.<< Objectives >>OVERALL OBJECTIVEPromoting the social and professional inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities especially, but not only - in hard times of pandemic, when they risk to be further marginalised. PURPOSEEnhancing the access of at least 84 European trainees/workers with ID to VET and employment in the hospitality sector, through a tailored and digitalised vocational training spread by the Valueable network.<< Implementation >>ACTIVITIES1) Design and development of the e-learning course on “Health and safety at work” in easy to understand format, addressed to (potential) workers with ID and available in 8 languages (English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Croatian, Hungarian, Turkish).2) Field testing of the e-learning course by trainees/workers with ID, through internships and/or job placements at Valueable hospitality companies on a local level and abroad. METHODS1) Development of the PROJECT RESULT: background analysis, design of the structure of the course and presentation at the kick off meetinting to the consortium, shared development of the prototype of the course, readability analysys of the contents of the course through Readability Analyzer, digitisation of the course in e-learning, field testing and its evaluation, final release of the e-learning course. 2) TESTING through internships and work experiences of people with ID at local level (minimum 3 months) and abroad (3 weeks), in hospitality companies, with decreasing tutorship. 3) VOCATIONAL TRAINING ACTIVITIES which: a) deploy digital tools and methods to deliver quality and inclusive education (e-learning course in easy to uderstand language) b) incorporate digital online technology into subjects pecific (health and safety at work) training and work-based learning.4) Use of easy-to-understand (ETU) resources for people with ID. English ETU contents of the e-learning course have been analysed through the Readability Analyzer a specific software, to measure contents readability, usability and accessibility by the most commonly indexes used for analyzing English-language texts, such as: Flesh Reading Ease and Gunning Fog Scale Level (both indexes examine the number of syllables and sentence length), SMOG Grade (concerning the number of years of education required to comprehend the text under consideration) and Dale-Chall Score (dealing with lexical complexity, based on a corpus of words that can be defined as simple).<< Results >>PROJECT RESULT The e-learning “Health and safety at work” course, in easy-to-understand language/format, in 8 languages (English-master,Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Hungarian, Croatian, Turkish), tested by 132 people with ID (expected: 84 people with ID, meaning 12 testers with ID per 7 VET provider) and 30 tutors, from 9 European countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Hungary, Croatia and Turkey which are all part of the consortium, plus Ireland and Malta who joined the extented testing).OUTCOMES AND IMPACTPeople with ID: a) increased empowerment, b) increased digital skills, c) increased job inclusion opportunities. VET providers: a) increased competences in supporting job inclusion of ID workers, b) increased digital educational skills.Hospitality companies: increased knowledge and awareness on ID-related issues. LONG-TERM BENEFITS a) Long-term more effective VET of people with ID. b) Long-term improvement of attitudes of different stakeholders (hospitality managers and entrepreneurs, employees and citizens in general) towards people with ID."