Being able to demonstrate graduate employability skills (GESs) – practical, transferable, graduate level abilities over and above any specific discipline content – can lead to more positive career outcomes in graduates. To maximise their potential, students should start thinking about their skills, and their relevance for future career options, early in their degree journey so they can reflect on the importance of these, and identify areas for improvement (Bridgstock, 2009). However many students do not consider their GESs until after graduation, and lack aspirations, attitudes and confidence with respect to preparing themselves for future careers.Over the last 20 years there has been an upsurge of interest in using technology to engage with students to facilitate their learning. With the advent of web 2.0 technology and the evolution of smartphone use one emerging area is downloadable educational apps, although these are not typically used to engage students with co-curricular, or transferable skills. Apps have the potential to offer methods of learning highly consistent with modern theories of effective learning, which propose that learning activities should be active, situated, problem based, and interactive.Aims and objectives of the project: The aim of the proposal is to develop an app to allow students to plan, record and evidence the acquisition and development of GESs throughout their university journey. A downloadable app could provide an active, agentic approach to supporting students in thinking about GESs and self-development by using motivational, interactive exercises, achievable goal-based tasks, and inducing in users a sense of fun and self-actualisation patterns that will help to raise awareness of issues. As “digital natives” who have been brought up with digital technology and embrace universal smartphone use, students would find an app-based approach to GESs development highly attractive. The GES App fits well with current thinking about employability and careers, putting the student at the centre of their development and career decisions. The app will principally allow students, via interactive exercises, to track and evidence GESs they develop throughout their university career. Building up evidence from university modules, as well as recording skills they develop via co- and extra-curricular activities, will compile an interactive record, supported by notes of the activities through which these were developed, and the outcomes which can be used to evidence them. A focus on students’ own interests, strengths and weaknesses, will engage students and encourage them to think about their GESs from their arrival at university. This awareness will increase student focus on such attributes, allow students to identify and fill gaps in their skill set, and provide a resource they can use when they leave university and enter the job market.During the design phase of the project, tasks will include a literature review of GESs development resources; a review of existing digital GSEs resources; a user requirements analysis and design specification. Key activities during the implementation stage will be the development of the GES App and additional support materials, such as a pedagogical guide and videos. Piloting early prototypes of the app will determine acceptability and usability with a small number of end users. In addition a larger scale evaluation will be carried out on the final version to establish the value and effectiveness of the app in interesting and supporting students in both their awareness and development of GESs.Best practice case studies will provide further guidance about how best to use the app with distinct groups of students (e.g., diverse disciplines and locations). Dissemination activities to increase awareness and interest in the app amongst key stakeholders and interested parties will be carried out during the project: a project Web site will be established; newsletters distributed, dissemination events held for HE careers guidance practitioners and refereed academic & professional papers will be written.App design, development and evaluation will be an iterative process. Results of piloting of early app prototypes with a small number of end users will feed into the refinement of the final app. A larger scale evaluation of the final version of the app will establish the value and effectiveness of the app in engaging students with tracking and evidencing the development of their GESs throughout their degree programme.It is hoped that the GES App will contribute to enhanced potential for the continuous development of GESs, with students gaining more awareness of their abilities and taking responsibility for planning their own professional development. This will help them achieve success and satisfaction in their careers. It could potentially increase their career mobility and resilience in the global employment market and contribute to the European economy.

