<< Objectives >>MHYT provides the partner organisations with an understanding of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on young people’s mental health internationally. It creates a forum to exchange good practises about dealing with young people’s mental health issues with regard to Corona and beyond, and a support network for youth workers .Beyond that it will help build a network from which future cooperations, e.g. a Cooperation Partnership, can be formed.<< Implementation >>MHYT will consist of three main activities:On regional/local level the partner organisations will carry out workshops for youth workers to exchange their experience and best-practise solutions.On transnational level youth workers will participate in a workshop about mental health of young people in transitional times.Then the partner organisations will meet to put together the results of the previous activities and to develop ways to further implement the shared good practises.<< Results >>The participating organisations will have a better overview of the effects of Corona on mental health of young people. Their youth workers will be strengthened in dealing with the psychological implications of the pandemic and in accepting their limits.Aside from that it will establish a network to exchange experiences on the topic of mental health of young people.

<< Background >>The European Union as we know today is the result of seventy years of development and treaties that started in 1951 with the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community. Since then other seven major treaties were signed. The Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union, where the basis for EU action in the youth field is established, has over 300 pages, but is its language and the content accessible to all? Although the treaties are translated into all the languages of the 27 members states of the EU, that does not ensure everyone understands the text. They are all written in “legalese”. So how do we ensure that the importance of the European Union is recognized by young people if its texts are far from their reality?READY builds on the positive results of highly successful projects coordinated by the YES Forum: “YourEP” (https://bit.ly/336FS6t), “Europe through young Eyes: Exchange, Explore, Exhibit (Europe3E)” (https://bit.ly/3thzBiO – Nominated for the prize “Salto Participation and Information Award”), and “Our life. Our voice” (https://bit.ly/2O5nK4k). These projects pursued the same general objectives: promoting Active Citizenship, EU and political awareness, and Social Inclusion. All these projects have shown that disadvantaged youngsters are interested in EU and national politics as well as exercising their citizenship when provided with the right opportunities.Although with these projects we would bring young people closer to understanding the EU, in them, we witnessed that the fact that EU treaties are still very far from the daily lives of young people, although the basis of the functioning of the EU comes from them. We aim to tackle this disconnection. That is why with READY we want to raise EU awareness in young people by making relevant provisions from EU treaties understandable to them. We want to raise literacy competencies in young people, so they can better understand the meaning of these treaties and the importance that they have over their lives. The partners have observed that there is an urgent need of making documents accessible to the target group. Treaties, resolutions, conventions, and academic papers that are hard to understand face resistance from the people to whom they address. That is why since 2020 the YES Forum has started a movement of providing easy-to-understand documents to our target group: the young people.<< Objectives >>READY aims at raising literacy competencies in young people, who are furthest away from political awareness. This will be achieved by combining a personal approach to the EU through an exploration of the EU in the young person’s everyday lives and through research conducted by the young people themselves on EU treaties.We will set up groups of young people in each participating country to discuss the meaning of the EU from their own experience. Through this guided and support process of discovering the EU through EU treaties, young people will develop their autonomy to further understand the EU.As a result of the project READY, young people will improve self-confidence, and autonomy to search and understand information, so as to better understand the meaning of EU treaties and the importance that they have over their lives. The mains and objectives are:- To ensure that the language of the relevant provisions to young people present on European Union treaties and policies are accessible to them.- To bring young people closer to understand what the European Union is.- To trigger the interest of young people so they appropriate the text of EU treaties.- To promote knowledge of the real impact of the European Union in the daily life of EU citizens.- To foster a better quality youth work using innovative and creative approaches- To improve the skills and competencies of youth workers and future youth workers.