A young person or a child that commits a crime is not only a massive cost to the society, but also a personal tragedy. And, we are talking about universal problem, with millions of such cases across the EU (Barry, 2006). The charges are ranging from minor status offences, such as theft, to such serious crimes such as burglary, robbery, violence, homicide etc. Afterwards, they more often than not face social exclusion and very limited future prospects, which leads them back to crime. How to avoid that? It is socially accepted that youth centre/worker is a good investment if it/he/she diverts at least one youngster from crime. The project “Climb-Over” is just about that: making good use of youth work to prevent teens/youth from making offences, as well as help reintegration of young offenders. In essence, CO aims to create a special programme in which youth workers would include young offenders in their work with youth. Objectives to achieve this: 1) identify the most common crimes youth are committing, and look for ways to reduce them; 2) enhance youth’s awareness on the impact of crime on communities and families; 3) re-integrate young offenders faster by involving them in youth work; 4) prevent young offenders from re-offending; 5) raise the qualifications and competences of youth workers, who could work together with young offenders; 6) spread tolerance and mutual understanding between young offenders and non-offenders. Naturally, the main target groups of the project are young offenders, non-offending youth (and youth at risk), youth workers and parents. The number of them to be benefited directly by CO is 2550. However this does not include people that will be reached by continuing dissemination activities and self-sustainable deliverables after the project. To fulfil what is planned, CO will have a total duration of 2 years [from IX 2018 to VIII 2020]. Its activities will take place in Lithuania, United Kingdom and Croatia. These can be grouped into the following: - Research on the best ways to integrate young offenders & youth at risk into youth work; - Staff training on how to re-integrate young ex-offenders through youth work; - Methodology creation on how to include young offenders & youth at risk into youth work, as well as prevent juvenile delinquency; - Multiplier events to promote the methodology, match young offenders and youth workers and prepare for social integration events; - Pilot programme that would test the methodology through events for youth in UK, Croatia and Lithuania. - Online platform creation for re-integration of young ex-offenders through youth work; - SOcial Shock (SOS) – youth competition for developing social advertisements aimed at increasing awareness of re-integration of young ex-offenders; - Creation of social advertisements on youth delinquency; - Further dissemination & continuation activities. As it is seen from the above, the project will produce a range of tangible results, which are essentially grouped into 2 intellectual outputs: 1) CO methodology to include young offenders into youth work & prevent juvenile delinquency; and (2) Tools for Re-integration of Young Ex-offenders. These products are going to impact the target audiences in all the project countries. Firstly, youth work will be improved by involving young offenders & youth at risk with their skills and experience. This will, in turn, add up to qualifications of the youth workers. Both participating young offenders and youth will also improve skills & competencies, extend their social networks and decrease xenophobia and ghettoism coming from both sides. All of this will have a positive impact on their future careers/life. Looking from a purely young offenders’ perspective, they will be able to reintegrate back to society faster. CO’s results will also give more recognition of similar social initiatives aiming to support young (ex-)offenders. Ideally, this could lead to more of those being implemented and, generally, a more accurate public opinion towards ex-convicts. Partner organisations have designed the project with self-sustainability in mind. That is why, the focus is on quality of the resources produced and their universal applicability in the European context. In line with Erasmus+ standards, the deliverables will be made free and openly accessible. That and the fact that juvenile delinquency is seemingly without an end and felt across all of the world including EU, ensures that CO stays relevant in the long-term. Its results are envisaged to be reintroduced elsewhere and make an impact beyond the project countries.

"Current European refugee crisis is one of the biggest threats to the European Project (Angela Merkel, 2015). Media is full of scenes with thousands of people flocking to Europe from the war zones looking for a better life. However, more often than not they end up in the place that does not want to use their potential nor welcome them. Is Europe going to keep these refugees out of work & societies? It would be a huge burden and a fast track to a clash of cultures. How to avoid that? Refugees must be integrated. Their potential is an opportunity for growth. Therefore, with this idea in mind, “Together: Refugees & Youth” (TRY) project was implemented. In essence, TRY aimed to create a special programme in which youth workers would include refugees in their work with youth. This way, youth could get a chance to develop in a multicultural environment; thus building up their tolerance and increasing multilingualism. Meanwhile, the refugees had a chance to integrate into the society faster, since the youth helped them with the local language, culture and traditions. To achieve this, these objectives were set: 1) integrate refugees into the societies faster by allowing cultural exchange with local youth; 2) raise qualifications and competencies of youth workers, by providing them with tools & standards for multi-cultural element in their work; 3) lower xenophobia, racism and foster multilingualism of the local youth;4) help refugees' integration by promoting more favourable public opinion and employment opportunities for them; 5) improve local youth work by involving refugees with their skills and experience.Naturally, reufgees, youth and youth workers were the main target groups of the project. Thanks to the activities, carried out by TRY project, more than 3000 people were positively influenced and benefited through various ways. Furthermore, this number does not inlcude people what were and will be reached by continuos dissemination acitivies, as well as self-sustainable deliverables long after the project has ended. Core activities of the project were carried out in Latvia, Lithuania and Croatia from 2015 to 2017 (total duration of 2 years), which can be grouped into following:- Research on the best ways to integrate refugees into youth work; - Staff training event;- Creating a methodology of how to include refugees in youth work & setting-up web-platform to help that;- Multiplier events to promote the methodology, match the refugees and youth workers and prepare for the pilot;- A pilot programme that will test the methodology in a variety of events for youth in Latvia and Lithuania;- Social Business Idea Challenge (SBIC) – competition for youth to develop their business ideas aimed at helping refugees;- ""Everyone Welcome"" badge (EWb) creation to award organisations working with refugees;- Further dissemination & continuation activities (e.g. crowdfunding to further support refugee integration to youth work). TRY was managed collectively by all the partners (representing diverse sectors), which had separate tasks & responsibilities and the official language for activities being English. The entire programme was monitored by the project’s quality board. Project has produced a range of tangible results, among which the most important ones are: 1) methodology and standards for youth work to include refugees; 2) SBIC and generated business ideas that could be turned to social enterprises; 3) EWb, which serves as recognition for companies/institutions that help refugees; 4) Web-platform, which stores the main project resources and includes a crowdfunding section.These products have impacted the target audiences in all the partner countries and beyond and still continue to do so. Firstly, local youth work improved by involving refugees with their skills and experience. This has, in turn, added to the better qualifications of youth workers. From a purely refugees’ perspective, they are able to integrate faster. In addition, both participating refugees and youth also improved their skills & competencies, extended their social networks, fostered multilingualism and became less xenophobic. Furthermore, these activities made a positive impact on their future careers/life. TRY’s results also gave more recognition of similar social initiatives aiming to support refugees, which leads to more of them being implemented and, generally, a more favourable public opinion towards refugees. Partner organisations carried out the project with self-sustainability in mind (e.g. through crowdfunding efforts), which allowed the creation of high-quality resources being universally apllicable in European context. This includes deliverables being free and openly accessible on the project's platform. That and the fact that refugee crisis is seemingly without an end and felt across all of the EU, ensures that TRY stays relevant in the long-term.TRY project results are available here: http://www.refugeeseurope.com"

There are increasing demands for universities to open up to society and to demonstrate their societal impact. Community engagement is a key precondition for societal impact and refers to partnerships between universities and their external communities, encompassing public, business and civil society sectors, to address societal needs. However, universities that wish to become more community-engaged lack methods and tools for doing so, policymakers lack a clear definition of community engagement, its dimensions, benefits and policy options, and communities wishing to partner with universities still find them difficult to approach. The long-term objective of the project Steering Higher Education for Community Engagement (SHEFCE) is to contribute to increasing community engagement of European universities, in the form of partnerships with local and regional stakeholders to address societal challenges. The specific objective of project is to build the capacities of universities, policymakers and stakeholders in Europe for mainstreaming community engagement in higher education. The SHEFCE project will produce four intellectual outputs (IOs):1) University action-planning for community engagement 2) Policy recommendations for system-level support for community engagement in higher education3) European online platform for community engagement in higher education4) Piloting a European university-community engagement heatmapTogether, these intellectual outputs will lead to the following outcomes: • Local level outcomes: Improved capacities of 5 universities and their communities for community engagement through institutional self-evaluation and action-planning • National level outcomes: Increased awareness of 5 national authorities/stakeholders of the value of community engagement in higher education, of system-level obstacles and of potential policy solutions • European outcomes: (1) Improved accessibility and quality of supportive resources for community engagement in higher education in Europe; (2) Foundation established for comparing European universities’ community engagement in a transnational contextThe number and profile of the participating organisations in the SHEFCE project will the following• 15 project team members from 10 consortium members (7 universities, 1 regional university network, 1 NGO and 1 private company)• 12 associate partners (5 high-profile international institutions, 3 dissemination partners and 5 local partners)• 100 participants from 5 action-planning universities The external participants of the project will be the following: • 5 sets of national policymakers and stakeholders from 5 countries (encompassing 75 participants) at national multiplier events• 5 sets of community stakeholders of each partner university (encompassing 50 participants) at local multiplier events• At least 10 high-profile European-level or international institutions in higher education at a European multiplier event• At least 80 consultation event participants (via webinars; 40 via stakeholder events) from universities, policymakers and stakeholders around Europe • At least 5000 unique visitors from at least 10 countries to the European Platform and at least 1000 social media followers The SHEFCE project methodology thus involves parallel actions at the local level, national level and European level. At the local level, the project will apply robust methodologies for developing high-quality plans to improve their community engagement; at the national level, the project will produce analyses to support evidence-based policy-making; and the European level, the project will both produce a valuable information resource for users and will pilot an innovative methodology and tool for measuring university performance in community engagement. The optimal long-term impact of the SHEFCE project (and its resulting sustainability) will be at three levels: • At a university level, the impact will be in the 5 partner universities fully implementing their institutional action plans for community engagement after the end of the project, resulting in improved community engagement and societal impact• At the national level, the impact will be in 5 national authorities consulted in the project agreeing to consider the policy recommendations of the project to remove obstacles for community engagement, paving the way for increased community engagement opportunities for universities• At the EU level, the impact will be in twofold: at a top-down level, EU-level stakeholders agreeing to consider using/endorsing the transnational European University-Community Engagement Heatmap as a future policy tool; at a bottom-up level, in the established European Platform for Community Engagement in Higher Education will support the emerging movement of universities wishing to be more engaged with their communities and will result in the establishment of a European network for community engagement in higher education.