Solutions for Age-Friendly Employer [SAFE]project joins four partners from different organizations and sectors from three countries in the Central Baltic Region together with the aim to strengthen and improve employment opportunities of older employees (55+) on the labor market through joint
cooperation.
In all partner countries, more and more people are working later in life for various reasons. Due to their chronological age, older workers face, however, often ageism in the form of prejudice, discrimination, or neglect. We have sectors such as health and wellness that have a lot of aging staff whose work keeps the organization running. In order to value and keep older employees in working life, organizations in all partner countries need interactive tools and information about age-friendly practices. The SAFE project aims to increase the options of older people to stay on the labour market for a longer time by identifying age discrimination and solutions to tackle ageism. The experiences of the older employees themselves are made visible when fostering age diversity in workplaces.
The aim of the project is:
create an interactive model for age-friendly employers across three countries - the model creates a general framework for age-appropriate practices;
piloting the model at workplaces - the purpose of the pilot phase is to cultivate an age-friendly work culture, starting with an interactive self-assessment;
collecting and analyzing feedback: feedback is collected from employers and employees to identify age-friendly challenges and areas for improvement;
dissemination of training and policy recommendations - the SAFE model and results will be disseminated across borders to key stakeholders, including policy makers, public and private health authorities and regional health experts.
The project is financed by the European Regional Development Fund through Interreg Central Baltic 2021-2027 grant program in amount of 1.005.991,75 €.
Project partners:
Tallinn University Haapsalu College
Metropolia University of Applied Sciences
Secretariat of the Northern Dimension Partnership in Public Health and Social Well-being (NDPHS)
People’s life expectancy is increasing worldwide thereby increases the number of elderly in the population. This, in turn, poses a challenge for communities and local governments on how to ensure that the elderly remain independent and active for as long as possible. It is very likely that people who are elderly now and people who are elderly 20 years from now will need different health and social services and living arrangements. Universities have an important role in sharing their knowledge and creating new ideas,study programs, services/products that will promote the health and wellbeing of the elderly and improve their self-management as well as attractiveness of the work among professionals.
There are very different practices in different European countries that focus on improving and maintaining the physical, mental and social well-being of the elderly. For example in Estonia there is highly used ICT solutions like counseling line and alarm button service for the elderly and Estonia has an active aging development plan that includes different careservices for the elderly. These practices can be shared, learned from and developed into new solutions as part of the project. The created solutions are an input for teaching in higher education institutions, for strategic planning of health and social services in municipalities, and for developing innovative services / products in enterprises.
The project is directed to engage elderly people and the increase of their life quality by creating innovative professional skills for future elderly care. This takes place by cooperating and exchanging of good practices of each country through cross-sectoral work with:
municipalities and other organizations (as NGOs etc) offering services and health promotion actions/activities for elderly people
higher education institutions
businesses and organizations providing communities health and social services
local municipalities
companies
elderly people and their families/close ones
the national center and ombudsman for the elderly.
The aim of the project is to increase the capability of teaching product development and design subject in the area of specialisation of Handicraft Technologies and Design by applying the digital competences acquired in the area of specialisation in product development projects into the performance of which smart production technologies as well as enterprises on the regional and national levels have been engaged.
In the course of the project, new subjects as well as e-learning materials and new courses oriented at prototyping and product development are developed. The project also includes the development of continuing education programmes in the area of product development, including a course on the creation of 3D models of products and preparation of production drawings for production necessary for the provision of services to enterprises. The study materials to be created will be digitally available also to the public sector, which in turn will create favourable conditions for the services provided through the product development laboratory.
The curriculum of “Traffic Safety” at Tallinn University Haapsalu College and the Faculty of Education of Driving Instructors at Nord University Stjørdal have both similar aims - to educate driving teachers based on modern teaching methods and provide higher education in the field of traffic safety. The overall goal of this network has always been in giving high quality education.
The main aim of the planned mobility project is to give network institution students a change to experience learning abroad through express mobility and therefore increase the overall quality of their studies. The project objective is to carry out a sheared course. As both project partner have very similar curricula and courses it gave a good basis for a shared course. The course theme came from the previous cooperation where project partners co-created an international study book for driving teachers. The project enables to gain know-how and best practices of both project partners. As a result one international course will be carried out. The course "Reflective team" will be worth 3 ECTS and will consist of 24 contact lessons.
