Activities

VARCO general strategy takes into account the plurality of stakeholders composing the Development Partnership: entrepreneurial organizations, trade unions, training institutes, third-sector subjects, public-service associations.

Strategic course of action encompasses:

• devising a model of co-operative relationships to pursue common objectives, in order to strengthen and qualify the local public-service system, for the social and economic development of the target territory;
• favouring companies and workers’ flexibility in order to improve social cohesion;
• translating “flexibility” into “new opportunity”;
• preventing “flexibility” from resulting into “exclusion” or “marginalisation” of the weaker subjects (e.g. over-45 workers, disabled people) in the work market.

Another strategic key of action is supporting the “quality” of public-service companies’ training plans by contributing to the companies strategic choices and highlighting informal and non-formal working skills that may develop into new, up-to-date professional abilities.

Pilot intervention is structured in seven macro-phases. Macro-phases develop in a parallel and consequential way, with connected actions, each to the other functional, in order to find answers to the discrimination problems identified.

In detail, VARCO consists in the following macro-phases:

• Preparatory phase: formalisation of the “main target group” and the “Equal Agreement” in the reference territory. Awareness raising and involvement of territorial key actors. Launch convention and two thematic workshops. Creation of territorial networks. Promotion of the “Equal Agreement”. Creation of VARCO website. Duration: 4 months.
• Research and analysis: searching for discriminating or impairing situations in the working context. Exploring informal and non-formal learning practices. Identifying companies and possible beneficiaries. Field research (interviews, focus groups, questionnaires). Data analysis and life long learning models benchmarking. Duration: 5 months.
• Methodology and tools: defining the “VARCO Advisor” profile and capabilities. Defining assessment methodologies and tools of companies. Defining recognition methodologies and tools of informal skills. Duration: 6 months.
• Application: training the VARCO Advisors; final beneficiaries detection (orientation and informal skills assessment); training beneficiaries; experimental workshops with a selected group of companies; front-desk, seminars, advising; capabilities assessment and personalised training (distance learning, tutoring). Duration: 12 months.
• Elaboration of the model: test of tools (translation into the partnership’s languages) and production of the VARCO kit (handbook, CD-Rom). Duration: 4 months.
• Trial: test of the VARCO kit by a panel of experts and within the “Equal Agreement” (focus groups). Experimentation of system connection (questionnaires). Tools and methodology validation (by the scientific committee). Impact appraisal (questionnaires). Duration: 6 months.
• Spreading and mainstreaming: spreading innovation and promoting the VARCO model and best practices, horizontal and vertical mainstreaming, through seminars and conventions (with the participation of local key stakeholders, companies, institutions) and definitive production of tested tools (hard and soft copies, publication on the web). Duration: 24 months.

VARCO encompasses innovative actions, which display innovation of processes, innovation of objectives and innovation of context.

Innovation of processes comprehends:

• A new approach to training and guidance in order to increase value, adjustment and recognition of the professional skills portfolio acquired by subjects at risk of discrimination (unskilled workers, over-45 workers, disabled people, marginalised women);
• An integrated intervention model able to yield complex solutions to the multi-dimensional problem of “change” and life long learning.

Innovation of objectives encloses:

• A new professional figure, such as the VARCO Advisor, able to support firms and workers in recognising participation to and outcomes of the learning process.

Innovation of context is represented by:

• A new form of institutional co-operation, such as the “Equal Agreement”, to create a network of public/private operators in the field of local services of general interest, along with further local stakeholders in order to promote a life long learning system aimed at effectively fighting against discrimination, inequality and waste of skills in the working place and in the work market.