European Solutions For Guidance And Counselling For Socially Disadvantaged Groups

This book is aimed at the guidance and counselling sector, with the purpose of increasing understanding and knowledge of socially disadvantaged groups and thereby increasing their participation in lifelong learning. Many individuals face a variety of obstacles arising from, for example, dependency on others, restricted choices, physical and social barriers and prejudice. The vocational training world is no exception, because unintentional barriers are often created by providers due to insufficient knowledge and understanding of disadvantaged people. The result is that this group is effectively denied access to lifelong learning, a situation which is clearly against the priorities established in 2002 on active citizenship, social inclusion and personal development and undoubtedly indicates that more effective guidance provision is needed . The objective of the research, named “Guide Life”, on which this book is based, was to collect and capture concrete experiences from both the guidance and counselling sector and members of disadvantaged groups in order to help guidance counsellors and their organisations generate a methodology to facilitate their inclusion in lifelong learning. Thus, the voices of people at a disadvantage play an important role in this book . The groups on which the research focused were long-term unemployed people, with a special focus on younger and older; immigrants and ethnic minorities, particularly women and young people; and disabled people.