Siawns Teg has over 10 years experience in setting up and delivering projects that match our aims of supporting people to be part of their community. We have strong working relationships with local partners at educational and community levels, and with over 30 European partners where we share good practice, innovation and experience. There are 3 key issues that we seek funding to progress:
1. Social inclusion. There are many reasons why people do not feel they are part of their community. Sometimes the community does not offer what people need in the way of work, activities, or even opportunities to get involved, and the impact on community members can cause even more social complications. Sometimes too community members do not believe they have the skills and desire to get involved in changes they think are necessary. Projects we have and will be involved in aim to break down the barriers to social inclusion.
2. Learning. There are an increasing number of people in Powys that need different approaches to learning the skills necessary to raise the quality of the local workforce, and the value to the local community. Qualified young people are leaving the area, older and experienced people are being left behind by technological advances, and resources for older people are becoming more stretched. Projects we are and intend to continue being involved in are seeking ways to retain youth in the area, raise the skills set in Powys, and engage youth with older generations to break down obstacles to learning.
3. Employability. Unemployment in Powys is low in relation to other areas, however opportunities for employment can be improved through closer cooperation with business, service providers and trainees. Siawns Teg specialises in Business start-up learning, using social enterprise as the model, which ensures that learners include a social context into their business. Up-skilling employability programmes, based on the direction of employers is a successful development of our training services.
We welcome anyone or organisation to share in our projects. Many European projects come with an opportunity to visit other places and share ideas and practice, thus benefiting people and local enterprises.
Our current projects:
This project ended in late 2014, but the outcomes are still happening. It transferred our Business start-up and Social skills learning course into Europe. We shared our home grown course (created by professionals and Trainees) with educational and other training establishments in Germany, Lithuania, Slovakia and Italy, and with local partners NPTC Group and the Robert Owen Group. The project has proven attractive to educational providers and business starters, and especially people keen to see what business skills they have, so that they can maybe share skills and develop their own business. We adapted the courses and tested them, and ended up with a valuable pathway to work for people seeking to start up their own business, along with a Training for Trainers course, and a variety of engagement tools aimed at attracting learners into a learning environment.
Mobility Hub
We have set up an EU wide digital platform for sharing tools/best practice/info for Traineeships in Child Care. People interested in finding work in Child Care will find them listed on this website along with information on qualification requirements and job profiles. This 2 year project with Italy, Belgium, Sweden and Germany has been a resounding success with an exciting and innovative approach to matching child care qualifications across the partnership, so that people can find work without having to take more qualifications.
ECVET is the tool used in the EU to balance the different vocational levels in similar jobs. This project is similar to the Mobility Hub project above, but looks at Social Care vocational qualifications 2 – 5. It brings some sanity to how each EU country creates a job spec for Social Care posts. The project has just ended, but has gathered some good interest from a variety of educational and European networks. This has motivated us to develop new initiatives for 2015 onwards.
This is a repeat of earlier projects. We recently took 50 students abroad to work towards a level 3 qualification, and gain a great cultural experience. Students went to Spain to work in Social Care and Child Care settings, to Italy to work towards Catering qualifications, and Germany to study Hair and Beauty.
This project takes SET4Work to the next stage. One of the main messages from potential trainees on SET4Work was that there needed to be a more up to date digital access to training, and so we approached the University of Wolverhampton to help us create an app. The project runs until June 2017, and we hope to have a free access to training app for business starters.
Spojená škola, Detva, Slovakia. This is the 7th year for this activity. Students attend various prearranged work placements designed to support their school curriculum. The students see Wales during their free time with visits to historical, cultural and social venues.
We have plans to apply for a variety of European funding opportunities during 2015/16, based on our growing expertise in delivering good quality projects over the last 10 years. The projects will focus on our ability to deliver innovative and supportive learning sessions for people who need a different and consistent structure. We are always seeking local partners involved in employability and social inclusion issues. Just call us.
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