Started in January 1994 and concluded in June 1995, TWIN is one of the 43 projects launched by the European Commission within the DG XIII programme "Telework Stimulation".
It was the only project specifically focused on disability, with the main aim of investigating how far teleworking centres can improve job opportunities for disabled workers. A substantial part of the project was devoted to monitoring real experiences of teleworking in five Countries (Italy, United Kingdom, Ireland, Greece and Finland), some of them already existing and some other promoted by the TWIN partners. The European Commission is quite active in promoting teleworking, as part of its unemployment fighting strategy outlined by the Delors' White Paper on "Growth, Competitiveness, Employment". The advancements in information and telecommunication (IT&T) technology and the spreading of information highways, supported by enormous investments all over the European Union as recommended by the "Bangeman Report", are easing the path to teleworking and increasing its prevalence at all levels in the labour market.

From the point of view of a disabled worker, that means that more and more opportunities of teleworking are being offered in the future; and a teleworking culture will be more widespread among employers than today.

The documents produced by the TWIN study can be helpful for setting up teleworking experiences now, but also for better preparing the disabled workers to such a near future.

More details about Telework Stimulation and the related Projects, like TELDET, ADVANCE, PROLINK, WORKNET, OFFNET, EXPUN, HRM and many others can be found in the Internet Telework WEB pages.

Other information can be asked to:

Telework is a new and flexible way to carry out some suitable working activities
It requires:

• systematic use of IT&T equipment
• distance from the employer or from the traditional place of work

It offers new and interesting employment opportunities to disabled people. In general, disability is never a critical issue for a teleworker; even for severe disabilities technical adaptations (assistive devices) are available to accommodate for much more cases that one could think. Furthermore, by reducing mobility needs, telework is a facilitating opportunity.

• Plan, develop and evaluate Pilot Experiences of teleworking by people with disabilities
• Support their Networking, cooperation and integration in the European labour market
• Draw up a set of Recommendations and Guidelines for policy makers and potential implementors of telework

Analysis of requirements, opportunities, barriers and technological implications based on:

• existing literature and experiences
• monitoring and evaluating a number of Pilot Sites in five European Countries by means of questionnaires, interviews and visits to the Pilot Sites

Focus on aspects related to disability:

• job integration, feasibility, efficiency, etc
• technical infrastructures, organisational issues
• social and personal impacts of teleworking

• An Insight on Telework & Disability
• Guidelines for implementing telework centres
• Policy Recommendations to overcome barriers to teleworking by disabled people
• A Directory of Telework Services available at Pilot Sites
• Demonstrate the feasibility of Transborder Telework
• Create awareness among the Local Authorities
• Analysis of Strength & Weaknesses by experiences
• A Booklet and a Video describing TWIN project and Pilot Sites

Finland

• Training Centre for Disabled (Järvenpää)
  a vocational school for people with disabilities owned by the National Association of the Disabled. It runs a Telework Centre offering IT&T and professional/marketing support .
• PROVE (Turku)
  a group of volunteer people with disabilities promoting self-employment by use of teleworking.

Greece

• BIOTRAST (Thessaloniki)
  a consulting centre run by BIOTRAST to deliver information on EU programmes, training placements for students and other business related information collected in four databases.
• DEKA (Trikala)
  a non-profit company created by the municipal authorities involved in training people with disabilities living in the area.

Scotland

• LEAD Telematics (Inverness)
  a training organisation for the disabled people which acts as a hub to a number of home-based teleworkers.

Ireland

• Ability Enterprises (Ballindine)
  a limited company providing high quality training in IT and tele-working activities aimed to help disabled people to gain entrance in the open labour market.

Italy

• ITALTEL (Milan)
  a large IT&T manufacturer in Italy which started a teleworking experience with a disabled employee.
• OASIS (Milan)
  a cooperative addressed toword telework.
• SIVA (Rome)
  an experiment of remote counselling.
• NETSIEL (Bari)
  an important software company with a disabled employee.

Seven Organisations and Institutes from five European Countries (Italy, United Kingdom, Ireland, Greece and Finland) have taken part in the TWIN Project:

	Telecom Italia Lab The Innovation Company Via Guglielmo Reiss Romoli, 274 - I-10148 - Torino Italy tel: +39 011 228 5111 fax: +39 011 228 5520 Italy e-mail: webcontact@tilab.com web site: www.telecomitalialab.com contact person: Mr Marco Mercinelli
	SIVA Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi ONLUS Via Capecelatro, 66 I-20148 Milano Italy tel: +39 02 40308444 fax: +39 02 40090157 e-mail: siva@siva.it web site: http://www.siva.it/ contact person: Mr Luca Alimandi
	WRC Work Research Centre 1 Greenlea Drive Dublin 6W Ireland tel: +353 1 4927 042 fax: +353 1 4927 046 e-mail: wrc@wrc-research.ie or wrc@compuserve.com web site: http://www.wrc-research.ie/ contact person: Mr Richard Wynne
	LEAD Scotland Linking Education and Disability Queen Margaret University College Clerwood Terrace Edinburgh EH12 8TS tel: 0131 317 3439 fax: 0131 339 7198 e-mail: enquiries@lead.org.uk web site: http://www.lead.org.uk/ contact person: Mr Ken Abraham
	NAWH National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health PO Box 220, FIN-00531 HELSINKI FINLAND Siltasaarenkatu 18 A tel: +358 9 39 671 fax: +358 9 761 307 e-mail: viestint@stakes.fi web site: http://www.stakes.fi/ contact person: Mr Victor Savtschenko
	HUSAT Research Institute The Elms, Elms Grove Loughborough Leicestershire LE11 1RG UK tel: +44 (0)1509 611088 fax: +44 (0)1509 234651 e-mail: husat-info@lboro.ac.uk web site: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/husat/ contact person: Ms Anne Clarke
	COMETT - BIOTRAST UETP 111, Mitropoloeos Str. GR 64622 Thessaloniki Greece tel: +30 31 268 201 fax: +30 31 277 960 contact person: Mr Lefteris Leondaridis

Contents:

• The shapes of Teleworking
• How to establish a Teleworking Centre
• Matching job and disabilities (selection)
• Customising the Tele-workstation
• Financial aspects
• Marketing issues and opportunities
• Three case studies

TWIN Guidelines are available as a booklet or as a PDF downloadable file:

Telework Guidelines for workers with a disability
Renzo Andrich e Luca Alimandi eds
Edizioni Pro Juventute
ISBN 88-85936-22-9 - p.33 - Euro 10,30

Abstract

Teleworking is a fashionable word today. The issue is raising a lot of interest also in the world of disability: the possibility to work at a distance is felt as a new opportunity to access the labour market, by improving flexibility and reducing the need of travelling to a workplace.
Experiences demonstrate that, when properly implemented, teleworking is an integrating opportunity for profitable employment. But this does not mean that teleworking is the magic solution to the problems of job integration of persons with disability.
These Guidelines originate from the experience of the European TWIN Project. Their purpose is to clarity concepts, and briefly guide to properly planning teleworking operations that integrate disabled workers.

This document can also be downloaded by clicking the filename below:

TELEWORK Guidelines for workers with a disability
twin_eng.zip - 231.210 bytes
(original file: guidline.pdf - 1.143.818 bytes)

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