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Servei d’Orientació Pla Jove (Youth Plan Guidance Service)

Title

Affiliation(s)/ Institution

Consorci d’Educació de Barcelona

Email addresses

mescarre.ceb@gencat.cat

Project funded by

Consorci d’Educació de Barcelona (CEB)

Promoter name and country

Generalitat de Catalunya i Ajuntament de Barcelona. Catalunya. Espanya

Type of provider

public

Area of implementation

local

Context and motivation of the project - legislative background/obligations, institutional policy, institutional structures

This project falls within various legal frameworks: • Framework Agreement of the Catalan Government to fight against school failure in Catalonia • Department of Education plan for academic success in Catalonia • Programmes to improve results and measures against school failure within the Barcelona Municipal Action Plan •The plan for academic success of the Barcelona Education Consortium (CEB) • The CEB Guidance Plan The Schools Department of the CEB has put together a team from the Secondary Education Area to implement guidance programmes and carry out measures to improve guidance for secondary students, to help them make the transition between different stages of education (compulsory and post-compulsory) and to contribute to the fight against early school leaving.

Aims of the project

The main objectives are: 1. To design and implement measures to support schools in the task of providing guidance to students and helping them to define successful pathways. 2. To provide support and assistance to students who do not obtain a compulsory secondary education (ESO) diploma. 3. To work on measures to support the fight against early school leaving and to help students acquire professional competencies. 4. To design tools, resources, material and documentation to support the processes of providing academic and professional information and guidance in schools and colleges and to create training pathways for transition. 5. To provide help and advice to young people who wish to continue informal education and are searching for pathways suited to their profiles. 6. To establish a network in the city of Barcelona to provide information resources and guidance to help students define personal, academic and professional pathways and to encourage them to continue in post-compulsory education.

Target group

students
Guidance practitioners
Teachers

Description of the target group

With the aim of assisting students at risk of dropping out of education and promoting pathways for being able to attain the second level of training, the project focuses on assisting different groups of students, with various blocks of measures: 1. The Servei d’Orientació Pla Jove helps schools and colleges to implement their guidance strategies by implementing guidance programmes that give students an understanding of the different opportunities offered by the education system and the training and resources available in the city. This helps students make decisions regarding post-compulsory education based on the guidelines established by the Department of Education. 2. Support for tutors and other people responsible in the guidance processes in the transition between compulsory secondary and post-compulsory education. 3. Support for students in compulsory secondary education who have not obtained an ESO diploma, providing individualised support and monitoring during the entire training pathway, as well as helping with the pre-registration and registration processes to access post-compulsory studies. 4. Support for young people and their families, with individualised support and monitoring. 5. Support for students in compulsory secondary education who have obtained an ESO diploma, by monitoring the pathways for transition to post-compulsory training of those who show a risk of dropping out, focusing on the most problematic pathways and especially on those students entering intermediate-level vocational training and baccalaureate students at risk of dropping out. 6. Support for and promotion of the guidance platforms of the District’s adult training centres, connecting adult training outputs with the post-compulsory pathways of the educational system.

Staff (selection, evaluation, training, promotion)

Technical team consisting of 19 people trained in guidance, psychology and education.