<< Implementation >>Young people with fewer opportunities will be directly involved as participants of all the activities proposed by the project READY:- Transnational Project Meeting 1, in Stuttgart, DE (12/2021): 1 youngster per partner (except Framework) will take part to help further fine-tuning the project so that it best meets the needs of youngsters with fewer opportunities.- Transnational Project Meeting 2, in Zagreb (06/2022): 1 youngster per partner will again take part in the discussions to include the young participants in all steps of decision-making. - Local activities of Phase 1 “EU ready to read”, incl. 1st Transnational Training “I read, I understand” in Strasbourg (10/2022): a group of young participants from each partner will take part in local meetings before and after the 1st Transnational Training in Strasbourg. There, they will receive training on Europe, EU politics, the role of treaties and policies, and techniques to design an effective infographic. The young people will be responsible to decide which of the relevant provisions from EU treaties and policies translated into easy-to-understand language will be transformed into visual content with the use of infographics. Besides expanding their competencies by trying out new methods during the training activities, youth workers will be in charge of supporting the young participants in local meetings to carry out the research activities.- Transnational Project Meeting 3, in Pau (01/2023): 1 youngster per partner will again take part in the discussions to include the young participants in all steps of decision-making. The youth workers will support the participants in voicing their opinions and presenting their group’s first infographics.- Local activities of Phase 2 “EU ready to see”, incl. 2nd Transnational Training “I understand, I use” in Lucca (05/2023): after new preparatory local activities, all young participants will gather to receive further training activities on EU citizenship and how to communicate about the EU. They will provide input for the recommendations on what are the risks of having EU language so distant from the reality of the young people. They will be accompanied by youth workers, who will themselves learn how to communicate about the EU in a language easy-to-understand and free of jargon, thereby broadening their scope of professional skills for participatory youth work.- Transnational Project Meeting 4, in Lucca (09/2021): 1 youngster per partner will take part with a youth worker to reflect on the project, give feedback and discuss dissemination of project results.<< Results >>According to the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth identified three core challenges that need to be addressed by youth workers while supporting young people in their path to adulthood: qualification, independence, and self-positioning. The READY project aims to tackle all these three challenges throughout these three phases: 1. Qualification: Phase 1 “EU ready to read”: throughout this phase, young people will be in touch with the most relevant provisions of the EU and that concern them directly. Because treaties and policies tend to be seen as hard to understand and far from the daily lives of the young people, they are often neglected as a topic that also needs to be addressed to young people. Through local activities and participation at the TPMs, they will be able to better understand the functioning of the EU.2. Independence: Phase 2 “EU ready to see”: during the Training C1 “I read, I understand”, young people will have the independence to choose which of the relevant provisions from the first result “EU ready to read” they find more important and they feel more connected to. During the local activities of Phase 2, the young people will have the autonomy to visually represent the chosen relevant provisions as they feel that fits better. 3. Self-positioning: having the knowledge (Phase 1) and the confidence to apply it independently (Phase 2), young people will be able to provide key messages addressing policymakers on their needs for an easier to understand language from the EU. These key messages will be reflected at the Project result #3 “EU ready to discuss”.Moreover, the project READY is aligned with the objectives and priorities of the European Youth Work Agenda. The basis of EU youth policies rises from EU treaties. With READY we aim at bringing back the connection between youth work and EU treaties, by making their relevant provisions accessible to all. We will also support the further development of the quality of youth work: by making the reach and limits of EU policies to youth in a language that is accessible to them, young people will have an increased sense of citizenship, which allows them to claim the rights that are ensured to them in the paper.By organizing multiplier events and final conferences in Brussels, which will include young people, we will enhance the promotion and recognition of youth work by policymakers.READY can be seen as a direct contribution to the Bonn process. As the Bonn Process represents the common effort to put the European Youth Work Agenda into action and make it become real, we aim at making it accessible and visible to young people. In READY we will work with both target groups – young people and youth workers – to boost youth work.

