Project Information

Fact Box

Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership for Adult Education
CYCLES – Child and Youth Caretakers Financial Literacy and Entrepreneurship Skills
Coordinator: FH JOANNEUM Gesellschaft mbH (Austria)
Project Duration: 01.10.2017-30.09.2019

General Information

The CYCLES project is set to improve entrepreneurship skills and financial literacy of child and youth care practitioners (CYCP).

Child and youth care systems in countries across Europe provide decent support for children and adolescents with complex needs. However, in most countries care ends at the age of 18, leaving the so called young care leavers to stand on their own feet and earn a living. Young care leavers (YCL) belong to the most vulnerable groups in European societies, exhibiting an above-average propensity to fall into unemployment, poverty, criminality and other undesirable developments. YCL employability would increase substantially with improved financial literacy and entrepreneurship skills. The problem is, however, that YCL hardly get the chance to develop such skills during care. After all, even a majority of their caretakers have deficits in this field, as there are rarely any economic subjects in their studies or formation.

Therefore, CYCLES addresses child and youth care practitioners as multipliers: CYCLES empowers CYCP to act as financial literacy and entrepreneurship mentors, pass on their skills and help establish favourable conditions for further capacity building.

 

Main Benefits of CYCLES Project

CYCPs are true experts in facilitating the social development and welfare of children and adolescents. They do outstanding work and contribute substantially to the integration of vulnerable groups into society. CYCP are – by education and experience – equipped with a wide range of skills. However, a majority of CYCP lack financial literacy and entrepreneurship skills.

This is unfortunate: It is a well-known fact that children in care often adopt skills from their caretakers.

Therefore, the CYCLES project is going to create and implement a training on financial education and entrepreneurship for CYCP in order to upgrade their skills in the first place and second to be able to transfer the knowledge to YCL to prepare them for their future individual daily life.

Additional benefits of the CYCLES project are:

  • First, the job profile of CYCP may involve a number of administrative and financial duties. Financial and entrepreneurial training can facilitate everyday work for CYCP as well as for their employers.
  •  Second, moving up the career ladder, CYCP will eventually be charged with the management of divisions or institutions. Being familiar with the basics of entrepreneurship and financial literacy, they will be better prepared to take the next career step.

Main Target Groups of the CYCLES Project

The main target groups within the CYCLES project are as following:

  • Managers from partner child and youth care organisations
  • Managers from other child and youth care organisations
  • Child and youth care practitioners from partner organisations
  • Child and youth care practitioners from other organisations
  • Young people in care and prospectively young care leaver from partner organisations
  • Young people in care and prospectively young care leaver from other child and youth care organisations
  • Researchers from academic partners (FH, Uni, IKJ)
  • Scientific community
  • Political and educational authorities
  • Decision makers
  • Companies who especially employ young care leavers

Main Outputs of the CYCLES Project

  1. The CYCLES training, which will be developed by the project consortium with the input from different perspective. The training is going to consist of 4 modules which will be developed and implemented by the project consortium. It is essential that the consortium works together in the development and implementation phase and each partner adds the knowledge according to their expertise.
  2. The CYCLES Transferability and Evaluation Handbook, which ensures that the CYCLES training materials created will be thoughtfully implemented to other countries or to other parts of the participating countries. For the consortium it is of utmost importance to create a sustainable impact on CYCPs and young care leavers to increase entrepreneurial skills and financial education.

About our TRAINING….

… in Austria

… in Bulgaria

… in France

… in Germany

… in Poland