MOVE - Mutual recognition of skills and competences gained through volunteering

MOVE - Mutual recognition of skills and competences gained through volunteering

• Objectives
• Project partners
• Main activities and outputs
• Main conclusions

Timeframe: 1 October 2006 - 30 September 2007

aimed at bringing together volunteer organisations, the business sector, governmental players, other stakeholders and experts to present good practices on how to identify, assess and validate learning outcomes through volunteering. The partners discussed different perspectives of the stakeholders concerning mutual recognition and provided an overview of good practices in the field of mutual recognition of skills, competences and knowledge acquired through volunteering. One of the final outcomes shall be reinforced networking amongst different stakeholders to further develop the results and outcomes of the seminar.
 

Project partners:

• The European Volunteer Centre (CEV), Europe (project coordination)
• The European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA), Europe;
• Association of Voluntary Service Organisations (AVSO), Europe;
• INBAS-Sozialforschung GmbH, Germany;
• Deutscher Caritasverband e.V., Germany;
• Verbund Freiwilligen-Zentren (Caritas Volunteer Centre Network), Germany;
• Bundesnetzwerk Bürgerschaftliches Engagement (BBE - Federal Network for Civic Engagement), Germany;
• ARBES - Arbeitsgemeinschaft Bürgerschaftliches Engagement und Seniorengenossenschaften (Network for senior citizen’s civic engagement), Germany;
• Vlaams Steunpunt Vrijwillerswerk (The Flemish Volunteer Development Agency), Belgium;
• Önkentes Központ Alapitvany ÖKA (National Volunteer Centre), Hungary;
• SPES – Centro di Servizio per il Volontariato del Lazio (Lazio Regional Vounteer Development Agency), Italy; 
• MOVISIE (The Netherlands’ Centre for Social Devlopment), Netherlands; 
• Federació Catalana del Voluntariat Social (Catalan Federation for Social Volunteering), Spain; 
• Ring Oesterreichischer Bildungswerke (Austrian network of adult education institutes), Austria;
• Unisversity of Liverpool, UK;
• Business In The Community (BITC), UK;
• Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR), UK;
• National Volunteer Center, Poland.

Main activities and outputs: The MOVE Conference 23 and 24 May in Brussels organised at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) 

• Conference programme
• Conference presentations
  

Main conclusions:

• Participants identified a big need to raise awareness that volunteering is a learning environment;
• Volunteering shall be seen not as a supplement to formal education and training but as a complement to it;
• The volunteering sector needs to be open to new developments and provide tools and instruments for personal learning development of volunteers;
• An inherent paradox identified is that the recognition of skills gained through volunteering (VPL / APEL) can be both a remedy and a risk;
• There is also a risk of creating new cleavages between volunteers;
• Skills development and recognition can be beneficial both for the volunteer and for the volunteer organisation;
• There is also a business case for recognising knowledge, skills and competences gained through volunteering: “CSR without HR is PR”;
• There is a need of further research into attitudes and expectations of volunteers of such tools and a needs assessment on whether these tools are actually to be taken up by volunteers;
• Recognition of knowledge, skills and competences is just one element of a full-fleshed awarding culture for volunteers;
• The voluntary sector needs to remain flexible to take into account different motivations of volunteers;
• A real challenge is to design a simple procedure of high quality that focuses on the volunteer as centre of the assessment procedure and the potential receiver;
• The general feeling of participants was that not one single tool to identify and assess knowledge, skills and competences fits all volunteers, learning experiences nor aspirations that volunteers have using a portfolio;
• Lots of efforts could be pooled if a database of good practices as well as a handbook on do’s and don’ts existed.

FINAL REPORT

Project with similar themes:

The VALUE (Volunteering and Lifelong Learning in Universities in Europe) Network is a Grundtvig Network, comprising 20 organisations representing Universities, and more concretely Lifelong Learning Centres within Universities and volunteering organisations and networks/associations (from both sectors) from 13 European countries aiming to facilitate and stimulate the development of cooperation between Universities and the volunteering sector in the delivery of University Lifelong Learning (ULLL) to volunteers/volunteering organisations staff – that is: flexible learning opportunities and accreditation pathways that respond to both formal and informal learning gained through volunteering activities.  

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     This project is financed by the European Commission under the GRUNDTVIG programme