<< Background >>Partners want to promote equal opportunities for internationalization for VET students who need special support in their studies due to disability or other reason. For example, Luovi’s strategy focuses on ensuring internationalization skills for all students. As stated in Erasmus+ program we want to promote inclusion and encourage the students with fewer opportunities to participate. Our project has a strong focus on digitalization, too. Project is targeted for students with special needs and students with fewer opportunities. The students who usually go abroad study for vocational qualifications. For prevocational students in Finland there are less opportunities to go abroad, since the studying time is usually only one year. In other partner countries there is a need to promote internationalisation of special needs students as such. The project is aiming to enhance students' competences related to European citizenship, cultural awareness, transversal soft skills and digital skills. In addition, project has a strong social context, and the products will be made together with European partners. Through the core of the project the students will learn skills for internationalization, despite aiming for actual mobility or not. Students will be strongly involved in creating digital tools for internationalization as part of their studies with the support of teaching staff. Original idea has risen straight from the teachers working with students with special needs. There is a need for study module for preparing students’ skills for a mobility. We widened the idea to be able to offer internationalization for all, not only the ones who aim to have work experience abroad. Through our project results it is possible for all students to gain international experiences at their home country. The final structure of the study module can also be used as a preparatory course before actual mobility, the need of this arises from the partners. We plan to develop a new study module, because it does not exist in the prevocational students’ curricula in Finland. Other partners will benefit the module when using it as a part of preparation for mobilities or internationalization at home. The study module is built in interaction among the partner colleges; therefore students will participate actively in the planning, piloting and implementing the module. The digital aspect to be built it is not only digital, but interactive among partners. Students with special needs gain from diverse preparation in several aspects: self knowledge, language, social skills, working life skills.<< Objectives >>Train for international trail aims to improve the possibilities for all learners to feel European and to have opportunity to include internationality to their studies. During the project students involved will gain social competences, self-knowledge, digital skills and enhance their self-expression. Project will provide digital solutions to internationalisation for teachers as well, and a readymade reusable handbook and study module with study materials and guides for teachers on how to get started on digitally based learning environments. The teachers participating will have better knowledge and tools on how to take internationality in action.In this project we will create a virtual trail towards international thinking and offer tools for preparing for an actual mobility. Through our project results the study module, can also be used as a preparation course for actual mobilities in VET - not only in special needs education but also in the mainstream VET. Through the training course and other materials, we will be able to enhance the internationalisation at home (I@H) activities in each organisation. Parts of the study module can be used also just to have introduction of internationality among studies and life skills. The project’s results enable and encourage teachers to use digital tools and most importantly engage students more in internationalization.The network of partners formed by organisations with strong professionality of educational work with students with special needs enables us to create engaging, versatile, and accessible material. The students voice will be the main focus during the project. Young people are active and have a need to communicate with their peers also internationally. We want to train for international trail together in European collaboration, intertwined along vocational studies.<< Implementation >>The students’ participation will be in a big role in the project, and the contribution from the students to student's interaction with peers will be one of the focus areas. Student groups will work transnationally online between the Learning teaching training activities planned. Project launches from a kick-off meeting on Helsinki December 2021, where students and support staff gather with teacher for the first task of defining the mobility game elements. Overall, we are organizing 4 LTT workshops face to face in partner organisations. The target group of students with special needs may not always have the similar opportunities to have a mobility experience abroad and may not have travelled before. The virtual meetings are not enough to cover actual experience on travelling, the LTT: s ensure that students are provided with the experience to share their thoughts and have an input to the project results. By implementing LTTS the students will be able to share collaborate with European peers face to face. We will include 3 students to each LTT with an accompanying person and a teacher ensuring the progression of the project results. We aim to implement working groups between the LTTs, where students collaborate via teams to partner countries. We will validate and evaluate the success, usage and relevancy via feedback questionnaires firstly to gather information for definitions, and also for a feed back after LTTs and multiplier events.We will have hands on project for students, where they take part in creating and developing the game. Content will be created together with European peers and teaching staff. The approach is to have not just digital but interactive and innovative project results. According to the design thinking principles we´ll brainstorm, create, pilot and achieve our goals. There will be five transnational project meetings, TPM during the project. One of the transnational project meetings will be held online. Part of the meetings will be arranged at the same time with the learning, teaching and training activities (LTT), however TPM meetings ensure the overall schedule and tasks on the project. Monthly coordinators meetings online ensure that all the project results are proceeding according to the timeline.1.December 2021 Kick off/ LTT1/ Transnational project meeting, Finland2.April 2022 Transnational project meeting and LTT 2, Spain 3.September 2022, Transnational project meeting, online 4.December 2022, transnational project meeting, Austria 5.May 2023, transnational project meeting (final meeting)To strengthen the sustainability and use of project results we will organise three multiplier events.