From January 2021 until February 2023, EaSI, together with five other partners from Portugal, Spain, Denmark, and Italy joined forces in the Social Connections initiative. Throughout these years we have successfully designed and created innovating solutions that targeted C-VET educators in the social sector.  

The context:  

Every day, millions of young and old people in Europe with mobility impairment due to illness, age, disability, or immunodeficiency are restricted in their opportunities for social interaction and engagement in meaningful activities outside their homes, often with their informal carers. 

As clearly showed during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an opportunity in exploiting online technologies to provide social support and a sense of belonging. 

The Social Connections vision 

Together with the partners of the Social Connections programme, we envisioned and designed digital pedagogical competences of C-VET educators in the social sector, enabling them to teach their students how to develop and use high quality digital content for social inclusion of clients which are housebound because of disability, illness or COVID-19 related restrictions. 

The Social Connections Results 

During the Social Connections project there were delivered 3 results, which were designed around the goal of developing solid digital pedagogical competences to respond to the needs of C-VET educators in the social sector.  

1. Curriculum to teach e-social work 

A pedagogical resource for trainers engaged in VET and CPD training courses for social professionals, upskilling them to be able to identify the challenges and the opportunities offered by e-social work and to plan and implement training curriculum to educate social professionals to the use of ICT in their work with clients who are housebound because of disability, illness, or COVID-19 related restrictions. 

The curriculum is available here: https://www.socialconnectionsproject.org/outputs.html 

2. A tool-box for e-social work: a learning by doing experience 

The toolbox complements the curricula and it’s composed by a set of pedagogical activities that care professionals can implement with their users in a digital environment. 

The training course developed within this result was piloted in 4 countries ( Italy, Denmark, Spain, Portugal ) with 21 participants. After the pilot sessions and the development of the result the partnership created a practical resource consisting of lessons learnt and recommendations.  

Access the materials on: https://www.socialconnectionsproject.org/outputs.html 

3. MOOCs for C-VET in digital social work 

Using the materials developed in the previous stages, the partnership developed a MOOC for social professionals and then conducted pilot sessions with end-users. The result is now accessible to social care students and professionals, and it can be found on: 

https://www.socialconnectionsproject.org/io3.html

To learn more about Social Connections visit our dedicated page and the official project website.