The project aims to innovate the nurses' curriculum, responding to the recent situation created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Supporting socio-health systems with targeted education and professional training policies while attenuating the impact of the crisis in this particularly stricken sector is a crucial challenge facing the EU. As Ursula von der Leyen pointed out, health and digital technologies will be the major points of the European plan by 2030.The implementation of the “From Cure to Care. Digital Education and Spiritual Assistance in Hospital Healthcare” project contributes to these European objectives, starting from nurses who, in this time of crisis, find themselves in the front line of health and social care in the most unprecedented circumstances. More specifically, the project intends to innovate nurses' curriculum developing their skills and competences in two areas in which they do not feel adequately prepared and which are becoming more prominent as a result of the COVID-19 crisis: 1. Digital technologies in order to streamline many administrative processes, assist with onboarding and training, enhance productivity and reduce care variability as well as to learn how to deal with telemedicine;2. Identification, assessment and management of patients’ religious and spiritual requests in the multicultural contemporary society.During the project the partner consortium will carry out four case-study analyses aimed at exploring nurses’ competencies and skills in the digital field and in religious-spiritual assistance in healthcare during the COVID pandemic. This will lead to a working paper on the improvement of nursing curricula with respect to the inclusion of diverse religious/spiritual needs in healthcare, and how to accommodate these and other needs through digital enhancements to the health system. This will be the starting point for the design of a blended Training Programme in “Digital Competences and Spiritual Assistance in Hospital Healthcare” consisting of: an E-Learning course, face-to-face laboratory work and blended mobility activities, as well as an evaluation of the strength and areas of improvement of the proposed implementation. The online course will be delivered as a pilot course to about 200 HE learners from the four countries represented by the consortium (Italy, Ireland, Spain and Poland). A selected group of 20 students will also have the chance to attend 40 hours of Blended Mobility activity, which will take place in Turin, IT. Participation in the online course will foster the acquisition of novel competencies and skills; in particular, it will guarantee digital literacy and it will provide the skills needed to take advantage of the digital evolution of the healthcare system.The training programme’s main target will be students of Nursing but it will also be open to students of Psychology and Social Sciences (such as aspiring psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and social workers) because these professions too are in the front line in approaching patients’ religious and spiritual needs and, according to the most innovative models for spiritual care in hospitals, they are supposed to work in an interdisciplinary team with sanitary operators. Moreover, during the emergency, psychologists, psychological counsellors and social workers have also experienced increased work volume, intensity and stress levels while struggling to transmute their ordinary face-to-face work into smart working. Through the course design and delivery, the HEIs taking part in the consortium will have the chance to improve their digital educational resources and the digital competences of their education and training staff. In this sense the course will also act as a launching pad to evolve their online offer, considering multilingual and multicultural aspects. Such a programme, based on the E-Learning Course, Modules and face-to-face Laboratory work, may not only be replicated by other European universities integrating it into their curricula, but also adopted by hospitals and clinics for permanent staff training.After the project completion, the online section of the designed course in “Digital Competences and Spiritual Assistance in Hospital Healthcare” will be made available for open access (content will have a CC-BY-NC-SA license) for self-learners on an open-source educational platform.The publication of the course has the goal of disseminating the desirability of including of multicultural religious/spiritual needs in health care, as well as the importance of digital skills – which have become more prominent in the Covid-19 pandemic within this framework. Making the course freely available to the general public, with a self-learning approach, also tends in the direction of promoting easier access to life-long learning tools for a wider range of people, especially those who, due to social or personal conditions, cannot afford to invest in a full Higher Education programme.

<< Background >>Currently, the rapidly growing demand for medical services, the growing popularity of activities related to health, healthy lifestyle, healthy eating, including the use of natural ) data and their sources. For several years, there have been demands to look for new professionalisation paths that meet these needs. Therefore, there is also a noticeable lack of educational offers to organize the highly dispersed knowledge in the area of supporting the organization of family health processes. The areas of this process include physical activity, diet, mental health, relationships, which become even more important in situations such as a pandemic, especially e.g. are of particular importance for overweight and obese people, which are a risk factor for the severe course of many diseases, including COVID-19. This gap may be filled by health counseling, which in Western literature is defined as a form of professional counseling activity focused on disease prevention, health promotion and support for recovery processes. Unfortunately, in many European countries (both in Poland and in other partner countries) efforts to develop and implement such a solution have not met with a positive response so far, despite the efforts of, above all, the research team of the UKSW Family Studies Department and partner institutions - especially Universita Cattolica Del Sacro Cuore. As we know, Italy suffered the most (among the partner countries) as a result of the pandemic. The remaining partner countries have been affected to varying degrees by the Covid-19 pandemic, and have faced specific