The project Youth Centres for Mental Health of Young People, identifies three key areas, namely support for youth workers, social inclusion and quality promotion in youth work. The purpose of the project is to empower youth workers with general knowledge and skills for recognizing young people in mental distress through selected priority areas, and to additionally train and provide them with information and knowledge in the field of first psycho-social assistance to young people.Youth workers in youth centres and other NGOs working with young people are reporting an increasing number of cases of young people in mental distress. Working in this field represents a major challenge for youth work, therefore it is first and foremost important to have an initial understanding of mental distress, which consists of three parts: the past, present and future. Quality youth work is crucial when dealing with mental health, as the youth worker is a trusted person of the young person who can research the past of the young person and thus find out where he/she sees a solution or way out of the problem. In fact, conversation is still the most universal tool in helping and intervening appropriately, yet youth workers need professional guidance to identify mental health problems and provide first psychosocial assistance to young people in youth centres.Based on the above described challenges, we decided to jointly address the topic of mental health of young people in youth centres and provide youth workers with a holistic and unified approach to solving the challenges of modern times, through implementing a strategic partnership project. As the current situation regarding the covid-19 pandemic deepens the mental distress of young people, the project is also a response to mitigate the consequences that the pandemic has brought both for the individual and for society as a whole on a global scale.The project stems from the fact that working with young people facing mental health problems requires from the youth worker: (1) expertise, (2) appropriate methodology and (3) networking with other professionals. Based on this, through the set project goals in the first phase of the project, together with experts and youth workers, we will conduct international training for »trainers of trainers« and train youth workers from partner organizations to design protocols/approaches to mental health interventions through first psychosocial assistance and develop a model of national training for other youth workers. In the second phase, the partners will conduct national training for youth workers in their national realities and train youth workers for first psychosocial assistance and the use of protocols in practice. In the third phase of the project, we will include 1 youth center in each partner country, which together with experts and other stakeholders will participate in pilot training in the use of protocols. As part of this, we will conduct local events with experts and other stakeholders in the field of mental health in the local environments of youth centres, which will result in the establishment of a supportive local interdisciplinary networks and testing protocols in practice with young people in mental distress. All other youth workers involved will take part in the national pilot, as intervision and supervision meetings will be held with the support of experts. The national pilot implementation will focus on the reflection, adaptation and improvement of the developed protocols. The main products of the project will be a module of national training for youth workers for first psychosocial assistance to young people in mental distress and 8 protocols/approaches to mental health interventions for direct application in the practice of youth work.

Project is connecting partners from Bosnia, Serbia and Slovenia. Bosnian and Serbian partners have a long history of the social youth work, while Slovenia has not and needs to learn new approaches. Slovenia on the other hand has plenty experience in the active participation of youth. Complementary activities prepared the program where Bosnian and Serbian partners transfer their knowledge to Slovenian partner, while Slovenian partner transfer the know-how in structured dialogue. Therefore the project consists of seminar (for youth workers) and conference where the recognition of the project and impact will be given.

<< Objectives >>Goal: Assuring equal access to quality and sustainable youth work, in geographically isolated, rural areas and disadvantaged neighborhoods.Objectives:Assess the current situation (practices, models, resources, research of needs and recommendations)Contribute towards creation of equal opportunities (creation of specialized learning opportunities and development of new models)Give access to quality and sustainable youth work (implementing learning activities and creating inclusive youth work)<< Implementation >>- Setting the ground - Joint Study and Joint Research report - Unfurling ways - Development of a curriculum and materials for training and Development of a youth work model - Capacity building - Implementation of training and Piloting a rural youth work model<< Results >>- Created Study of existing practices, models, and (educational) resources- Created Joint Research Report on the needs of the young people and youth workers working in targeted communities- Developed curriculum for Rural Youth Work training course- Developed Inclusive Youth Work Model- Implemented training for Rural Youth Workers based on the developed curriculum- Piloted Inclusive Youth Work model in three communities in the three partner countries

