Final presentation of training intended for group work for unemployed people

Today in Ljubljana, cooperation between the Employment Service of Slovenia and the Swedish employment service AMS, has resulted in the final presentation of training intended for employment service staff engaged in group work with the unemployed. It is one of the activities within the broader “Work Life Development Programme” (WLDP) initiated in autumn 2004 by the Swedish employment service, with the aim of deepening professional links between public employment services in new member states and candidate countries for EU membership (Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey). It also represents continuation of the successful Work Life and EU Enlargement (WLE) programme, which ran from 2001 to 2004 and in which the Employment Service of Slovenia also played an active role. Both projects have been funded by the Swedish government.

The WLDP programme will run until October 2006, with the Slovenian Service participating in the following activities in the new project: linking employment services to local partners, evaluating employment programmes and group work with the unemployed, the final presentations of which were prepared by representatives of employment services in Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovenia. It must be emphasised that representatives of participating countries agreed with their Swedish partners last year on the content and form of activities to be conducted this year. As Claes-Goran Almer, operational head of the WLDP programme in the AMS, stressed, it involves a form of direct cooperation between public employment services from a number of countries, in which the exchange of different experience and good practices in solving similar problems is of primary importance.

Training related to group work with the unemployed took place in three circles. As was clear during today's presentations, representatives from each employment service focused on those target groups that in individual countries represent the core of the problem for whom to date no special activities have been prepared to help alleviate the problem. Thus the Latvians concentrated on the group of unemployed women following maternity leave, the Romanians on unemployed youth with general secondary education, and the Bulgarians on young people with disabilities, while the Slovenian representatives presented group counselling for unemployed people needing special guidance due to low self-esteem and long-term unemployment, representing one of the most important obstacles to finding employment. Swapping experiences showed that all these target groups need special consideration adapted to the particular group. Although these projects are still in the initial phase, they were very well received by their target audience. As participants in the group work for the unemployed workshops emphasised, unemployed people find mutual support in the group, start to believe in themselves and their abilities, and gain new motivation to become active: intensively look for employment, continue in education, undertake training and the like.

Although today's presentations mark the completion of activities involving the training of employment counsellors for group work for the unemployed, other activities will continue under the WLDP programme, involving evaluation of employment programmes, analysis and labour-market expectations, the importance of new technologies and the Internet for the activities of employment services, and the inclusion of people with disabilities and older people in the labour market.