problems stemming from, on the one hand, varying levels of medical care as well as health counseling approaches. The best situation in this respect is in Germany, which has the best level of health care among the partner countries and there are attempts to develop a health counseling system.Populations are comprised of individuals and families who together affect the health of the community. Each family unit is an is an important link for maintaining health and preventing disease for public health and health systems because all family members may support and nurture one another through life stages. Family-oriented health promotion and family-based disease prevention are the most important addressees of educational strategies because the family is both a resource and a priority group needing preventative and curative services across whole life(Barnes MD, Hanson CL, Novilla LB, Magnusson BM, Crandall AC, Bradford G. Family-Centered Health Promotion: Perspectives for Engaging Families and Achieving Better Health Outcomes. Inquiry. 2020;57:46958020923537. doi:10.1177/0046958020923537).As describes Health And Family Life Education Resource Handbook, family based health education should focus on the development of the whole person (https://healtheducationresources.unesco.org/sites/default/files/resources/bie_hfle_resource_handbook.pdf), in that, it:•Enhances the potential to become productive persons;•Promotes an understanding of the principles that underlie personal and social well- being. •Fosters the development of health-related knowledge, skills and attitudes that make for healthy family life. •Increases the ability to practice responsible decision-making about health behaviour.•Aims to increase the awareness that the choices we make in everyday life profoundly influence our health and personal development wellFamilies are important players in public health. Yet, since no one pattern for healthy families is known (Barnes MD, Hanson CL, Novilla LB, Magnusson BM, Crandall AC, Bradford G. Family-Centered Health Promotion: Perspectives for Engaging Families and Achieving Better Health Outcomes. Inquiry. 2020;57:46958020923537. doi:10.1177/0046958020923537) there is the need to build and enlarge inter-family health potential. There is the need to foster higher capacity for family health systems to function appropriately in public health practice.<< Objectives >>Starting from end of 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has caused unknown erlier health crisis across the globe. Due to the current challenges of the health services, less attention and fewer effort have been spent on the prevention and effective health promotion. Especially immune-health promotion, wchih could be suppported with herbal medicine. The prevalence of the herbal medicines use is on the rise across the world, because of effectiveness and fewer side effects than other medicines.The widespread belief is that wealthy and socioeconomically advantaged populations tend to seek disproportionately more modern medical treatments and medications. But studies demonstrated that herbal medicine use is more concentrated among socioeconomically advantaged households. Our Project can be usefull to reduce socioeconomic inequalities in the use of medicinal herbs.The widespread use of herbal medicines provides an opportunity for family members to suport in self-management practices (Clement, Y.N., Williams, A.F., Khan, K. et al. A gap between acceptance and knowledge of herbal remedies by physicians: The need for educational intervention. BMC Complement Altern Med 5, 20 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6882-5-20; Huang J, Tao G, Liu J, Cai J, Huang Z, Chen JX. Current Prevention of COVID-19: Natural Products and Herbal Medicine. Front Pharmacol. 2020;11:588508. Published 2020 Oct 16. doi:10.3389/fphar.2020.588508). Eg. how to use herbal remedies to simulate the immunesystem, as complementary suport during child-obesity treatment, childdiabetes treatment or nutrition problems.Family based health education should also identify factors associated with successful nutrition education interventions conducted in families (Tanas, R., Marcolongo, R., Pedretti, S. et al. A family-based training program for obesity: a three-year study. BMC Pediatr 7, 33 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2431-7-33). Establishing healthy dietary practices at an early age is crucial.Our Project can promote empowerment in health from childhood and develop life skills and health competencies. A family-based health intervention can be used for better control of population’s health. Due to the strong need to respond to the needs of the transnational team, the development of 1) a methodology for the work of a Family Health Advisor 2) a model training program for Family Health Advisor covering areas (Resource-based family counseling support, Support for people with disabilities, Health promotion in the family life cycle, Basics of gardening, herbal medicine and herbal medicine, Dietetics, nutrition, Planning and organization of physical activity, Communication, relationships, coping with stress, Addictions, addiction prevention, disorders, Elements of medical knowledge, Legal determinants of health counseling) 3) FHA competence profile and 4) Analyzes of the conditions for implementing family health advisers in family support systems in Partner countries.Bearing in mind the analysis, the project is aimed at developing a professionalisation path for a family health adviser using the solutions and experiences of the participating countries, integrating interdisciplinary specialist knowledge. Initial assumptions assume that a family health adviser is a family health adviser is a person with professional knowledge in the field of a healthy lifestyle (e.g. eating behavior, eating disorders, addictions), the basics of herbalism / gardening, dietetics and dietary supplementation, combined with high advisory and communication (e.g. conversation, motivational dialogue, psychosocial support), knowledge about the family, its development and functioning as well as the issues of medical, medical and legal support (information on diseases, possibilities of obtaining support, etc.). A family health advisor is able to provide direct counseling support, as well as help in obtaining it and redirecting the family to the appropriate specialist.