Vocational Education and Training for sport workers
Innovative Program for building personal and social skills (VET4SPORT)
Vocational Education and Training for sport workers
Innovative Program for building personal and social skills (VET4SPORT)
The objective of VET4SPORT is to promote professional development of sport workers through innovative Vocational Education and Training, in a way in which the sport workers gain empowerment, inclusion, and respect for diversity.
The processes and practices promoted and introduced in this project are a completely innovative approach to achieving organizational change with sport workers. The interest to bring innovation is of crucial importance to the adaptability to a modern era, and to the needs of the sport workers and the people they collaborate with on an every day basis. The ultimate goal is to create a process of permanent need for innovation and development.
All of the project work is conducted in close cooperation between the project partners from North Macedonia, Greece, Italy, and Austria. The following organizations are included in this partnership:
The Macedonian Human Resource Association (MHRA) – leading partner (North Macedonia)
KENTRO EREVNON NOTIOANATOLIKIS EVROPIS ASTIKI MI KERDOSKOPIKI ETAIREIA (SEERC) – partner organization (Greece)
Football Federation of Macedonia (FFM) – partner organization (North Macedonia)
Sinergie Education Srl (SES) – partner organization (Italy)
Academy Burgenland – partner organization (Austria)
Project Partners
The Macedonian Human Resource Association (MHRA)
The Macedonian Human Resource Association (MHRA) is a professional, non-governmental, non-political, and non-profit association of citizens, for conducting work and activities related to the development of the workforce, promotion of the importance of human resources functions, as well as improvement and increasing the standards and level of the profession of HR management.
FOOTBALL FEDERATION OF MACEDONIA
FOOTBALL FEDERATION OF MACEDONIA is responsible for organization of all soccer related activities and VET, professional and amateur football, women’s and man’s soccer, grassroots soccer. There are more than 40 staff in FFM, more than 20.000 registered members (players, coaches, referees, sport workers, volunteers), 545 soccer clubs, with a lot of different teams according their age category, and more than 450 referees in all levels.
SINERGIE EDUCATION
SINERGIE EDUCATION is a consulting and training center, for several years been involved in the planning and organization of training courses included in the sports. Sinergie Education Srl, a specialized company providing services in education and training, has continuously provided business education and training for more than fifteen years, and Its specialized in providing in depth analysis of company needs and it provides training which is customized to clients’ needs and practically applicable.
SEERC
SEERC is an overseas research centre of the University of Sheffield, established as a non-profit legal entity in Thessaloniki, Greece. The centre was founded by City College, the University’s International Faculty, in 2004. It is conducting multidisciplinary research in the fields of Enterprise, Innovation & Development, Information & Communication Technologies, and Society & Human Development.
Burgenland football academy
Burgenland football academy is the best place for a training camp. It started functioning in 2008. This state-of-the-art academy offers various training and playing facilities for young and talented football players. The venue offers the very best training facilities for young talented footballers and to date 71 youngsters have already enrolled on the training program.
Research
The conducted research for measuring the opinion of the relevant persons in academies/training centers, sport workers (soccer trainers), soccer players and parents of the soccer players was implemented in the period February-May 2018. The research was conveyed through both electronic mail and hard copy, in order to investigate the tendencies, set the baseline of the educational programs/curricula and implementation of pilot training for the soccer trainers.
The main goal of the research, besides gathering the opinions of relevant people in sport, was to: collect more information regarding human resource management in soccer clubs, identify programs used to educate the soccer trainers and skills used by the soccer trainers in order to manage players, as well as for self-management. It also serves to identify proposals to promote these processes through specific opinion and vision of the interviewees, especially regarding the aspects of:
Self-management skills
Human resource management skills
Social values
Secondary objectives refer to the results which gave direction for preparation of the educational program/curricula and implementing the pilot training based on the curricula, aiming to strengthen the skills of soccer trainers. These results give us an overview of the current state regarding human resources management in soccer clubs, skills of the soccer trainers for self-management and if and to what extent are social values taken in consideration by the soccer trainers. The secondary objectives are of great importance to at least three groups: soccer trainers, players and sport clubs in general.
