Group for Employment Reintegration
The up-to-date available knowledge and statistical indications (Γ.Γ.ΕΣΥΕ, 1998-2006) indicate that the lack of opportunities for access to the typical labor market is a result of, among others, the following main conditions and factors: • Quantitative and qualitative mismatch between the supply and labor market demand • Lack of basic professional qualifications and skills due to insufficient integration into the education system (MESSOLONGI TECHNICAL EDUCATION INSTITUTE “SOCIAL EXCLUSION AS A SOCIAL PHAENOMENON DURING THE PERIOD OF CRISIS IN GREECE “[29]] • Absence or decrease of sufficient qualifications or skills due to physical or mental disability. • Social stigma. • Lack of uninterrupted communication with the wider environment and ignorance of the public institutions that are responsible to inform about the labor market conditions and to intervene in the seek of employment. • Lack of access to the labor market and assistance to maintain the job. The aforesaid conditions do pile up and very often appear to threaten certainr groups of the population. For this reason, different strategies are required to fight the phenomenon of exclusion from the labor market (Cassimati, 1998). The vulnerable social groups who are facing poverty and social exclusion are unable to have the same opportunities with regard to the access to health care, education, in the working environment and of course in social rights.
In order to solve their problems upo to a certain extent, the Association will put in effect a pilot plan for an ” EMPLOYMENT REINTEGRATION GROUP ” for the unemployed / poor parents it supports.
The group will be coordinated by a Social Worker and a Psychologist. The aim is to support the parents in such a way that they will, by the means of the assistance provided to them, become autonomous, gain self-sufficiency, gain economic and emotional efficiency, be released from the dependence on charity and to reintegrate into the social development. This group will help unemployed parents to evaluate their strength and potential, develop work confidence and, through their rehabilitation, to socially redefine and reintegrate.
The group will consist of 10 members and will be meeting once a week for a period of two hours. In October families will be informed about the operation of the group. In November the Psychologist and the Social Worker will make a total of 20 individual appointments in order to select the most suitable candidates. In December each of the 10 people selected to join the group will make an individual appointment with the two group coordinators to get detailed information on the subject, the terms of operation of the group and the terms of confidentiality. In January the group’s goal will be for the participants to acknowledge their capabilities and skills. In February we will be focus on how to find a job the right timing to do so and in March we will evaluate the total effort of the quarter and we will probe as to how close they are to the target of finding a job.
The ultimate goal of the group is that the beneficiaries of the benefits of the Association be released from this kind of assistance and are replenished.
By the end of the workshops, the 10 parents belonging to vulnerable social groups (long-term unemployed, illiterate, with health problems and mentally handicapped) will be trained for their financial empowerment.