Skills are an important part of the infrastructure of the economy and the right decisions made by politicians, entrepreneurs, schools and private persons with regard to investments into education help promote the economy. Although it is a generally accepted belief in the market economy that the future cannot be accurately predicted and we cannot go back in time to plan the workforce, it is still necessary to conduct studies that reflect the trends and changes and strategies of measures and plans of activity which could predict the future course of the economy and the labour market.
An important mission of the education establishments that provide professional education is to foresee such trends and to be able to provide professional employees with the necessary skills for the rapidly changing future labour market. Unfortunately, schools are often too slow in responding to needs and fail in their mission to predict and help shape the future areas of specialisation. One of the main reasons for that is the scarcity of information concerning labour market trends, which could be the basis for the development of the study programme of an area of specialisation. Nevertheless, there are high expectations for schools to not only serve the local, but also the regional and international economy.
Due to the above, we implement a project for updating study programmes in the area of health promotion in the regions of Western Estonia and Helsinki-Uusimaa in cooperation with the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences and the Haapsalu Vocational Education Centre from July 2016 until December 2019.
The aim of the project is:
To conduct a study based on similar methodology in Estonia and Finland in order to determine the demand and future needs in the health promotion sector;
To use the analysis results to develop a comprehensive course strategy for establishments that offer vocational education and professional higher education in Estonia and Finland;
To prepare at least 10 new harmonised professional higher education (10 x 5 ECTS) and 6 vocational education (6 x 5 ECVET) study programmes in the area of health promotion, in order to improve the current study programme on the basis of future needs;
To implement the created programmes, assess their relevance and make amendments.
The project is funded by the European Regional Development Fund via the Interreg Central Baltic 2014–2020 support programme in the amount of 549,666 euros.
One of the priorities of the European Commission’s Road Safety Programme in 2011–2020 is to strengthen the qualification and training of road users. Project ‘Modernized teaching material and methodology for road safety educators’ provides novel teaching materials for road safety educators for the purpose of improving road safety through educating road safety teachers in Estonia, Finland and Norway. The objective of the project is also supported by the EU Road Safety Programme.
Cross-border cooperation allows participating education establishments to gather the skills and knowledge as well as modern teaching methods and best practice necessary for the training of driving teachers. The training of driving teachers currently lacks common teaching materials. In the course of the project, the project partners create new teaching and study materials – a book that is useful for both learners and teachers. The created study material is available to all the target groups. The study material can be found in the libraries and on the homepages of the project partners, where it can be accessed by the alumni as well as other organisations and partners involved in road safety and the training of driving teachers.
The innovative aspect of the process lay in the consistent engagement of target groups and students as experts in the preparation of the textbook. Adult students with professional experience in road safety are involved in the development of the study material via an intensive programme. Teachers prepare the draft chapters which are analysed and supplemented together – as a result of which every chapter of the book has passed constructive criticism and is ready for publication. By being involved in the preliminary work and learning process, students become active project partners and as they will become driving teachers in the future, the project creates a common and shared platform for the training of driving teachers in all of Europe. The implementation of the project strengthens the partners’ capability in the training of driving teachers by creating a study programme on an international level. That in turn has a positive impact on the development of the entire higher education in the participating countries. The successful implementation of the project supports future student exchanges by giving them the opportunity to use jointly created study materials in different countries and universities. The implementation of the project also supports life-long learning.
Project partners:
In Norway – Nord University (the former Nord-Trøndelag University College)
The objective of the project is to create an active network of teachers who have practiced or are interested in the flipped classroom (flipped learning) method. In the flipped classroom model, the former classroom work and homework switch places, which allows consolidating, analysing and linking knowledge in the classroom, while assigning the learners a more important role in managing their learning process. The aim is to introduce teachers to their colleagues’ experience and best practices to encourage them to use this method. During the project, practical workshops to introduce the flipped classroom method are held in every partner country.
Lecturers and practicing teachers of the universities of Iceland, Estonia, Denmark and Finland take part in the project.
The objective of the project is to map the models of cooperation of the vocational and higher education establishments of Estonia, Lithuania, Finland and Iceland with social partners, analyse the functioning thereof and highlight the best practices in order to achieve a more substantive, strategic and efficient model of cooperation between education establishments and the representatives of the labour world.