<< Results >>We plan to make four project results.1)“How to survive Europe” online game. 2)“Mobility-ability” study module3)Mobility handbooks and 4)Mobility-ability journal. The point is that the internationalization reaches the classroom easily with a motivating game and other tasks. The binding factor in the project results is that it reaches the whole spectrum of internationalization among students and staff, with actual mobility or not. Through project results we will promote cultural knowledge and awareness of European values and identity. By gamification, the intercultural skills will be improved, and students can gain international perspective by playing the game and other content. Content wise, the project results will offer engaging, interactive materials and tools to get the students involved, aware and interested on internationalization and European identity. All results will be gathered to Thinglink, easily usable and also flexible on producing different inputs (video, tasks, presentations etc). Thinglink is accessible and easy to disseminate in various channels. Definition and interaction will happen online, so that the project reaches as many students and teachers as possible. Goal is to have at least 100 participants building the project-based results and sharing their ideas on internationalization. In the classrooms between the Learning teaching training (LTT) activities, on the other hand LTT: s gather the content and provide the possibility for transversal brainstorming with peers. In addition, we are going to use different digital platforms to make it possible for the students to gather, to share their thoughts and ideas on the common topic. If spoken language is hard to comprehend or produce, digital solutions provide the possibility for all level students to participate for example by pictures and symbols. Train for international trail ties together a wide range of competences, skills and aspects on internationalisation for the students. Teachers will gain concrete tools and tasks to integrate internationalization to the teaching enhancing awareness also on the organisational level.We aim to reach additional competences measured and evaluated by collecting feedback.Expected impact on students•Flexible teamwork and social competences •Knowledge about European culture, cultural skills •Improved English skills •Better self-confidence, motivation•Readiness for future working life •Learning to use gamification as a teaching method. •How to create a digital handbook, a video content, technical aspects, visual aspects •Creative thinking enlarges while constructing the game. •Improved digital skills •Better ability to reflect and pinpoint the main aspects for internationalization. Expected impact on teachers and other staff •Better understanding on European network and collaboration. •Knowledge on evaluation and definitions of SEN students in partner countries •Use of 360 cameras and applications related to create teaching materials. •Offer solutions and tips on how to support different students on self-expressing. •Templates for further use as evaluation toolsExpected impact on the participating organisations •New pedagogical tools and methods in use •Enhance the quality of learning and teaching. •Flexible and inclusive training•More possibilities for international cooperation.

"BACKGROUNDResearch shows that young people living below the poverty line face multiple barriers to access education, employment, housing, etc. To be poor is a very stigmatizing experience, which affects self-esteem, confidence and personal security. Thus, low income is a strong predictor of low educational performance, lower aspirations for the future and finally social exclusion. The 2013 Annual Growth Survey showed that poverty and social exclusion are major obstacles to the achievement of the Europe 2020 objective of inclusive growth. There is a lack of extensive knowledge on how young people experience poverty in the different member states and much to learn about how the dynamic nature of poverty and youth intertwine. A better understanding is urgently needed for achieving the Europe 2020 goal of “at least 20 million fewer people in or at risk of poverty and social exclusion"". OBJECTIVES, NUMBER AND PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTSYES Forum, the European network of organizations working with and for disadvantaged young people, having members and affiliates in 18 EU member states, led the strategic partnership “Our life. Our voice. Young people and poverty”. We placed young people’s views at the heart of this project to explore their attitudes to poverty and what it means for them to live in families struggling to make ends meet from day to day. By listening to the young people experiencing poverty we wanted to bridge the gap between policy and practice. We provided fresh ideas for both actors in the field of youth services and youth work as well as policy makers on what real support should look like and how to better target resources to disadvantaged young people’s needs.The project partnership involved 6 partners and the YES Forum, as the coordinating organization. We implemented the project in 5 countries, different with regard to welfare system, historical development, and economic performance. We collaborated with partners coming from the UK, Italy, Germany, Finland and Romania, covering different regions of the EU. All participating organizations have had strong experience in delivering services for those experiencing poverty, listening to young people and influencing policy to improve the lives of those in or at risk of poverty. To reach a large audience ranging from youth work organizations, service providers, policy makers and public authorities, we involved another strong European network, active in the field of street work, Dynamo International. Through the activities of the partner organisation in the life-time of the project, we have reached 1.700 young people. Through extensive dissemination activities, as described in detail in the section ‘dissemination’, we reached around 6.500 multipliers across Europe. ACTIVITIES AND METHODOS USEDThis strategic partnership was built on a model established by The Children’s Society, a YES Forum member from the UK. We transferred this method and applied it within the strategic partnership by setting groups of young people with an interest to explore poverty. These groups of 12-15 young people were accompanied by youth workers applying interactive and participatory methods to get an insight into the experience of young people in poverty (IO1). The young people themselves created discussions on different perceptions of poverty and as a result formulated their recommendations against poverty and what real support should look like (IO2). At regional and national events, they met with representatives from youth organizations, service providers, local authorities, and policy makers to discuss their suggestions. The methodology used for engaging those young people who might be hard to reach was also published in a tool-kit for practitioners (IO3). The activities then culminated in the final international conference organized by the YES Forum together with Dynamo International. This event was held in Brussels, presenting the project findings in creative and interactive ways, devised by the young people to reach the various actors working with disadvantaged young people across Europe, ranging from professionals of youth and social work to decision- and policy-makers at EU level.RESULTS, IMPACT, LONGER TERM BENEFITSBy applying this participatory approach the project filled a gap in the discourse around poverty, where often the focus at national and EU level is on statistics and the definition of poverty rather than the day to day experience of young people. Local authorities and those responsible for developing services and policies for young people benefited from our substantial knowhow in including those young people who may not otherwise be engaged in established platforms for policymaking in the youth field (e.g. youth councils, youth organizations)."

