El Proyecto STEP: Apoyando el Talento al Programa de Empleo (Supporting Talent to Employment Programme)

STEP es un proyecto piloto transnacional formado por un consorcio Europeo que busca crear un marco común de acreditación (homologación) para los profesionales de las industrias creativas & culturales (artes escénicas, plásticas, audiovisual, diseño, etc.) que imparten formación no reglada en la Unión Europea. Ante todo, el proyecto STEP está interesado en aquellas entidades y organizaciones que fomentan e imparten la formación no reglada a través de la creatividad & la cultura para colectivos marginales. El consorcio transnacional está formado por los siguientes socios: WAC Performing Arts & Media College, Collage Arts (Chocolate Factory), Prevista, Associazione Culturale MuLab, Institute of Social Studies, University of HAN, Dimitra Institute of Training & Development y ArtQuimia Sound Skool. La implementación del proyecto se realizará durante 2009 y 2010.

The main aim of this project is to develop a common European framework of competences for mentors and support workers in the non formal and informal learning sector (NFLS) in the creative industries, with a particular emphasis on how young disadvantaged people from the target group can progress (‘STEP’ up) to become mentors and support workers in the sector themselves. STEP is concerned with European organisations that utilise informal and nonformal learning, delivered through artistic and cultural expression, to provide vocational support to disadvantaged and disaffected young people. This field uses music, dance, drama, visual arts, media production and design in non-formal/informal learning environments in order to create new learning, employment and career pathways. It is successful in engaging with young people who do not succeeed through ‘formal’ education and training. The problem is that while some of this learning is externally validated and formally recognised, most of it is not, leaving people who work in the sector without validated and accredited occupations.

The approach taken in STEP is founded upon the transfer of innovation from the successful Leonardo ‘CrossWorker’ project into the non-formal learning sector (NFLS) in the creative industries. CrossWorker was concerned with occupations in the broader field of youth work. It developed a set of methodologies that enabled young disadvantaged people who were ‘in receipt’ of youth work services to develop the skills and capabilities to become mentors and support workers themselves.

Our specific objectives are to cooperate through STEP to compare methods and approaches to the development of mentors and trainers adopted by the NFLS organisations in each partner country; to develop a common competency framework to supporting young disadvantaged people to become NFLS mentors and support workers; and to take a first step towards the development, within the European Qualifications Framework, of a common validated set of competences for support workers and mentors who work in the NFLS in the cultural and creative industries.