Abstract:

In the past numerous initiatives and projects have been implemented which produced valuable strategies, didactic and methodological approaches, practical tools or learning materials for adult educators who work with disadvantaged groups. They all aim at preventing disadvantaged youngsters from dropping out, at keeping them in the education system, or motivating them to engage again in lifelong learning activities. Many of these valuable tools and methodologies produced by committed practitioners and researchers, however, have never found their way to the users they were designed for: the disadvantaged learner groups and teachers and trainers working in formal and non-formal education institutions.

The project “DEVOTED”, a Grundtvig project funded by the European Commission for Lifelong Learning with its team consisting of partners from the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Romania and Austria, aims at making these materials available in the educational community and taking them to a European area of lifelong learning. Measures of standardization and quality assurance are put in place to guarantee direct usable, result oriented and transparent tools for professionals working with disadvantaged target groups.

The main target groups of DEVOTED are:
•Professionals, involved in teaching, training and guidance of disadvantaged learners
The final beneficiaries are:
•culturally and socially excluded youngsters who have left the educational system without any qualification and thus with very low chances on the labour market.

DEVOTED considers itself to be the first step towards a European Centre of Excellence for teachers and trainers of disadvantaged target groups. To this end, the project collects, standardizes and improves existing good practices in thematic fields like intercultural communication, gender and diversity; social and citizenship competencies; creative skills and ICT competencies.

These good practices can be used to raise awareness and upgrade the competencies of education professionals to improve the teaching and learning process.

After a thorough analysis and selection the good practices will be disseminated
•on the interactive online platform www.devoted-project.eu;
•at regional dissemination meetings in the six countries involved in the project.

The good practices are the first content of the multinational Centre of Excellence for professionals working with disadvantaged target groups, where assertive dissemination and active training will lead to improvement of the quality of the professionals and their working processes. The challenges of the (revamped) Lisbon and Europe 2020 are thus taken aboard within DEVOTED.

The main DEVOTED project’s results and products will be presented at an international dissemination conference in autumn 2011.