The situation of people with disabilities is high on the EU social inclusion agenda, as through the adoption and implementation of the European Commission’s European Disability Strategy 2010-2020, EU promotes the active inclusion and full participation of disabled people in society, in line with the EU human rights approach to disability issues. Regarding labour market participation, it has been reported in the EC Joint Employment Report 2017 (http://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=17224&langId=en), that “data (EU-SILC 2014) show high activity and employment gaps for people with disabilities” what was no exception for the main target group of the ProHear project.

Thus, the main goal of the proHear project, within 26 months Strategic partnership, was to provide integrated support, tailored to the needs and specificities of people with hearing impairments, through development and validation of innovative integrated training tools and materials, in order to increase motivation and self-awareness, create incentives for acquiring new soft skills necessary for efficient job search, improve job-finding competences and employment performance and thus promote efficient integration of hearing impaired people into employment.

1. Identification of the key competence gaps and specific training needs of people with hearing impairments in the partner countries, related to job finding, on-the-job performance and employability in general.
2. Identification of a number of occupations (3-5) in each partner country, in which people with hearing impairments find serious difficulties effectively integrating.
3. Elaboration of an innovative training methodology, tools and materials, combining the processes of counselling, training and job-seeking in a single, integrated approach, in order to enhance the employability and social inclusion of hearing impaired people.
4. Transfer the project effects to other countries through the set-up of an Interactive e-Learning Platform and establishment of a network for trainers and employment counsellors of people with hearing impairments.

The proHear consortium comprised 6 partners from 4 countries (Poland, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and Iceland), with diverse profiles in the field of hearing impaired people’s support and employment (i.e. universities, union of deaf people, education’s association and rehabilitation centre). Thus, the proHear partnership achieved a good balance and mutual complementarity in terms of experiences/competences possessed and allocation of tasks and responsibilities.

The proHear main target group were people with hearing impairments, differentiated by their employment status (inactive/unemployed/employed) as well as relevant stakeholders, incl. actual/prospective employers and trainers/employment counsellors.
As part of the project a Survey and Gap Analysis (IO1), were carried out by means of desk research and interviews with hearing impaired persons and relevant stakeholders, incl. actual/prospective employers of such individuals. Based on the above high quality, practically-oriented training workshops were conducted using curriculum and training content, as well as training guide for counsellors, elaborated within (IO2) and a special Empowerment Kit (IO4) for people with hearing impairments was created. In order to enhance the sustainability and efficiency of the training activities, a trainers’/employment counsellors’ collaborative network was established and an Interactive e-Learning Platform created (IO3), containing all the developed learning resources and making training content and experience accessible to all stakeholders for adaptation and further use.

The proHear project had an overall impact on participating organisations, policymakers, social partners, single employers and, finally, people with hearing impairments, as its major objective was to narrow the existing knowledge gap, provide awareness on key concepts and opportunities and equip hearing impaired people with the needed tools to support their efforts for mitigating their own state of “vulnerability” in the labour market and improving the degree of their social inclusion. Moreover, put in place a sustainable process of empowerment, self-awareness and self-initiative among the project’s target group will continue to evolve after the project’s completion by using the http://prohear-platform.eu/ and the project results will further be available at project www.prohear.eu website beyond the project end. Dissemination included mentoring approach, valorisation (pilot) workshops with practitioners and hearing impaired people as well as 12 different Local Info, Career and Labour market days with relevant stakeholders (indirect beneficiaries) in each country including international valorisation conference in PL and EU dissemination through partner networks.

Upplýsingar á íslensku

ProHear verkefnið er þróað innan Erasmus+ Key Action 2: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices (Samvinna um nýsköpun og deilingu góðra hugmynda og verklags). Verkefnið er samvinnuverkefni 6 stofnana og félaga frá 4 Evrópulöndum: Póllandi, Búlgaríu, Litháen og Íslandi.

Verkefnið byggir á þeirri hugmynd að fólk með fatlanir séu almennt á meðal þeirra hópa sem standa verst að vígi á vinnumarkaði. Fatlanir hafa áhrif á líf fólks á margvíslegan hátt, hvort heldur við leik eða störf, þátttöku í skólastarfi, þjálfun, við félagslega þátttöku og hafa einnig áhrif á efnahagslegt sjálfstæði viðkomandi einstaklinga. Nýlegar rannsóknir hafa sýnt að aðeins 20% fatlaðra í Evrópu séu á vinnumarkaði og margir þeirra séu í hlutastörfum, séu á lægri launum, störf séu ekki í samræmi við menntun eða getu, þessi hópur sé líklegri til að vera í tímabundnum störfum og framamöguleikar þeirra séu takmarkaðir.

ProHear verkefnið leitast við að stuðla að auka þátttöku heyrnarskertra á vinnumarkaði og ryðja úr vegi einhverjum þeirra hindrana sem þessi hópur stendur andspænis.

Milljónir heyrnarskertra um alla Evrópu tilheyra þessum hópi. Þau telja sig vera sett til hliðar sökum fötlunar sinnar við ráðningar og úthlutun starfa og verkefna. Það kann að reynast þeim erfitt að komast inn á vinnumarkaðinn en launað starf skiptir miklu um lífsgæði og sjálfsímynd og því er mikilvægt að veita þeim ráðgjöf og þjálfun við atvinnuleit og undirbúning fyrir störf.

Verkefnið miðar að framleiðslu sérútbúins þjálfunarefnis sem mætir þörfum heyrnarskertra, efnis sem stuðli að aukinni hvatningu og sterkari sjálfsmyndar, örvi frumkvæði og hvetji folk til náms og þjálfunar sem auki virði þeirra í augum atvinnuveitenda. Með þeim hætti verði hægt að auka atvinnuþátttöku heyrnarskertra.

Því “heyrnarlausir geta allt nema heyrt”!