Increase

youth welfare, transnational, further training, interdisciplinary, cooperation, crisis intervention

Coordination: Jugend am Werk Steiermark GmbH

Italy: FormAzione Co&So Network

Greece: ARSIS - Association for the Social Support of Youth

Germany: Clinic for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychotherapy Ulm

Romania: Directia Generala de Asistenta Sociala si Protectia Copilului Harghita

Great Britain: Volunteering Matters

Austria: E.N.T.E.R. GmbH

09/2015-09/2017

As part of youth protection, youth welfare services play an important role in supporting young people and enabling their healthy development and education. The family background of young people in youth welfare centres is often characterised by high-risk constellations, such as sexual violence, poverty, social isolation or parental mental illness. These troubled young people also include street children and unaccompanied refugee minors. The complexity of the cases means that the demands on youth welfare workers have risen sharply. In addition to higher qualifications and specific expertise, (socio-)educational skills, networking skills, crisis management and trauma education concepts are becoming increasingly important. The aim of the project is to expand the skills of youth welfare workers in dealing with young people in crisis situations by developing a transnational training programme.

The project consists of three parts:

1. Conducting an exploratory study in questionnaire form to gain an overview of the specific youth welfare systems in the various countries and to identify specific needs.
2. Development of the training curriculum with a focus on crisis intervention, interdisciplinary cooperation and trauma pedagogical approaches.
3. Following the implementation and evaluation of the training programme, recommendations will be made to political decision-makers for future training and further education of youth welfare staff at local, regional, national and European level.

An international conference in Graz, Austria, with presentation and discussion of the results will mark the end of this two-year Erasmus+ project.

Intellectual Output 1 - INCREASE research study

In order to find out more about the needs of the target group in each partner country, a study was carried out focussing on the content, structure and duration of the planned training. The results of this study were published in a research report, which served as the basis for the development of the INCREASE curriculum.

Intellectual Output 2 - INCREASE curriculum

Based on the feedback regarding the training needs of staff in residential child and youth services, the partners developed a curriculum that focusses on interdisciplinary expertise and cooperation with complementary support systems. The partners also developed the accompanying documentation and options for practical implementation. The training programme can be credited via the ECVET system. The training programme was subsequently piloted with the target group in the partner countries.

Intellectual Output 3 - INCREASE-Youth Policy Recommendation Paper

A "Recommendation Paper" accompanied the entire development process. This contains recommendations for policy makers and deals with improving the situation in residential crisis intervention and care and support for young people in the partner countries and throughout the EU. The recommendation paper was finalised and presented to the public during the final conference.