The Social Value of VET project – European Experience in Aesthetics and Well-being (hereinafter SVoVE) was funded by the Italian national agency for Erasmus Plus – VET sector (INAPP) with approval dated 16.07.2019 (protocol no. 2019-1- IT01-KA202-007789).
This project starts from the realization of how important the acceptance of one’s body is within the general well-being of the person. For this reason, in recent years the beauty sector has had a great development, requiring an increasing number of employees.
Parallel to this trend, the job market also requires a greater specialization of aestheticians, identifying and proposing areas of activity not practiced up to now. One of these is socio-aesthetics, a field in which the aesthetician lends treatments to fragile and vulnerable people following various events (invasive surgery, chemotherapy, medical and pharmacological treatments that leave deep traces on the human body, etc.).
This has led to the identification of this new professional profile, in which the socio-aesthetician can identify and plan specific interventions that can give vulnerable people the opportunity to reconstruct their physical appearance and to accept the changes that have occurred as a result of traumatic events, thus rediscovering a good balance between mind and body.
The socio-aesthetician is configured as a professional capable of working with this target of customers both within her own center and in health facilities, becoming a full member of the medical team that treats vulnerable patients. In order to operate in this way, however, the aesthetician needs three essential elements that, to date, are not recognized:
- a solid (sound) specific preparation to be able to face the problems of vulnerable
people; - the recognition of a qualification or specialization in socio-aesthetics, after having attended an appropriate training course;
- an official entry into a medical team in order to communicate adequately with colleagues and establish with them the aesthetic line to follow, alongside the therapeutic one.
These particular objectives fall within the general objective indicated by the European Commission in reference to VET, namely to promote lifelong learning and improve the quality and effectiveness of international experiences and practices for the purpose of continually improving levels of professionalism.
To achieve this general objective, SVoVE is based on a fruitful exchange of good practices between operators in the wellness sector from various European countries, aimed at defining, sharing and disseminating common methodological guidelines. For this reason, this project adopts a multi-disciplinary and inter-sectoral approach, on which to base professional training activities truly subservient to the needs of the entire community.
Interesting and useful qualitative and quantitative results are also expected from the project, in order to build the new professionalism of the socio-aesthetician and to be able to present solid proposals to local, national and European policy-makers, in order to fully regulate the professionalism of the socio-aesthetician and her entry into the labor market.
On a more general level, this professional profile can be part of a recent approach to health that takes the name of One-health (holistic view). It is a health model based on the integration of different disciplines and the assumption that human health, animal health and ecosystem health are inextricably linked. The One-health philosophy is recognized by the European Commission, by most of the Ministries of Health and by all international organizations.
One Health is an ideal methodology for achieving global health because it addresses the needs of the most vulnerable populations based on the intimate relationship between their health, the health of their animals and the environment in which they live. This broad concept of environment also includes specific care given to people in difficulty. Thanks to the plurality of skills present within them, the teams that adopt a One Health approach have long started multidisciplinary collaborations and joint actions, transversal to its research sectors. Therefore, there are no obstacles to the inclusion of the socio-
aesthetician within these working groups, as she can make her own contribution to the completion of the One Health paradigm.
Keep on reading the final results of the project