<< Implementation >>Has basic and varied knowledge allowing for advisory and information activities. He knows the boundaries of his activity and has knowledge about the organization of medical care and medical .The presented assumption is an opportunity to collect and systematize dispersed (approx.) Counseling activities into one, secured and coherent support system and its professionalization. In this form, it responds to the growing demand for health-related services.Activities:1) Developing results, including the Family Health Advisor training program, where a test training course will be carried out in each country in groups of 8 people - a team of 8 people will consist of 1 main expert and 7 trainers / experts - all will be experts in various fields related to the subject health, incl. mental health, nutrition, exercise, herbal medicine. This will allow to refine the Model FHA curriculum, identify any inconsistencies or gaps in the content of education, verify the adopted methodological assumptions, use tools (e.g. exercises and other training materials).2) Dissemination seminar / workshop - in each partner country, during which the objectives and results of the project will be presented, including the result O1, O2, O3, O4, i.e. a training program for family health advisers. On the other hand, during the workshops, participants will be able to check and test the elements of the model training program on their own. Instead of one big meeting in each country, we plan to do 3 meetings of 25 people (1 in each country).3) Short training programs for employees of partner institutions, i.e. a total of 4 trainings of 10 people, 2 person each from country partner. Training stays in (partner's country) will be objective at acquainting with the specificity of the institution and showing the developed solutions against the background of the implemented activities. Visits will be carried out in the workshop formula. Each visit will include partner organizations, selected practical institutions, and visits to the classes.As part of the training stays, the participating coaches / trainers of the partners will participate in joint (daily) workshops during which the educational content and methods developed within the project will be jointly practiced. Workshop participants will acquire knowledge / competences in the field of (1) types and specificity of health counseling, (2) programs and specificity of education in medical and peri-medical professions (3) knowledge and specificity of the disciplinary and methodological and didactic workshop of educating staff (4) integration possibilities practical classes in educational programs. Joint workshops are an indispensable element that allows you to learn about the differences and specificity of each individual countries, perspectives represented by individual institutions and the possibility of using the solutions developed by them.<< Results >>The main goal of the project is to professionalize the model of a family health adviser as a new offer of medical related services, and this will be achieved through the development of:1) Detailed methodology of work of the Family Health Advisor, including the scope of tasks and activities, competences and competence boundaries (in particular between the medical services sector)2) Model treining program for Family Health Advisors (FHA) (content, curriculum, course modules, learning outcomes) and the FHA quality management and professional development system.3) FHA competence profile (taking into account various dimensions of its functioning)4) Analyzes of the conditions for implementing the activities of family health advisers in family support systems in Partner countries.Additionally, the impact of the project on participants, participating organizations, target groups and other relevant stakeholders(1) Professionalization and quality assurance of health-related services. Project activities are an opportunity to organize and qualitatively secure services in the area of ​​medical support for families. This very dynamically developing area of ​​activities is characterized by the lack of recognized standards and work security. The standards developed in an international partnership will contribute to an increase in the quality of services and increase the availability of high-quality services.(2) The way family support is perceived and the paths of professionalization of people working with families. The project promotes a positive model of working with families. The implemented activities will contribute to the dissemination of such an approach, in line with the perceived need to support the family in the context of health issues and health promotion.It will also contribute to the dissemination of new models of working with families, supporting the activities of those people and organizations that try to reach a wider awareness with the offer of a developmental, positive perception of working with families.(3) Quality of educational activities in universities (3 partners are universities) related to health, including improvement of methodological and didactic preparation of staff. By developing high-quality educational materials, programs, and lesson plans promoting new and up-to-date solutions in the field of working with family health, it is expected to improve the substantive, methodological and didactic preparation of the institution's employees and - in the longer term - recipients of the results of intellectual work. This situation can be expected to translate into (better) student self-esteem.(4) Prestige and reception of the organizations participating in the project, including increased recognition in the immediate social environment of the participating institutions and their organizational units. This will translate into interest in the educational offer of partners and - indirectly - in non-educational activities undertaken by them (conceptual, research, implementation activities). The implementation of an international, ambitious project on a current socio-political topic and in line with the strategy and mission of the partners will improve the reception of institutions and engaged employees.(5) Level of internationalization of education: project activities will foster the intensification of exchanges between partners. Following the activities of the partnership, it is possible to anticipate increased interest of students and staff in participation in mobility activities, and greater opportunities to attract foreign students interested in the discussed issues.(6) The implementation of a complex, international project will support the development of competences of the participating organizations, allowing them to learn from each other and motivating them to undertake further initiatives.(7) Development of transnational cooperation.

