On September 20th, BETI team – director Gvidas Rutkauskas and deputy director Greta Volodzkaitė had an extremely important meeting with member of European Parliament from Lithuania – Andrius Kubilius and his assistants Ramūnas Stanionis and Ieva Tvarijonavičiūtė in Brussels.
During the meeting, BETI team presented the ongoing organization’s activities, discussed the current situation of Europe education, the importance of digital skills for the job market, and looked at the BETI projects that are being implemented on a European level. Main focus of the discussion was set on the BETI project “CCJ4Career: European Career Counselling Guidelines for Staff Working in Criminal Correctional Justice System” and importance of skills development for adult learners.
The main aims of the project – develop, test and set in place a working methodology for starting or improving the career guidance process in the criminal correctional justice (CCJ), focusing on the competencies needed to manage own career and put on the European public agenda the need of a structured and guided approach to career management in prison system, starting with the involvement of the direct interested parties. The prison is mostly seen as a punishment place, but it also needs to be seen by the general public also as a place where professionals build careers and are active adult learners.
BETI team presented the project activities, results created with the partnership during Work Packages: Policy context analysis in CCJ careers, Stakeholders’ analysis in CCJ Careers, the supportive competencies and educative needs, Development of learning tools & resources to bridge the policy context and the learning context in an interactive environment, Development of policy action recommendations based on the evidence built in the project for the development of a career guidance mechanisms in CCJ.
What is more, discussion on what is the situation in supporting career guidance in CCJ and why it needs addressing, as well as what are the current threats at the European and national levels was held. BETI presented the work done in partner countries and highlighted the importance of career guidance and self education.
European Parliament policymakers agreed that the project is important, and the results of the project will not only support career guidance in correctional system but will also educate the society about possible career opportunities and the whole prison system. Discussion led to the conclusion that skills improvement in crucially important to all adult learners and staff working in the criminal correctional justice system need more help as the negative reputation of their workplace has an influence on opportunities, they receive for possibilities to improve their skills.
Keep up with the updates about the project and our progress here: https://www.careersincorrections.com/
