On June 20 and 21, 2023, the BeST Inclusion project partners flew to Utrecht, the Netherlands, for a consortium meeting at the WOS offices.

The two-day meeting enabled participating partners to meet face-to-face and discuss the progress of the project and its third phase.

PROJECT PROGRESS

The first phase of the project has been finalized since the last consortium meeting. This phase involved collecting and analyzing data on the current employment situation for young people, women, and people with disabilities. To achieve this, the academic partners gathered data from national official sources about employment in the sports sector and set up European round tables on this subject with various stakeholders.

This phase of the project culminated in the production by our academic partners of three studies on the employment barriers in English, each focusing on a particular topic (age, gender and disability).

Since then, the partners have embarked on the second part of the project, which involves the production of a best practice guide that overcomes the barriers and obstacles placed in the first place. The idea is to examine national differences in greater detail and to research case studies of recruitment and employment practices and initiatives promoting a more inclusive workforce.

To do this, the partners have organized in-person national roundtables from December 2023 to March 2024 in each of the consortium countries, which enabled us to analyse and compare employment practices and customs in different European countries.

DAY 1

This consortium meeting aimed to discuss the content and structure of this guide, which is currently in production. The guide is intended to contribute to the actions of the stakeholders towards a more inclusive workforce for the sports sector by providing a comprehensive analysis of the needs and solutions.

To this end, each partner expert was given the opportunity to present to the rest of the group the content of the guide and the best practices they had identified during its production. ENGSO Youth dealt with age, Alice Milliat Association with gender, and the Finnish Paralympic Committee with disability.

This guide will be available in early September.

Following these presentations and to conclude the day, the partners had the chance to participate in a workshop led by ENGSO Youth, entitled « Are we able to keep youth voices involved?” This allowed them to brainstorm in groups on a definition of youth participation and to learn a little more about this process, which has been interestingly unveiled as part of the BeST Inclusion project.

                       

DAY 2

The second day of the meeting was entirely devoted to developing the project’s third phase, which consists of producing recommendations by the sports employers’ group.

This phase aims to address the issue of workforce inclusiveness in the sports sector by formulating policy recommendations that are in line with its economic reality.

To achieve this, sports employers will meet in a series of online meetings to create recommendations that can be used as part of social dialogue at the national and European levels.

Thus, during the meeting, the partners were able to reflect in groups on the content of these recommendations, particularly the issues of recruitment, workplace culture, career development and working conditions, which are the 4 points on which barriers to employment often emerge. Then, the partners were able to reflect on the structure to adopt when designing these recommendations to produce a comprehensive, clear and attractive document.

Thanks again to all the partners for their presence and investment in the project!

See you at the beginning of September for the guide’s publication and stay tuned for updates on the recommendations!