With the contribution of the Leonardo Da Vinci programme
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“Visual impairment and employment: Succeed together”
24th
Paris, France
– 25th September 2010
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Synthesis of the testing phase of PASSEMPLOI in Italy
BLINDNESS AND JOB
THE NATIONAL CONTEXT
The legislative framework for the protection of disability has been quite recently
defined in our country but it soon became a very complex issue.
The main law has been completely revised in March, 1999 and it’s aimed at
supporting services and targeted employment to promote social inclusion and
integration of disabled people through targeted tools.
This law equally applies to all people with disabilities, including blind people (Article
1, paragraph 1).
The law provides for an obligation for both public and private employers, including
non-entrepreneurs, political parties, trade unions, and nonprofit organizations
working in the field of social solidarity, assistance and rehabilitation, to hire disabled
people according to the size of the organization or company (Article 3):
• 7 percent for companies (public or private) with more than 50 employees;
• 2 workers for companies with 36-50 employees;
• a worker for businesses employing from 15 to 35 employees, in case of new hires.
Public employers must indeed comply with the rule providing a double opportunity for
disabled people: the “call” recruitment after verification of the consistency of the
disability with the performed tasks, and the reservation of the available jobs within the
compulsory threshold and up to 50% of available places after regular selections.
With the contribution of the Leonardo Da Vinci programme
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As far as sanctions are concerned, the Provincial Directorate for Employment is in
charge of fining employers up to the number of non-worked days incurred by the
disable worker that should have been hired according to the law.
With regard to specific legislation for blind people, a law in 1985 envisaged, inter alia,
an update of the employment framework. This is a key law not only in terms of
employment but also as for the pension scheme. This specific law provided a
framework for blind people in order to ensure that they could perform specific tasks
(teachers, therapists and physiotherapist, receptionists) thus leading to the current
situation.
According to the above mentioned rules, working blind people are today about
13,000, which is quite an interesting number considering that totally or partially blind
people are about 123,000 and that 75% is represented by old people: among
employed people, 9000 of them are receptionists, 1500 are physiotherapist, 1000 are
teachers and 1500 are professionals, programmers, musicians, artisans, traders and
industrial workers.
PASSEMPLOI IN ITALY
Italian partners
Against this background, three Italian partners has been involved in the Passemploi
project: the main institution specialized in visual problems and blindness -IRIFORwho provided the technical and scientific advice in relation to current legislation, the
employment situation of blind people in Italy, and training activities, TecFor, a
company specialized in training and education and SOGES S.p.A., a company
representing the business world and specialized in managing complex projects
(national and European) to ensure the daily management of the project and the
capitalization of results through an institutional and entrepreneurial network.
PASSEMPLOI IN ITALY
The training modules
The training modules were jointly developed among the Italian partners according to
their skills after a first focus group with local stakeholders held in November, 2009 in
Turin and organized by TecFor.
The proposal was subsequently developed and presented to the foreign partners of
the project at the meeting which was held in Paris in December 2009.
With the contribution of the Leonardo Da Vinci programme
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PASSEMPLOI IN ITALY
Testing the modules: results and problems
Irifor involved 20 representatives of the employment centers of the Province of Rome,
while TecFor and Soges involved 5 representatives of the Employment Centre of the
Province of Asti and 1 entrepreneur of Unicredit Bank.
The partners have chosen to use the platform provided by Irifor for testing the
modules thus exploiting also the experience achieved by TecFor in distance learning
and education and in order to ensure a broader participation without leaving their job
places to attend the course.
Soges and TecFor having fewer participants and being focused on Module 3, has
decided to integrate distance learning with two classroom sessions, thus providing a
general overview of project and a deepening of Module 3.
- Distance learning has proved to be a good choice to the extent that it allowed
the involvement of a higher number of participants, while limiting exchanges
among the participants. The final training course should provide alternative
sessions both through distance learning and classroom practice;
The structure of modules, the duration and the contents have generally attracted the
interest of the participants and added new knowledge to trainees.
A single training for internal and external mediators is a feasible solution, but some
corrections and insights are necessary to ensure the consistency between the course
and the background knowledge of the participants.
Going into detail of the modules, the testing phase led to the following modifications:
Module 1: approved for both mediators;
Module 2: Focus on existing good practices in Europe in terms of legislation and
practices;
Module 3: common part: the identification and creation of network of actors at local
level;
3b. for the representatives of Social and Employment offices and institutions: focus
on the business world;
3c. for the business world and stakeholders: focus on the activities of employment
centers, funding opportunities, the integration of best practices and existing facilities;
Module 4: approved for both the mediators;
With the contribution of the Leonardo Da Vinci programme
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PASSEMPLOI IN ITALY
Capitalising and disseminating the results
The local dissemination was carried out by posting the description of the project and
the capitalization opportunities on the websites of the Italian partners.
Moreover, a focus was sent through e-mail to the Province of Turin, the Industrial
Union and to the members the consortium TecFor and the clients of Soges Spa.
The material produced in the Conference will finally be circulated locally through the
internet.
An update of the Italian section of the project site will try to detail as much possible
the opportunity to capitalize the results of the project and will invite interested entities
to contact the Italian project managers of the project, Federica Zardo and Orlando
Paladino, for more information and assistance (federica.zardo@sogesnetwork.eu;
segretariogenerale@irifor.eu).
An effective capitalization of the project results should be produced by submitting the
training course, adapted according to the results of the testing phase and finalized
after the final conference in Paris, within the Regional Fund for disabled people.
Currently there are no open calls for proposal but the partners commit themselves to
monitor the available opportunities and to contact the appropriate offices at a
Provincial and Regional level in order to provide this successful project with a followup.
In the short run, however, the aim of the Italian partners is to repeat the course
through the platform according to the suggestions gathered during the testing phase
in order to stimulate greater interest and start up an effective raising-awareness.