Work4Psy

Project lead 
Prof. Dr. Peter Weber 

Project participants 
Prof. Dr. Silvia Keller 
Prof. Dr. Dr. Andreas Franke 

Project staff 
Dr. Stefan Matthias Zick-Varul 

Third-party funding provider
European Union Erasmus+ Programme

Project duration 
September 2019 – August 2022 

Coordinating institution
HdBA

Project partners

• PanHellenic Association for the Psychosocial Rehabilitation & Work Integration, Greece
• CESIE, Italy 
• The Association of Young People With Mental Problems, Their Families and Friends POMOST, Poland
• VšĮ "eMundus", Lithuania

Young adults with mental illness are often confronted with particular difficulties when going from school to work. As a high-risk group, they are often affected by the non-completion of degree programmes as well as unemployment. Often, they spend a lot of time out of school, training or gainful work ("NEETs": Not in Employment, Education or Training). A successful transition to training and work is often a matter of competent, trusting, sympathetic support in personal relationships, as well as social-psychological assistance and professional career counselling. In the project Work4Psy we gather the complex challenges and difficulties which they are confronted with along the way in training and in work, as well as the needs and proposals that the young adult himself, his family members and health and social service professionals express. At the same time we collect examples of good practice in help and assistance provided by informal and professional care providers and process them to make them transferable. 

Based on the state of the research which we summarise in national literature reports and in a transnational synthesis, and on our own investigations (focus groups, individualinterviews), we are working with our partner organisations in Italy, Greece, Poland and Lithuania to develop a European toolkit in order to improve career counselling for young adults with mental illness. This includes an overview of the support systems that our partner countries have in place, an explanation of our Work4Psy approach to the professional counselling of young adults with mental illness, guidelines on practical work with regard to such topics as destigmatisation, empowerment, networking and the role of informal care providers as well as activities and material for counselling work. A curriculum facilitates and uses this toolkit for supporting the path to education and employment. 

The projects developed are geared towards four target groups: the young adults personally concerned, an informal care provider (e.g. a family member), a professional from social services/the health system and career counsellors. Educational provisions are a pilot project in the partner countries and are then optimised based on experience. The curriculum, toolkit and further material specific to the target groups are made available via the self-designed online offers (webportal, learning platform) .

The individual aims of the project (Intellectual Outputs, IO) are as follows:

• IO 1: Evaluation of the state of research
• IO 2: Focus groups, development of a European toolkit
• IO 3: Curriculum with individual teaching units specific to the target group, courses in a pilot run
• IO 4: Media centre with target group-specific material, especially adjusted
• IO 5: Webportal and learning platform