Vilans combine labor force specialists, policy and practice
Meet Ben Stoelinga and Leonie Huibers from Vilans, who hosted COMPLIMENT´s transnational meeting of the project partners in Utrecht in the end of January.
What are your comments of the meeting?
We were looking forward to meeting the project partners from the other countries and the transnational meeting has been interesting. Together we worked at the aims of the project (intergenerational, self directed, life long learning) and discussed the different project phases (quality circles, competence profiles, self assessment, future workshop) and dirty details (budget). The exchange of information and knowledge was very helpful for us to gain an overview. Now, it´s more clear what is expected from the different project partners and their pilot organizations.
In what way do you think your organization will contribute to the project?
Vilans has already found an enthusiast pilot organization in Rotterdam (De Stromen) which is willing to cooperate in the project. In that way you can say that we are able to contribute to the project. In another way, we already have experience in developing and implementing training concepts into practice. We also have some experience in developing and implementing (concepts of) competences (e.g. profiles, working with competences, managing competences). These two topics will be developed further in the project. We suggested at the meeting to organize an informal session with experts in these two fields to explore these topics.
Could you tell us more about your organizations background?
Vilans is an independent organization with about 120 employees. We are focused on improving the quality of life of people who - because of their long term health problems (e.g the handicapped, chronically ill, elderly) - need care and welfare, support and housing, work and education etc. In order to achieve this goal, we often work in multidisciplinary teams. Our core activities are research and development, knowledge diffusion and implementation of good practices. We have a special interest in what is called the spread of innovation but in reality can better be called the adoption of innovation. How come that a good practice - e.g. small scale housing for handicapped persons - is so successful and yet not widely spread in the Netherlands? How can we support organizations (workers, management) to adopt innovations? What are the good principles of adaptation? This is also the case with the core business of Compliment: self directed, intergenerational life long learning. We have some examples of good practices on each of the subjects, but not integrated (e.g. competence management), more examples of good ideas, but not yet implemented. So we are eager to learn from other countries and together we will try to make this project successful.
Does the Netherlands differ in any way from the other partner countries?
Other countries are less institutionalized as we are in the Netherlands. We love institutions ('beds') and we can learn from others what talents (or competences) you need to support people in a vulnerable health situation to live in a more 'normal' way. We are working on smaller and less institutions, where the Spanish for different reasons try to reach larger and more institutions. Considering the other partner organizations, it seems to us that Vilans is more used to combine in its labor force specialists in research and implementation, policy and practice where the other partners have a more divided structure.
Is there anything else you would like to say about the project?
We think that it will be quite a challenge to introduce these promising and innovative concepts of Compliment (self directed, intergenerational, life long learning) into a practice that does not always or not totally fit 100% to these concepts. With our pilot organization and the international partners we have an interesting job to do. We keep you informed!
Leonie Huibers Ben Stoelinga (pl)