Helping wOmen gain PowEr in their lives

The “Report on the gender perspective in the COVID-19 crisis and post-crisis period”, published by the EU Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, emphasizes “the need for retraining and upskilling programmes for women to take account of shifts in the labour market as a consequence of COVID-19“, stating the concern about higher crisis-related job losses in women-dominated professions and the expectation of prolonged recovery times in femaledominated sections compared to male-dominated ones (European Parliament 20.11.2020). The HOPE project addressed these inequalities by focussing on the needs of women with fewer opportunities (women with interrupted employment, with part-time work, those in charge of childcare/caring for others, victims of domestic and gender-based violence, women with low income, single or divorced women with children), who were especially affected by consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, HOPE addressed also the needs of counsellors in helping professions working in four project countries. Particularly those in three Balkan countries where counselling as a profession is not developed and formal education programs for counselling do not exist.

As there were hardly any counselling structures and services in the Balkan countries, the aim of this project was to prepare and professionalize counsellors for working with the target group of women with fewer opportunities. For this purpose, a toolkit was developed with competence assessment tools tailored to the needs of women with fewer opportunities, together with a manual and a curriculum for newly trained and experienced counsellors. These project materials support counsellors as they work and transfer their HOPE project experience to different contexts, which is especially beneficial in Balkan countries. Another achieved aim was to facilitate women with fewer opportunities access to education, training or employment by assessing and evaluating their informal and non-formal competences, and to promote (re)integration into social and economic systems, avoiding negative long-term consequences for themselves and society. Finally, the aim has been to make all developed materials available as OER in all partner languages and in English, so that all interested stakeholders across Europe and worldwide can use the products, even after the end of the project.

The ProfilPASS competence assessment tool developed by the German Institute for Adult Education was adapted to the needs of women with fewer opportunities. The ProfilPASS for women – We can do it! forms the core element of the developed HOPE-Toolkit, in which already existing competence assessment tools from all partner countries suitable for the target group were systematically compiled. Additionally, accompanying material to the toolkit was developed, including the manual, providing important information and guidelines for working with the toolkit, and the curriculum, including guidelines and content for a training of new counsellors. To support the self-assessment process and the work with the adapted ProfilPASS, a total of 75 new counsellors more the twice as much then planned (30 counsellors) in the project proposal were trained in the use of the toolkit and the ProfilPASS materials. In the testing phase, newly trained counsellors used the materials by conducting a competence assessment with a total of 126 women with fewer opportunities (over 30 in each partner country). Finally, both the training and testing phases were evaluated, and the results were used to finalize the project results.

A comprehensive transnational report was produced containing results from national reports and identifying problem areas, needs and examples of good practices for competence assessment of women with fewer opportunities. Following all partners’ desk research, different tools were selected and compiled in the HOPE-Toolkit (R1-A2). As a central element of the toolkit, the ProfilPASS - ProfilPASS for women – We can do it! was created by DIE to fulfil identified needs of the target group. Accompanying materials were created to support the use of the toolkit. These are the curriculum (R2-A1), providing detailed information on the training of new counsellors, and the manual (R2-A2), offering guidance on how to work with developed materials (PR1) to support counsellors in their counselling work. All materials are available on the HOPE website as Open Educational Resources (OER) in all partner languages and in English, so that all interested parties can use them across Europe and worldwide. In 2023, the training for a total of 75 new counsellors (R2-A3), took place in-person and online. Subsequently, 126 women with fewer opportunities in the testing phase (R1-A3) received a comprehensive competence assessment using the developed materials.