PROJECT

The MIND (Mental Health Solutions for Educational Inclusion in distressed Ukrainian VET) project is implemented under Erasmus+ as part of the ERASMUS-EDU-2024-CB-VET – Capacity building in the field of Vocational Education and Training (VET) competition, as an action focused on capacity building in the field of vocational education and training.
The project is co-funded by the European Union under Erasmus+ and developed in international cooperation (multilateral partnership) involving EU organisations and academic institutions from Ukraine.

Background to the project

The war in Ukraine has a long-lasting impact not only on the economy and the labour market, but also on the functioning of communities, families and the ability of young people and adults to continue their education and professional development. In such circumstances, the VET system (VET) has a dual role: on the one hand, it supports the recovery and development of human capital and, on the other hand, it must respond to the growing psychosocial needs of students and learners who experience stress, anxiety, overload and sometimes post-traumatic stress symptoms.


The MIND project was conceived as a response to this situation. Assumes that the resilience and effectiveness of Ukrainian VET today largely depends on whether VET VET institutions’ staff (teachers, trainers, tutors, mentors, support and administrative staff) understand and manage situations of discomfort and mental crisis among learners, and whether VET institutions have organisational arrangements in place to create safe, inclusive learning environments; The project also refers to European VET acquis and tools to support transparency of qualifications, quality and better matching of training offer with real labour market needs.

General objective of the MIND project

The general objective of the MIND project is to strengthen the resilience and responsiveness of Ukraine’s VET system by building and strengthening the competences of Ukrainian vocational education providers (teaching, administrative and management staff) in understanding, anticipating and managing situations of stress and discomfort for learners resulting from the psychological consequences of the war. The project aims to increase the efficiency and resilience of the VET ecosystem in Ukraine. Vocational education institutions are expected to be able to create safe and supportive learning environments for groups affected by the mental crisis.

Specific objectives of the project

The project pursues specific objectives focused on people’s competences, institutional preparedness and the use of EU solutions in VET VET practice:

  • Strengthen the competences of VET staff to support people experiencing stress and post-traumatic symptoms, including identifying PTSS symptoms, understanding PTSD mechanisms, and teaching with learners groups affected by the mental crisis, while building a sense of security in the teaching process and institutional settings of VET.
  • Increase the responsiveness of VET institutions by developing Resilience and Outreach Strategies, i.e. developing a medium-term vision and practical actions on how VET institutions can work with local stakeholders (in particular SMEs and the private sector) to better understand the dynamics of skills needs and adapt the offer to local socio-economic circumstances.
  • Dissemination and practical use of European VET-related tools in the design and delivery of transparent and relevant training interventions (including tools to support comparability of qualifications, language of competences and comparability of educational achievements).
  • Modernise the VET offer by embedding the European competence framework relevant for Ukraine’s recovery and transformation (digital, entrepreneurial, green, and individual and social competences) to make education programmes more forward-looking and coherent with the competence approach.

Main tasks and means of implementation

Mind is a practical project that combines tool development, training and knowledge transfer in an international cooperation format. The activities are organised in Work Packages:

Under WP1, a management system, coherent consortium cooperation procedures, communication, reporting and quality-maintaining mechanisms are being developed. This package has resulted in, among other things, a management and reporting toolkit and formal arrangements under the Partnership.

This is a key content package that includes the design and development of training materials and operational tools to support work with people experiencing the effects of stress/war trauma, as well as the preparation of solutions for a modern VET vocational education system and the use of the EU’s VET acquis. The materials are designed to be realistically implemented in vocational training institutions, including in language versions suitable for the audience in Ukraine.

The focus of WP3 is on the transfer of competences through training, workshops and a mobility component (virtual and physical) allowing for learning through observation, exchange of experiences and practical fine-tuning of solutions to be implemented in Ukrainian institutions.

In WP4, the project ensures the visibility of the results, their availability in the repository and ‘mainstreaming’ activities, i.e. aimed at ensuring that the solutions developed are adopted more widely, beyond the consortium itself, in the VET environment in Ukraine.

Expected results

The MIND project envisages the creation of a set of concrete deliverables that will support both the smooth management of the project and, above all, the sustainable use of the solutions developed in Ukraine’s VET vocational education system. The most important are:

Comprehensive project management and reporting toolkit and consortium partnership arrangements (results WP1).

Planning and coordination framework for the activities of the WP2, as well as strategies for the development and resilience of VET institutions (institutional capacity-building results).

Mobility reports and evaluation and validation reports that document the quality and usefulness of the solutions developed in practice.

A set of training courses and tools covering, inter alia, PTSD/PTSS working issues and the use of EU approaches and tools in the design of VET vocational education, together with materials made available in an e-learning environment/repository.

The Valorisation Plan, the dissemination reports and the mainstreaming plan, i.e. documents and actions aimed at the sustainable adoption of results in the wider VET environment.