The Council of the European Union adopted recommendations in the field of smart youth work in November 2017. The fact is that today we are confronted with a rapidly changing society, thus youth workers, working with young people, need additional knowledge to be able to be mentors to young people on their way to independence. With the project we addressed the challenges and opportunities offered by the digital age, we decided to develop a project idea into the project called Smart youth work in youth centres. With the project, we aimed to answer the questions considering challenges faced by youth policy, youth work and young people. Because the field of digitalization is not yet completely developed, we decided with the project partners from Estonia, Germany and Finland to define the tools, methods and competences we need to answer the challenges of smart youth work. Since technological development provides new opportunities for developing the skills and competences of young people, we have decided to connect with relevant organizations from abroad and prepare a strategic partnership project that offers opportunities for networking and interaction, expressing opinions, experience, and consequently active citizenship of all involved. We are aware that only well-informed citizens and young people can be active. With this aim, we approach the project of digital youth work in a new field of work, with new methods for working with young people in youth centres. Furthermore, we are aware that digital tools, which are used by young people and youth centres already exist, but the project is taking a step further and strives to will develop the competencies of youth workers and young people on a systematic basis. Thus, as part of the Smart Youth Work in Youth Centres project, funded by the Erasmus +: Youth in Action program, we carried out a study visit in order to view good practices in Finland. We also conducted international training for youth workers who are responsible for the development of programs in youth centres, where they will develop program content.During the project, we created a document with tools, methods of work and competences in the area of smart youth work. The set of practices will enable the development of youth centres and more effective work in addressing the contemporary challenges of the digital age. Consequently, the role of youth centres in the field of digital youth work was strengthened. Through the project and project activities, we also considered a part of the European dimension of digital youth work.The project has long-term effects, as we have developed a model for recognizing the competencies of digital youth work and thus also finding the strengths and weaknesses of youth workers in researching and reflecting on the current importance of digital youth work. The impact of the project is broader, sectoral, we are currently in a situation that contains the content of youth work moving to the online environment.

YOUTH WORKERS ACADEMY was an educational and strategic partnership aimed at preparing a curriculum and manuals for youth workers in three areas: young people with special needs; LGBT youth; young people coming from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. The project reflected its internationality in a quality partnership of youth organizations from Turkey, Croatia, Romania and Slovenia. It also proved that it is a response to the need for youth workers from the above-mentioned countries, as they report that they often do not have enough knowledge to work with identified groups, especially in rural areas and places with fewer populations. By preparing specific learning plans – curricula and integrating them into meaningful manuals, we believe that we have made the first steps for higher qualifications of youth workers, presented them with suitable approaches to work with specific groups of young people, and consequently enable young people to get more involved in society and through them youth workers are transferring knowledge and skills in order to find themselves in a better position and raise their potential. Our overall goal was to expand the horizons of youth workers, to train them appropriately to implement the proposed curricula and to enable them to a better access to young people with fewer opportunities through the introduction of new methods of youth work in youth centres in Slovenia, Turkey, Romania and Croatia. The outcome of the project is the curriculum manual, which helps everyone who works with these three specific youth groups. The manual also includes the transfer of good practices between four countries, a visit to 28 external youth organizations, the involvement of over 200 youth workers in pilot training. Over 12 dissemination events were conducted. We started the project with a kick-off meeting and concluded with an evaluation meeting. The curriculum manual remains a lasting result of the project, and the organizations involved would like to continue with the training for youth workers after the completion of the project and, if necessary, upgrade and develop new models in the same partnership. The desire of the partnership was to gather the best team for the development of content in selected areas and in terms of the competencies and experience of the involved youth workers – experts and we believe that the latter has succeeded. For the past two years, the set of quality projects of the team has led to the goals set. New approaches in youth work developed in the project in all four countries (and wider in the EU) constitute a sustainable tool for conducting training sessions and suitable workshops for the integration of young people with special needs who, with regular and quantitative use (methods), offer good foundations for reaching the desired young people and their active inclusion in society. One of the priorities of the project was strengthening our own organizations.