Identity formation in adolescence and emerging adulthood is important for a person’s subsequent functioning as an individual and as a member of society. Current societal challenges related to record-high numbers of refugees, intensive international migration, and growing socio-cultural diversity in many European countries provide and increasingly complex and challenging environment for youth identity development. Some youth experience stigmatization and exclusion based on core aspects of their identities, such as ethnicity, religion, social class, gender, sexual orientation, or ability. Persistent socio-economic inequalities, socio-cultural fragmentation and general lack of tolerance in present-day Europe may hinder access to identity-related resources and support among some young people, especially those from vulnerable backgrounds.In order to facilitate a better access to identity-related support and resources among youth in Europe, this Partnership aimed to build the capacity of students, teachers, researchers and youth workers to carry out identity-related applied and research work with youth by developing and disseminating an up-to-date, innovative evidence-based curriculum, as well as teaching/ learning materials and practical tools for identifying resources and supporting identity development among diverse groups of young people in Europe, including vulnerable youth. The project was implemented by Mykolas Romeris University (coordinator, Lithuania), Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna (Italy), Babeș-Bolyai University (Romania), University of Bordeaux (France), Cardinal Wyszyński University in Warsaw (Poland), and Tolerant Youth Association (Lithuania).Main activities of the project included three intellectual outputs: 1) a university-level course curriculum on youth identity; 2) two compendia of research articles on youth identity development; and 3) an open web-based educational tool with materials and instruments to facilitate identity-related work with youth. Learning and teaching activities of the project (a short-term staff training and an intensive program for students) were integrated in the process of development of intellectual outputs and served as a testing and feedback environment. Transnational partner meetings helped to plan and coordinate the development of intellectual outputs and training events. At the end of the project, a transnational multiplier event, held in Vilnius on October 11, 2018, helped to disseminate and encourage further use of the project outputs. The results of the project include three outputs: 1) a university-level course curriculum “Support for youth identities in diverse Europe (SIDE)”; 2) two compendia of research articles on youth identity development in diverse European contexts and beyond; and 3) an open web-based educational resource I-TOOLS. All outputs are available on the project website http://inside.mruni.eu. The activities of the project have directly involved 28 university students and 18 teachers as participants of an international intensive study program; 18 university teachers and youth workers as participants of a short-term staff training; 20 scholars, teachers and trainers involved in the development of SIDE course curriculum; 37 scholars involved in the development of research articles for the compendia; 103 professionals working with youth as participants of a multiplier event; and 282 educational, civic, and public policy organizations and institutions as recipients of an info-package on tools to support youth identity development. In addition, at least 4000 other stakeholders (youth workers, civic organizations, school administrators, students, teachers, researchers and policy makers active in the field of youth identity and empowerment) have found out about the project and its outcomes through the project dissemination activities, including public communications, presentations, articles, leaflets, website, etc. Moreover, at least several thousand of researchers and students were reached through external dissemination channels, not directly related to the project (in particular, compendia publishers’ websites).All intellectual outputs (a course curriculum, compendiums of articles, and an open educational e-platform) will be integrated into study programs of the partner universities. They are also available for use and adaptation by other interested parties. The long-term impact extends to the competences of all project participants, in terms of their expanded multicultural skills, improved academic English and ICT skills, strengthened international project management and cooperation, multicultural and research competences, as well as an applied perspective in research with youth. Building on the success of the current project, four university partners of the project have formed a new consortium with three newly attracted institutions for developing another international project proposal in the area of youth identity development.

