The Blueprint for Skills Cooperation and Employment in Active Leisure project focuses on developing new skills for current and future workers for improving employability of young people and supporting entrepreneurship and growth across the sector.
Trainers & Animators – The #BEACTIVE Professionals
The European Active Leisure Sector which is comprised of the subsectors Fitness and Outdoor is a fast-growing sector with an annual growth rate of 4.0%. At the heart of the industry are 1,000,000 professionals – e.g. Personal Trainers and Outdoor animators – who need to be properly skilled to work with their 80 million clients.
Meeting the Needs of the Labour Market
According to Cedefop’s skills online vacancy analysis tool “Skills-OVATE” (2018), the EU Fitness sector alone is seeking to fill 88,000 vacant positions across the EU Member States whilst employers struggle to find the staff with the right skills set: only 16% of employers find it easy, or very easy to recruit the trainers they want to work in their clubs (EuropeActive 2019) .
The Team
The Blueprint consortium is composed of organisations representing the fitness, outdoor and physical activity sector at European level:
- EuropeActive (coordinator)
- European Confederation of Outdoor Employers (EC-OE)
- European Network of Sport Education (ENSE)
- Fundación España Activa (SpainActive)
- Gdansk University of Physical Education and Sport (GUPES)
- International Council for Coaching Excellence (ICCE)
- Sport Ireland Coaching.
The project consortium is supported by external experts Andy Grant and Steve McQuaid and independently evaluated by Berkley Associates.
The Project
Started in January 2018, the project is funded under ERASMUS+ Sport: Collaborative Partnership and designed to be delivered within three years.
The consortium aims realising the above-mentioned objectives by
- Running annual skills surveys to identify current skills gaps and shortages, and to provide foresight into future skills needs.
- Updating existing qualifications for key occupations to meet future skills needs.
- Analysing the obstacles and recognition of skills and qualifications in Active Leisure.
- Promoting the benefits of the learning experience and gaining of qualifications for developing wider skills for employability – including developing transversal skills.
- Developing an enhanced registration/recognition of the competencies of workers to help improve their mobility.
- Establishing an awarding organisation which will oversee the quality assurance of the delivery of qualifications.
- Using ECVET systems to improve qualification recognition.
- Recognising the value of informal and non-formal learning and training.
- Trialing the new qualifications with national qualification frameworks to improve their recognition and visibility at a European level.
All activity results will feed into the sector skills strategy, the Blueprint for the Active Leisure Sector. Ongoing research activities are peer-reviewed by sectoral stakeholders which form the Sector Skills Alliance for Active Leisure.