Methodological approach, activities implemented

Empirical and proactive methodology that makes it possible to carry out the following activities: 1. Sessions with students during the pre-registration period to provide support to those whom the schools and colleges have pointed towards Training and Insertion Programmes (PFIs). 2. Sessions with other agents involved in the process of providing guidance to students and referring them to different pathways (including the psychopedagogy assessment and guidance teams, education services), for the purpose of better coordination of actions. 3. Contact and interviews with families and young people in the phases of registering for training, referral and subsequent monitoring of the pathway. 4. Coordination with institutions, associations and bodies to prepare for induction or for individual monitoring. Actions in the period before induction/registration/referral, and actions to monitor the pathway of each young person. 5. Relationships with different training agents to promote the process of inducting students in transition and ensuring they continue their training. 6. Joint agreement with the teams and creation of a schedule for providing support and guidance to students in the transition phase, especially those thinking of taking intermediate-level vocational training courses. 7. Advice and academic and career guidance for students to help them establish transitional training pathways and to support them during the pre-registration and registration processes, especially those taking intermediate-level vocational training courses. 8. Monitoring the pathways of students who have been supported up to post-compulsory education, in order to avoid the possibility of them dropping out, and if necessary establishing specific measures adapted to the student and the activity of the school or college: Redefinition or confirmation of pathways. 9. Analysis performed jointly with both the secondary schools (from where the students come) and the vocational training colleges (that receive the students), as well as with the district, to observe trends, activities to be reinforced and activities to be improved. Incorporation of the schools’ and colleges’ proposals into the Guidance Plans. 10. Proposals to the district for implementing specific activities. Support in different situations: academic reinforcement of instrumental aspects, reinforcement of methodologies and study habits, psychopedagogical assessment, guidance programme and programme for redefining personal projects. 11. Support for students and teachers in vocational training colleges, in accordance with the work plan agreed upon with each college with regard to early school leaving issues, especially in the first year of intermediate-level vocational training courses. 12. Boost for creating the specific career guidance platforms and programmes for each vocational training college. 13. Promotion of the measures to make the vocational training system more flexible, to allow students to progressively acquire partial qualifications through personalised training pathways. 14. In coordination with the Schooling Office, assistance for dealing with the processes of pre-registration and enrolment on vocational training and Baccalaureate courses. 15. Work sessions focused on coordination and collaboration to reinforce adult training centres working as a network. Creation of a bank of shared materials and resources. 16. Establishment of agreements with the colleges to work on the transition process for adult students. 17. Induction of students coming from adult training centres to work mainly on the transition process and on continuing onto the second level of training. 18. Sessions to give advice to teachers from adult training centres regarding academic and career guidance. 19. Specific activities to consolidate the information and guidance platforms in all the adult training centres. 20. Representatives from the technical team of the Servei d’Orientació Pla Jove are assigned to each vocational training centre to assist in the induction of the students beginning intermediate-level vocational training courses, to enable monitoring of cases and to jointly address the problem of early leaving by seeking (both the teaching staff and students) different strategies to help students continue on their courses and to offer external support in specific cases, in accordance with the resources available in each region. 21. The Barcelona Education Consortium participates in the Saló de l’Ensenyament educational fair every year. 22. The Servei d’Orientació Pla Jove works in coordination with other services and organisations with which it has established partnerships to deal with young people who, due to their situation, require a new training pathway that will help them to improve their personal prospects and rejoin the education system and/or workforce.

Results and impact - data of program internal/ external evaluation, beneficiary satisfaction, the impact of the didactical practices at individual and institutional level

Global data for the 2013-2014 academic year: 1. Work performed with secondary schools: 771 students registered with the Servei d’Orientació Pla Jove without an ESO diploma and 1,204 with a diploma. 2. Work performed with students, families and organisations: 13,253 direct contacts. 3. Students registered with Pla Jove in September 2014: 1,280 students. 4. Total number of students that have registered with the programme since the year 2000: 17,102 students

Conclusions, lessons learned

The Servei d’Orientació Pla Jove, implemented through the Consortium, forms part of one of the Institution’s main objectives in the fight against early school leaving among young people aged 16 to 24. Within this context, the first conclusion is the Institution’s capacity to adapt its resources to the needs of the education system, drawing up a work plan that takes into account the current situation of the city and that is implemented through the activities carried out in the different districts. By way of conclusion, it is also worth highlighting the support provided to the schools and colleges and their teaching staff, as well as the adaptation of objectives and methods to the educational needs of students at risk of dropping out. Barcelona’s different resources are made available to these students to help keep them interested in their training.

Directions of further development/ Transferability, replicability

The Servei d’Orientació Pla Jove has served as a model for educational services in other municipalities. For example, when it was in its first stage as the Pla Jove, it was explained to different municipalities in the Baix Llobregat area. It has also served as a benchmark for the Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Knowledge agency of the Osona region. As regards the Project’s stability and continuity over time, the most important fact is that this is a project that has been running for more than 12 years, that has grown in accordance with the needs of the education system and the region, and that is currently one of the tools being used by the Consortium in the fight against early school leaving among young people aged 16 and over.

Type of ESL (early school leaving) practice

Prevention
Intervention
Compensation

Web references (url, social media presence)

http://www.edubcn.cat/ca/suport_educatiu_recursos/orientacio_transicions/plajove

Parameters on which the practice is applicable (check those appropriate)

Governance and coordination
Methodologies of provision
Measures and profiles
Objectives and needs
Competences and skills for practitioners
Evaluation of performance and effectiveness

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