CONTEXT / BACKGROUNDSince the outbreak of the Covid19-pandemic, our lives and the way we perceive social interactions have changed drastically. Youth organisations have had to reinvent themselves, find new ways of working and interacting to ensure that those in the most vulnerable situations would still be supported. These adaptations call for innovative and creative practices. That is why with the VOICE project, we want to engage youth organisations, formal education institutions as well as creative actors to work together towards professional youth work in Europe.PARTICIPANTSParticipants in the VOICE project are youth and social work students as well as young youth work professionals actively supported by the project partners. The innovative combination of youth organisations, social work students and creative organisations will allow for innovative and intercultural practices to emerge and for all participants to develop creative competences and skills. By involving further education institutions as Associated Partners, VOICE ensures the anchoring of skills shared and competences learned in the project not only in youth work practice, but also in formal youth work education.METHODOLOGYThe VOICE focuses on using the innovative and creative approach of Photovoice to empower youth workers, future youth workers and young people around Europe. It builds on our successful implemented project YourEP and its follow up Europe3E, which we want to adapt to the international youth work context. Photovoice (and abbreviation of “Photos Voicing Our Individual and Collective Experience”) is an innovative creativity-boosting method used to share personal stories supported by photos. It aims to enable people to record and reflect their community's strengths and concerns, promote critical dialogue and knowledge about important issues through large and small group discussion of photographs, and to reach policy makers.ACTIVITIESThrough short term joint staff trainings and local activities, participants will learn and experiment the creative Photovoice method. Using Photovoice is a learning process for the newly trained students and youth workers. Learning this method will provide the youth workers involved with a new way to activate young people, provide ways of expressing and discussing issues as a way to involve young people in the EU – and other topics beyond the project which are of significance in their local context.Intellectual Outputs are planned to bring project partners together and guarantee the sustainability of the project. The Giving young people a VOICE - Creative Tutorial will serve as an accessible and fun introduction to the Photovoice method, targeting future and current youth workers. The Making VOICEs heard - Participative Exhibitions will consist of a mobile multi-usage concept enabling the exhibited project process and results to be used by further education institutions and youth work organisations not only during the project, but also long after the project has ended. The Giving young people a VOICE – Photovoice Training Resource is aimed at increasing the sustainability of the project through written documentation that complements IO1, giving the chance to go into more detail especially regarding the theoretical background. Lastly, a Policy Brief will be drafted with social and youth work students. These recommendations aim to bridge the gap between policy and practices, for a more diverse and creative youth work training in formal education institutions training future youth workers. OBJECTIVESBy bringing together future and current youth workers, young people and creative organisations (eg. photographers and graphic designers), the VOICE project aims at promoting the method of Photovoice in youth work, to make it more recognized as a creative tool that future and current youth workers can use to promote social inclusion, engagement and active citizenship of young people. RESULTSVOICE is expected to have a positive and long-lasting impact, by equipping social and youth work students, as well as youth workers with new creative methods to work with young people. The expected direct impacts of the Intellectual Outputs described above are an increase of the quality of youth work using innovative and creative approaches, and the training of future youth workers to get familiar with Erasmus+ and international youth work. Additional positive outcomes will be to foster a creative dialogue with young people, enable them to voice their ideas and develop entrepreneurship and creative skills.Furthermore, the project is committed to participate in the achievement of goals set by the European Youth Work Agenda, by supporting the further development of high-quality youth work, supporting the ability of youth work to tackle emerging challenges and innovate its practices, or enhancing the promotion and recognition of youth work.