The research understands 4 types of questionnaires intended for 4 target groups, i.e. academies/training centers (partner organizations), sports workers – soccer trainers, soccer players and parents.
All questionnaires have same structure and focus on the 3 different aforementioned aspects.
The empirical part of the analysis has been conveyed with representative sample of 312 interviewees, out of which the samples from each country are the following:
| Academy | Trainers | Parents | Players | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| North Macedonia (66) | 2 | 22 | 18 | 24 |
| Greece (44) | 1 | 15 | 10 | 21 |
| Italy (51) | 1 | 10 | 20 | 20 |
| Austria (151) | 1 | 11 | 57 | 82 |
The results of the research were presented on the workshop in Thessaloniki, Greece (8-11th July 2018), through the following presentation
Presentation
VET4SPORT Final conference
Multiplier event: Final Conference on Dissemination of results and promotion of project measures
On 21 June 2019, the First International Sports Conference was held with the aim of introducing the project on Vocational Education and Training for Sport Workers “VET4SPORT”- Innovative program for building personal and social skills. The conference was held at the hotel “DoubleTree by Hilton”and it was in collaboration with the Football Federation of Macedonia (FFM). At the Conference there were more than 150 attendees form North Macedonia, Greece, Austria and Italy. The conference gathered several experts from the field of sports which provided us with some insights on how the coaches can deal with some of the day-to-day challenges. At the opening segment of the conference, Muamed Sejdini, president of Football Federation of Macedonia, Darko Petrovski, president of Macedonian Human Resources Association and Vasil Tupurkovski, president of Macedonian Olympic Committee addressed the audience.
Further on, here’s a recap of our main stage presenters:
- The conference included a first talk with Ms. Hristina Lozanoska with a recapitulation of the VET4SPORT project, summarizing and restating the main points of the project.
- Mr.Boris Kubla gave a perspective on the “Development of the players and coaches (HNS case)”. Mr. Kubla, who is a UEFA Pro Coach, spoke of the learning objectives for coaches, aims of the CFF Football Academy, development of the players in Croatia.
- Mr. Nikos Lambridis delivered a powerful message on “The Adultification of the youth sports”. He stated clearly what the role of the parents and the coaches should be when it comes to giving support to the child. Also, Mr. Lambridis gave the audience an insight from the neuroscience point of view and explained the key ‘influences’ in children’s habit-of-mind formation and how they have an effect, as revealed through the child’s externalised behaviours.
- Mr. Renato Gligoroski gave a presentation on the topic “There is no “I” in TEAM-The playing competence model-Implementation high quality team playing solutions”. He illustrated the challenges coaches need to overcome when implementing a Performance management system and how to come to a solution with the players who can interfere with the coaches’ decision which is based on the data analytics.
- Dr. Zoran Handziski demonstrated the importance of “The role of the coach in managing the health issues in the club”, which was also the topic of his presentation. Speaking from his point of view, as a specialist of sports medicine, through examples of experience-based situations he tried to raise the awareness of the importance of sports medicine.
- 4 participants representing each partnership organization who participated in the 6- Day Training, event which was held prior to the conference, were involved in a panel discussion regarding their experience with the training event. It was notable that the participants in the panel discussion were overwhelmed with information from the Training event and were eager to express their opinion about the current situation in the organization which they were representing.
- Mr. Mario Gjurcinoski closed the conference by exposing FFM’s training program for coaches, highlighting the improvement in this segment throughout the years, as well as the positive outcome which it has brought to the overall performance of the North Macedonian football players.
The organization of this event wouldn’t have been possible without the support of FFM, who shared their training facilities, as well as some innovative solutions regarding football with attendees, helping us make the 6 – day Training and the Conference a huge success.
Number of participants at the Final Conference: up to 150 people
Date: 21.06.2019
Location: Hotel DoubleTree by Hilton
