Stärkung der öffentlichen Einrichtungen bei der Unterstützung zur beruflichen Eingliederung von Menschen mit psychischen Problemen und schweren psychischen Erkrankungen

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the mental health of European citizens, referred to as a "second" or "silent" pandemic. Unemployment and economic insecurity further worsen mental health. Considering this and also the high level of competition in the labor market, public and private services need innovative methods and relationships to meet the increasing social needs, mainly related to support in accessing the labor market and improving the employability of people with mental health problems and/or certified mental illness. By sharing resources and best practices within a collaborative European framework the No Limit project aimed at strengthening the capacity of partners to formulate better solutions for the long-term labor-market inclusion of individuals with mental health problems.

The main objective of the project addressed public and social private adult education providers and operators in their crucial role in the creation of sustainable and innovative intervention models. By implementing this project, we wanted to create mutual learning opportunities on a transnational level in order to support the capacity building of adult trainers and actors who are directly working with people with mental health problems or severe mental illnesses. As a concrete outcome, No Limit aimed to develop an innovative model of action for the professional integration of people with mental health problems that can be scaled up and replicated in different European contexts.

Along the common thread of the project, the concept of Peer Learning Visits (PLV) by the European Social Network, the partners went into several exchange and knowledge sharing settings. After a kick-off meeting in Dreieich, Germany and having drafted a learning plan to guide the mutual learning, the Italian partners EXAR and APL hosted the German partners Pro Arbeit and Gaetan on two occasions. The meetings had the purpose of discussing targeted and specialized approaches to sustainable labor market placement of people with mental health problems, exchanging knowledge on the method of Individual Placement and Support (IPS) and on this basis jointly elaborating a transnational model of intervention. Throughout the process employees and experts of each organization who are responsible for implementing the model have been collaborating with the main project members and were trained on the method of PLV. In addition, the project results were shared at the final conference, set again in Dreieich, with interested stakeholders such as employers and SMEs, other adult education providers, representatives from health institutions and other relevant networks such as the Guidance Center for Aging of the District of Offenbach.

Through the peer-learnings between the two countries we wanted to co-design an effective, sustainable and replicable model to innovate and strengthen labor market integration of mentally ill people. In the process we targeted the capacity building of public and non-profit providers and more specifically the improvement of the cooperation between education providers and job centers on the topic of planning measures for the target groups. Important to mention is also the definition of the operator profiles that can be tested, adapted and optimized for other European countries. The project showed as well that the IPS method is an innovative and for other job centers and organizations an attractive one, leading to an enhancement of the partner’s networks, albeit with needed individual modelling to apply to the respective local conditions.