The EduCoRe project

The EduCoRe project provides patients of rehabilitation centres personal counselling and training to support them

  • to make reflected career decisions
  • to identify the types of further education they need in this specific life  situation to improve their employability and participation in society at large
  • to develop necessary social and personal competences to put their professional and educational decisions into practice

Counselling and training as well as the transfer of information and knowledge serve as methodological base. This combination enables working in a familiar setting considering personal circumstances of patients.

 

Learning activities during rehabilitation

  • Open windows to the outside world
  • Promote reintegration into professional and daily life
  • Can contribute to psychical and physical convalescence.

EduCoRe addresses patients who spend several weeks or months in a medical rehabilitation centre.

 

Career decisions

Making suitable career decisions is important for everyone, but persons who are suffering from physical deficiencies after an accident or illness have to cope with a particular challenge.

These people often have difficulties to return to their former profession, to the labour market and/or their social life in general. The time they spend in a rehabilitation centre for obtaining medical treatment can be used for making decisions on the next professional or educational steps. Due to the range of life- changing aspects caused by their new personal circumstances the affected persons need support in this career decision process.

This is why EduCoRe offers professional educational and career counselling and training to patients of medical rehabilitation centres in Austria, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Slovenia. This tailor-made service supports them to cope with their precarious life situation.

 

Education and training

Some patients have the possibility to return to their former company and job after their medical rehabilitation. This can imply difficulties for the affected person: for example new technologies and procedures may have been established during their absence. So it might turn out in the course of the career planning process that an upgrade of certain skills is necessary.– whether for returning to the former employment or for starting  a new career that reflects the changed health conditions.

During their stay in the rehabilitation centre patients are encouraged to identify education and training courses out of the huge existing offer with the help of experienced trainers. For identifying the right course questions like the following have to be taken into account:

  • What are my vocational aims?
  • Which competences do I need to achieve this aim?
  • What kind of education and training do exist?
  • Which institutions offer such courses?
  • Which financing options exist?

It is never too late to learn – this motto is particularly true in this life situation.

 

Personal competences

Patients in medical rehabilitation centres who are not able to return to their job after an accident or illness need support for reintegrating into social and professional life. This group of persons will be encouraged in the course of the EduCoRe project to identify the types of further education they need in this specific situation to improve their employability. Furthermore, personal competences will be developed and strengthened during the counselling and training process.

Relevant competences include among others:

  • Computer skills
  • Communication competence
  • Dealing with conflict situations
  • Recognition of differences (personalities)
  • Coping with strong emotions
  • Personal working style / style of leadership
  • Avoiding stereotypes / prejudices
  • Personal strengths and weaknesses
  • Behaviour in stress situations

Strengthening such inter-personal competences are to help the learners to increase self-confidence and security in interacting with other people, and thus, to feel well in society (again).

 

EduCoRe Project – Rationale

EduCoRe builds on the experience gathered in the Grundtvig project eHospital (www.ehospital-project.net). This project investigated the potential of hospitals as places of informal learning and of information and communication technologies for patient education. Seven pilot e-learning courses for diverse target groups were developed and tested in six countries.

During these courses a target group with specific educational needs was detected:

Patients who suffer from physical deficiencies after an accident or illness that threaten their employability and participation in society. As soon as they have left the hospital these patients spend several weeks or months in medical rehabilitation centres to receive long-term treatment which aims at removing or at least minimising their physical impairments and thus allowing them to re-enter the labour market and normal life.

Profound rehabilitation includes not only a medical but also a social and a vocational aspect. In many cases, rehab patients need to undergo considerable re-orientation with regard to their career or (further) education. Many rehab patients have to undergo a fundamental reorientation and, consequently re-education before they can return to the labour market. Particularly older patients, who make up a large proportion of rehabilitation patients, take the time-off from their ordinary lives as an opportunity to think about new learning activities which would be beneficial for their personal development.

In the course of the EduCoRe project a tailor-made educational and career counselling process for rehab patients will be developed and tested. It will be supported by e-learning and e-counselling elements.

The experiences that will be gained in the six partner countries during the EduCoRe project will be summarized in a Good Practice Brochure for educators who wish to work in this field.

