“The goal is to respond in a personalized way to the situations of vulnerability of young people who do
not study and do not work” – Stefania Segnana
It is called C.O.P.E and is a European project dedicated to the social inclusion of NEETs, young people excluded from training, study and labour market programmes. The official start-up of the initiative, funded by the European Commission under EaSI, the European Programme for Employment and Social Innovation, was held with a kick-off meeting on 8 February 2022, on a teleconference with all partners.
The Department of Health and Social Policies of the Autonomous Province of Trento is the coordinator of the C.O.P.E. – Capabilities, Opportunities, Places and Engagement: Approach for Social Inclusion of Difficult to Reach Young People through a “Relational Proximity” Community Network.
The other partners of the project are the Trentino Federation of Cooperation and the Coges Don Milani Group of Mestre (Italy), the National School of Public Health of NOVA University of Lisbon and SHINE 2Europe (Portugal), the University of East London (England) and the European Foundation for Philanthropy and Development of Society (Croatia).
“The overall objective of the project – explains Provincial Councilor for Health Stefania Segnana – is to innovate and reinforce interventions to address the vulnerabilities of young people who do not study, without work and who are not part of a vocational training program. These are complex and coordinated interventions, which concern various areas of competence and are intended to address barriers to social integration and those that hinder access to the labour market. For this, it is necessary to respond in a personalized way to vulnerabilities arising from social isolation, cognitive, psychological, behavioral problems or interpersonal deficits.”
COPE, dedicated to young people aged 15 to 29, has the involvement of 7 partners from 4 different European countries, from January 2022 to December 2023.