The Equal Program has defined a well succeeded practice as "a critical activity or a set of activities, processes, methodologies, where the partners intervene, if not totally, at least a significant part of them, in a complementary skills logic, from where value is produced, that became an adequate product or service to the clients, beneficiaries and users necessities (…) able to be transferred, totally or partly, by other organizations" (Equal, 2003, p.15).
Apart from what was mentioned above, we can summarize the supported employment practice and its characterizing elements, using the EQUAL Program (2003) characterization guide of well succeeded practices.
Practise Characterization:
I – Identification
Title: Supported Employment
Practice’s objectives and aims: supporting insertion and training paths through a balance of competencies, training according to the labour context and guidance, individually and in a network, in the insertion path.
Beneficiaries: youngsters and adults in exclusion situations or social disadvantage situations; education, community mediators and social insertion practitioners.
Partners implicated with practice: schools, councils, organizations and Social Solidarity associations, community locals representative associations, the beneficiaries’ families, social security and justice public services and companies.
II – Practice Construction
The Supported Employment model aims to support public insertion of people in disadvantaged situations into the competitive and open work market. This model proposes, beyond training, support given by the company
21 This is a forum where immigrants associations can work together, discus the problems they face, and solutions to overcome them.
– with a tutor – and support in the community – the supported employment practitioner and its institutional network resources.
The supported employment practitioner’s skills abide to specific training, from which the practitioners learn to operate the whole orientation path, training and work market insertion. These contain: the follow-up process and attending youngsters and adults in exclusion situations, carrying out a balance of competencies process, the support and use of the ICT, skilled orientation option, a tailor-made training design, negotiation with the companies, cooperation with the tutor and trainer, social and personal support of the beneficiaries, during and after insertion, and the work developed within the network through participation of all institutions in a territorial partnership.
To create this practice, there were accumulated experiences of diverse projects implemented with youngsters and socially and economically unprotected groups, as well as projects done at schools with low educational rates of success, among the disabled and network of exclusion.
Beneficiaries’ involvement is done firstly through informal meetings, as well as in other diverse moments, interviews, balance of competencies, leisure or formative ateliers, training sessions, performance and practice in a company context, during insertion. The practitioner establishes a close relationship with the beneficiaries, so that a trust bond and mutual compromise is established, respecting the beneficiary’s self-determination, through negotiation that seeks to adjust the choices and needs of the youngsters to the insertion and training responses that exist in the community.
The methodologies of implementation follow the supported employment model. They essentially use skills matching tools, portfolio skills, and advisory tools for supported employment practitioners, training tools in previously identified fields.
The main difficulties found before the training, were related to schools in terms of ensuring educational success and compulsory education accomplishment (9th grade) by the youngsters; decrease in the possibility of
"stable" work placing, since companies accept traineeships but it doesn’t always correspond to a future job. Another difficulty lies in the receptiveness towards new policies of training and insertion, for several positive experiences could outline legal perspectives for inclusion if these were institutionalized and deliberate. The introduction of a competent method requires the latter to normalize and disseminate, while it could be adapted by others, as it is legally regulated.
As critical factors: the practitioners and institution’s "bureaucratic routines" are pointed out, which often lead them to produce inadequate intervention formats towards target groups. Neither in schools, nor in social services and guidance are there theoretical or evaluative procedures to implement insertion of excluded or unprotected groups. The popular practise is a "speech kit" that is not even perceptible for these public insertion program beneficiaries, that are in a social and economical disadvantaged situation,
and for that reason, do not know or understand the institutional speech and paths. We could say that there are communication difficulties between teachers and students with learning difficulties, as there are understanding difficulties between RSI22 beneficiaries and social reinsertion specialists.
The first contact between practitioner and citizen is crucial, so that a dynamic interaction is developed to foster their insertion in society through an active and responsible citizenship.
The international contributions for the construction of this practice derives from diverse dynamic practise programs carried out over recent years (Horizon I e II, Youthstart, Helios, ECOS, Nautilus, Equal, Supported Employment, etc).
Practise Value and Results, as to the products, the Supported Employment Practitioner’s skills and performance profile are being defined along with the Insertion Practitioner and there is also a Training Package for these Practitioners. These products are validated by EQUAL’S Managing entity. At a daily practice level. At the moment different projects are being carried out in neighbourhoods and schools, and also trainings are happening in RUMO facilities. Apart from belonging to several international networks, it is also important to emphasise the assiduous participation in the local social network,
22 The Rendimento Social de Inserção (Social Insertion Pension) is a special social support subsidy given by the state to families that prove to have serious economical difficulties and its aim is to help their social, community and labour insertion through a minimum financial grant that is part of a wider social insertion state programme.