Nowadays, specialized job agencies, volunteer organizations, municipal social services and elderly support organizations offer services until a certain level. Mediating organisations do not necessarily meet the actual needs of the end users. Increasing their service levels and helping seniors better match their profiles and skills to suitable activities would enable to reach dynamic labour markets for seniors. SpONSOR reflects the urgent need to find new ways of working.
SpONSOR is an AAL funded project which aims at developing, testing and implementing an ICT platform that facilitates the posting, browsing and exchange of key information between competence-offering seniors and search-based requests, from competence-demanding organisations from the public, private and voluntary sectors.
SpONSOR will offer a number of core services, activated by the mediating organisations and personalised by end users themselves. Supporting seniors to identify and specify their preferences and requirements, thereby overcoming age-deficit thinking is one of the services. Then enabling seniors to describe and specify competences, skillsets and conditions of applications in a holistic manner, as well as to describe offers of service and their capabilities specific to the task. Support will also be provided in order to help them present these items in a consistent and optimised manner, targeted at the most appropriate organisations and users. Seniors can also get advices on legal issues regarding contracts or local labour constraints for senior occupation, as well as on the variety of labour regulations regarding post-retirement activities.
LIST brings its expertise with the development of the performing and innovative platform for volunteers’ management. LIST researchers also put their skills in experimenting at the level of Luxembourg’s pilot. SpONSOR will deliver both technology and methodologies in the form of associated toolkits that will enable elderly organisations and their end users to work together and to use the SpONSOR matchmaking tools to meet the real requirements of both the organisation and its users.
SpONSOR achieves his goal primarily through enhancing services within senior-oriented organisations (which we will also call end-user organisations), as a generic indirect mechanism building on the motivation, legitimacy and work already performed by these organisations regarding the possibility for seniors to be engaged in effective occupational activities of some kind. Each end-user organisation will be taken into account according to its context, mission and characteristics, and will be able to configure SpONSOR in its own terms by implementing those services best suited to meet their end-users requirements and preferences.
SpONSOR, will significantly enhance senior persons’ access to a wide range of occupational positions, thus meeting the AAL call 6 goal for supporting sense-making and the well-being of seniors in occupational environments whenever possible.