"We live in a “post-truth” world, where youth increasingly rely on information from unverified and often undocumented sources, from different social media outlets. Often, misinformation refers to aspects pertaining to the social inclusion of disadvantaged and marginalized groups, like immigrants, people with low socio-economic status or coming from poor communities, ethnic minorities, women. These groups are often presented in social media in a polarized, highly negative manner, backed up by strong statements like “These people are…”, followed by strong negative characteristics attributed to these disadvantaged groups, pointing out to weakness, threat, or danger. Against this background, the project partners, researchers and teachers from 6 European countries, social science experts on core topics related to social inclusion (identity, gender, socio-economic status, migration, rural/urban divide), will elaborate research-based instruments that will help students better understand what social inclusion is and how they can develop their competences when interacting with marginalized groups. In this endeavor, they will be assisted by the expertise of the e-learning partner company. The objectives of this strategic partnership are:1.To integrate up-to-date theoretical knowledge and research findings with practical case studies of social inclusion and of applied research on social inclusion, in order to develop the course curriculum ""Building inclusive societies: Promoting social inclusion and reducing discrimination"" (BUILD), which will foster social, civic, and intercultural competences. 2.To use innovative pedagogies in developing learning contents in order to best meet the learning needs and characteristics of digital-native students, through the creation of a gamification manual based on the gamification of the BUILD curriculum.3.To enable flexible and collaborative learning and the acquisition of digital competences in students and teachers, through the development of the gamified online e-learning platform.4. To tackle discrimination and segregation issues and develop social inclusion skills through the creation and implementation of a dynamic and modular online course on the topic ""Building inclusive societies: Promoting social inclusion and reducing discrimination"" (eBUILD).The project will use transnational, trans-sectoral, and interdisciplinary methods and it will capitalize on up-to-date research findings from large-scale projects on marginalization in different European countries, many of them conducted by the project partners. The project integrates gamification methodologies as innovative pedagogical strategies, in order to increase students’ involvement in learning. We focus on 4 core intellectual outputs: (a) curriculum addressing social inclusion skills and competences in students ""Building inclusive societies: Promoting social inclusion and reducing discrimination"" (BUILD); (b) gamification manual of BUILD curriculum, addressing learning needs and characteristics of contemporary youth, through game elements in the description of important concepts and research results; (c) gamified online e-learning platform, as a hub for the project curriculum and online course, a dynamic communication environment for students, and an online course development tool for teachers and researchers; (d) modular online course ""Building inclusive societies: Promoting social inclusion and reducing discrimination"" (eBUILD), integrated in the e-learning platform. The project will directly involve 1000 university students, 10 to 15 university teachers, up to 15 researchers, several online learning and gamification specialists and technicians from the partner e-learning development company. The project will have 2500 persons (students, teachers, researchers, youth workers, policy makers on topics of youth and social discrimination, school administrators, high-school students, social responsibility experts from private companies), as indirect beneficiaries and beneficiaries targeted in dissemination activities.The project will produce innovative and high-quality intellectual outputs, very useful in universities and for stakeholders in the civil society: a course curriculum, a gamification manual on project topics, and a modular online course, implemented in an online platform. The impact of the project will integrate: support for participants’ non-discrimination and social inclusion skills and competences, of social, civic, and intercultural competences; the strengthening of online course development skills of participating teachers and researchers; an understanding of gamification as a learning tool in participating teachers and researchers; the strengthening of an international learning, teaching and innovative applied research network through the modular online course and platform. Additionally, all outputs will be useful tools for youth workers and social responsibility experts in private companies."