Description
The objective of the project is to strengthen civil society`s organisations role in enabling youth with special needs to become active members of the society after finalising their education. The project brings together organisations that are interested or already involved in dealing with the employment issues of young people with special needs. As a result of the project`s activities, the knowledge and courage of civil society organisations to successfully negotiate over creation of work-centers for the target group, increases. The project maps the legislation, elaborates guidelines for creating work-centers and puts together an information package for current work-center offers across the country, runs piloting of services suitable for work-centers, secures future information dissemination. In co-operation with Norwegian and Estonian partners, 12 new civil society stakeholders will be involved in the development of the field, 3-4 new work-center initiatives will be brought up.
Summary of project results
The project brought together organisations who are interested or already involved to contribute for solving the employment of young people with special needs – to avoid that a significant group of population otherwise will be cut off from contributing to the society. As a result of activities, the knowledge and courage of civil society organisations to successfully negotiate over creation of work-centres for the target group, increased. The project mapped the legislation, elaborated guidelines for creating work-centres and put together an information package for current work-centre offers across the country, ran piloting of services suitable for work-centres (work exercise, work exercise programmes through rehabilitation service) and secured future information dissemination. In co-operation with Norwegian and Estonian partners, new civil society stakeholders were brought together into development of the field and new work-centre initiatives were brought up. Through new piloted services the sustainability will be ensured. The co-operation with the Ministry of Social Affairs has been successful – the main manor house in Tammistu will be fully restored and it will reach full capacity so several supported services for adults with disabilities will be accommodated there.
Summary of bilateral results
The Norwegian partner ASVO Nøtterøy was a good example for Estonian project partners because they have a lot of experience in the field of working with people with disability and helping them to the labour market or supported work centre. The Norwegian partners were involved as project experts. They helped us to map the legislation, were involved in creation of guidelines for starting work centres and helped us to put together the information package for starting centres. The Norwegians attended all the seminars and conference and added special value with their good examples. They helped to make some changes how people and employers see people with special needs.