The project is aimed at

  • VET teachers, trainers, tutors and mentors working in the Ukrainian vocational education system;
  • psychologists and educational support staff in Ukraine;
  • the management and administrative staff of the VET institution in Ukraine;
  • and indirectly to students and vocational education students in Ukraine who are learning in conditions of prolonged crisis, trauma and feelings of insecurity, including PTSD symptoms.

Project partnership

The MIND project is implemented by an international consortium that brings together partners from the EU (Poland, Italy, Belgium) and Ukrainian institutions (VET and higher education) that are implementing solutions in real-life conditions for education during the long-lasting crisis caused by the Russian aggression against Ukraine. The partnership logic is deliberately ‘twin-track’. On the one hand, it ensures access to European quality standards, methods and tools and, on the other hand, it ensures that the resulting solutions are practical, applicable and scalable in the Ukrainian VET system.

HOW THE CONSPRTIUM WORKS
Partnership cooperation and the adopted logic of the initiative are based on a classical approach involving the diagnosis of needs and the co-creation of solutions, testing and fine-tuning of results, institutional implementation and dissemination. EU partners support the design of solutions, the preparation of training content, the quality framework and the visibility of results, while Ukrainian partners are responsible for piloting, adapting to the local context, validating in the institutional environment and embedding results permanently in Ukraine’s vocational training practice (procedures, support schemes, educational offer, cooperation with the environment).

Consortium partners

UCF is a Dnipro-based university formed by the merger of two academies (Financial and Administrative Profile), active in the development of international cooperation and educational projects. In the MIND Project, the UCF is responsible for the implementation and adaptation of solutions in the Ukrainian environment, including the development of an institutional approach to resilience, quality and cooperation with the socio-economic environment. The partner also brings the perspective of preparing human resources for sectors crucial to the functioning of the state and the economy, which strengthens the project’s strand of education responses to the real needs of the labour market and building sustainable mechanisms for modernising education provision.

The ADN Institute is responsible for the overall management of the project, the coordination of the partnership work, the timetable and follow-up of the progress of the tasks, the substantive coherence of the activities, quality assurance and communication and reporting. As an organisation specialising in the implementation of educational projects and development services, it brings to the MIND Project competences in the design of training programmes, the organisation of capacity-building activities and cooperation with stakeholders.  In practice, the role of the ADN Institute also means ensuring that partners work according to common standards (quality procedures, risk management, uniform material formats) and that the results are ready to be shared in the repository and used in VET institutions in Ukraine.

Federico II University of Naples provides the consortium with academic background and methodological support for the creation of knowledge and good practice solutions. The partner supports the project in designing content and solutions so that training materials and institutional recommendations are factually sound, consistent and transferable to different learning environments.  In the context of the MIND project, it is particularly important to contribute to the development of components related to the resilience of the learning environment, the recognition of mental crisis situations among staff and learners, the recognition and management of PTSD in the professional learning environment, inclusion and well-being, so that the support of staff and learners is both empathetic, systemic and embedded in the realities of these institutions.

The IHF acts as a think-tank, supporting the dissemination of European values, knowledge exchange, networking and competence building in the field of international cooperation and EU projects. In the Project, the MIND plays an important role in terms of communication, development of results, cooperation with stakeholders and mainstreaming, i.e. creating the conditions for the solutions developed to be adopted and used more widely than only within the consortium institutions. The IHF also strengthens elements related to the ‘translation’ of results into practice and policy language so that project materials are readable, reliable and ready for use in training and institutional settings in Ukraine and other EU countries.

Halytsky Applied College (Vyacheslav Chornovila) is an educational institution with a VET professional profile, emphasising dynamic development and combining traditions with innovation. In the consortium, the MIND acts as a frontline partner, i.e. one that brings the daily practice of working with learning groups in crisis settings, and then tests and refines the materials, tools and implementation scenarios.  This type of partner is crucial for the quality of the project, as it can test whether the proposed solutions are simple, useful and safe enough to be realistically applied by teachers, trainers and support staff without overburdening the institution.

The KPSI functions as an educational and rehabilitation institution of higher education, with extensive infrastructure of educational, research and rehabilitation units. In the MIND project, the partner provides a strong inclusion and accessibility component, including an approach to supporting people who might be at risk of exclusion in traditional educational settings.  This gives the MIND project the competence and practical solutions to design “inclusive by design” activities both at the level of teaching methods and at the level of institutional mechanisms (procedures, standards, support).

The IHU is a university located in Odessa, developing a wide range of courses and faculty structure, as well as solutions related to the quality of education and relations with the environment. Under the MIND project, the partner provides useful experience in integrating actions on psychosocial safety, well-being and quality of education in a context of high crisis burden. The perspective of working in an environment where issues such as stabilisation of educational processes, practical apprenticeships and, at the same time, sensitivity to learners’ stress and needs are of particular importance is also an important element of the contribution.