 

Target groups

The project has five direct target groups:

  • Trainers, programme developers and managers of adult education institutions
  • Staff in career and educational counselling agencies
  • Rehabilitation centres and the bodies which finance and maintain them
  • Authorities, social security and insurance organisations, and other actors in the health sector
  • Researchers on education, counselling  and e-learning

 

Objectives

EduCoRe provides educational and vocational counselling services and training for patients in medical rehabilitation centres. This counselling and training will support them to

  • make thoroughly reflected career decisions
  • identify the types of further education they need in this specific situation to improve their employability
  • develop those personal and social competences which are necessary to put their professional and educational decisions into practice

Thus, rehab patients will be able to reintegrate more easily into the labour market and to actively participate in society after the period of medical rehabilitation.

 

E-counselling and e-learning

The project’s counselling and training approach will be a blended one: Elements of e-counselling and e-learning are integral parts of the service, as information and communication technologies have a high potential for people who are restricted in their mobility or who change their location several times in the process of a medical rehabilitation (hospital-home-rehabilitation centre-home).

Through computer-assisted counselling tools it is possible to provide support all along the rehabilitation process, ideally starting in hospital and finishing when the patients return to their home from the rehabilitation centre.

 

Activities

The following main activities of the project EduCoRe are planned between December 2008 and November 2010:

  • A thorough needs analysis in rehabilitation centresin Austria, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Slovenia will be carried out. To get an overall picture of the specific educational, emotional and social demands patients as well as rehab staff will be approached.
  • On the basis of the needs analysis and with active participation of the target groups the counselling concept and the training materialswill be developed
  • An open source e-learning platformwill be adapted to the needs of the project and its target groups.
  • In a survey existing e-counselling services for various target groups will be analysed in order to learn from best practice and integrate it into the EduCoRe offer
  • The counselling approach and the blended learning materials will be piloted in the five participating countries(Austria, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Slovenia) over a period of six months
  • The pilots and their evaluation results will be documented and published in a good practice brochurein five languages (English, German, Italian, Danish, Slovenian)
  • The project will be presented at a European dissemination

 

Products

Main products that will be developed in the course of the EduCoRe projects:

Kit for rehab counselling and training

The Kit for rehab counselling and training consists of:

  • counselling guidelines
  • the training curriculum, the materials for face-to-face training
  • the learning objects for the e-learning part and
  • the trainer’s manual.

 

Internet platform

Internet platform with three elements:

  • The project website, which provides information on the project and on learning during rehabilitation in general, interesting links and much more.
  • The area for e-counselling:this interactive area contains tools for e-counselling
  • The e-counselling and e-learning platform: patients can use this open-source platform for learning independently and with support from peers and a tutor. The e-counselling element supports the face-to-face sessions and avoid interruptions due to therapeutic measures or change of location (hospital-home-rehab centre).

 

Good practice brochure

The counselling guidelines and the blended learning materials will be piloted in five participating countries (Austria, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Slovenia) over a period of six months.
This piloting and its evaluation results will be documented and published in a brochure. This brochure describes achievements as well as pitfalls, and points out how counselling and learning activities may have an impact on the rehabilitation process of patients.

 

Downloads

EduCoRe Flyer

The EduCoRe Brochure

The_EduCoRe_Booklet

The_EduCoRe_Training_Curriculum

The_EduCoRe_Approach

The project products are also available in the languages of the partner countries. Please ask for them by contacting us.

 

Partners

die Berater®
Austria
dieberater.com

 

Donau-Universität Krems
Austria
donau-uni.ac.at/imb

 

Århus Social-og Sundhedsskole
Denmark
sosuaarhus-international.com

 

Training2000
Italy
training2000.it

 

Bupnet
Germany
bupnet.de

 

Glotta Nova
Slovenia
glottanova.com

 

Contact

Holger Bienzle

Head bridges to europe

„die Berater“
Unternehmensberatungs GmbH
Wipplingerstraße 32/Top 23-25
A-1010 Vienna
Tel.: +43 1 532 45 45-0
Fax: +43 1 532 45 45-1145
E-Mail: office@dieberater.com
www.dieberater.com

 

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.