On 04.02.2022 /Friday/ in the "Sredets" hall of the "Central" Hotel - Sofia, an introductory conference was held under project BGLD-2.002-0001-C01 "Building capacity for educational and social inclusion", financed under Program "Local Development, Poverty Reduction and Enhanced Inclusion of Vulnerable Groups" of the Financial Mechanism of the EEA 2014 - 2021. The conference was opened by Mrs. Maria Gaidarova, Deputy Minister of Education and Science. Mrs. Gaidarova congratulated the beneficiary of the TSOIDUEM project and the partner SU "St. Kliment Ohridski", wishing success in the implementation of the activities and outlined the three main directions of the Ministry of Education and Culture for working with children and students from vulnerable groups: "First of all, this is the complete reorientation of the system towards the individual support of each child and each student. Secondly – ​​providing the appropriate conditions and resources to provide the support activities. Last but not least - the measures to overcome the consequences of the pandemic, especially for children and students from vulnerable groups". "The development of methodological guidelines to support the non-teaching staff in the current project is very important in order to have exactly this effective interaction that is sustainable over time between parents, children and school," she pointed out. Mrs. Maria Valova, Head of the FM Program Operator of the EEA presented information about the "Local Development, Poverty Reduction and Enhanced Inclusion of Vulnerable Groups" Program. "This project is an extremely important element for the entire program, its implementation will provide quality, standardized and to some extent consistent training to almost all teams for the implementation and management of many of the projects under the program," she pointed out. The director of TSOIDUEM - Dr. Lalo Kamenov, presented the main activities, goals and expected results of the project. "This project has its contribution to the development of the training component in the activity of TSOIDUEM. The current project builds on the implementation of the "Capacity Building" project under Program BG06 "Children and Youth at Risk". I hope together with SU "St. Kliment Ohridski" to justify the trust we have received from the Ministry of Education and Culture and from the Program Operator", pointed out Dr. Kamenov. During the conference, the results achieved so far under Activity 3 for upgrading the existing training frameworks were presented by the team leaders from SU "St. Kliment Ohridski", involved in the implementation: Prof. Dr. Liliana Strakova (Dean of the Faculty of Pedagogy at SU "St. Kliment Ohridski"), Prof. Dr. Silvia Nikolaeva, Prof. Siika Chavdarova-Kostova, Prof. Plamen Makariev and Prof. Dr. Vanya Bozhilova, professors at the Faculty of Pedagogy. Members of the formed teams also took part. Several discussions were also held during which the participants present were given the opportunity to ask questions, make comments and give their recommendations on the information presented. The conference was held in a hybrid format, with most participants preferring to join via the Zoom platform. A total of 122 participants were present, representatives of various institutions – Ministry of Education, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Education and Culture, BAS, schools, kindergartens, municipal administrations, youth centers, non-governmental organizations, citizens, etc. The holding of the opening conference is in fulfillment of Activity 6 "Information and publicity - Organization and holding of three events for information and publicity". 2 more public events are to be held, including public discussion of the developed methodologies and training programs for the relevant target groups, as well as a final conference to present the results of the project.