Our StoryTeller project team has successfully participated at this year's European Vocational Skills Week. BBRZ and Storybag were invited to the EUROGUIDANCE conference entitled “Lifelong Guidance on a dynamic labour market: reach, empower, strenghten”, held on November 8^th in Vienna. The connecting theme of the event was the increasing changes in the European labour market - the variability and transition of the workforce and the development of modern technology have a particular impact on vulnerable, disadvantaged groups of the population being at greater risk of exclusion. The ability to cope with changing circumstances is becoming a key skill that employees need to develop for successful integration and full participation in society.

The main issue of the conference was how to reach vulnerable groups of the population and in particular how lifelong guidance can help people to face changes in the labour market effectively. The conference hosted two important key note speakers - Head of the Skills and Qualifications Unit at the Directorate - General for Employment, Social Affairs and Integration at the European Commission, Ms Alison Crabb and professor of Work and Organizational Psychology at the University of Berlin, Mr Andreas Hirschi. Beside the plenary session of the conference, an overview of methods and discussion workshops were carried out - The project "StoryTeller: Empowerment of persons under risk of exclusion through the development of storytelling professional training in under-equipped EU countries" was part of the latter.

Peter Frühmann from Storybag and Ingrid Pammer from BBRZ carried out a presentation and test of individual methods from the existing curriculum within the workshop. The workshop was full to the last place. The participants came from a wide variety of professional backgrounds: counsellors for vulnerable groups on the labour market (refugees, migrants, people who suffer from burnout syndrome, long-term unemployed, etc.). Next day the partners received email from a member of the organizing team, Ms Baloch-Kaloianov (Austrian EPALE coordinator), in which she stated that “she had been very inspired (she had followed the workshop partly) and that she also got the same feedback from other participants.“

She is happy that we are spreading the information about the conference and she would like to get the online version. And maybe they can place information about the project also on other places.

Positive responses, interest and professional conclusions about the importance, value and, above all, the usefulness of the curriculum, which we develop in the project, are definitely of great value and inspiration for continuing the work towards formal recognition of the "Work with stories" curriculum.

We invite you to read the latest events and activities in the project on the following website.

Moira Kobše works as a professional worker in the project office at OZARA d.o.o., Service and Disability Company.The main fields she worked in the past are, in particular, informal learning and its importance among young people, modern forms of employment, and the provision of informal educational workshops with a variety of topics, especially for younsters. In recent years she has worked as a professional worker within the framework of the national social care system in the field of various social security rights and services for vulnerable groups of the population.​