<< Objectives >>The project aims to improve the quality of work of lecturers of the Garden of Life, an educational program for youth aged 15-20. We will focus on the practical transfer of knowledge and experience of the partner - The Institute for Dialogical Practices, and their direct application to work with youth. Specifically, these are the principles of collaborative and dialogical approaches (dialogical practice), based on partnership, cooperation, open communication and respect for differences.<< Implementation >>The following activities will lead to the fulfillment of the project goals:1. Project management.2. Series of 4 international workshops of dialogical practice.3. Creation of a Creative Diary and a Guide to the Garden of Life (material output).4.Two dialogue meetings focused on dissemination and sharing of know-how with a wider community of lecturers and mentors.<< Results >>The quality of work of lecturers and mentors of the Garden of Life will increase.The application of dialogical practice will contribute to the natural inclusion, commitment and kindness of youth to their surroundings and nature, based on their own inner motivation.Material output The Creative Diary will deepen the participants' self-study.Sharing specific experiences will enrich the wider community of lecturers and mentors.The project has a pan-European reach and an international impact.

"Context and objective:This project focuses on multidisciplinary support for positive changes in families in difficult situations. Our objective is to stimulate development in multidisciplinary cooperation that should include various specialists as equal partners as well as receivers of care (“laymen”), who should also be involved. The project aims to contribute further to the development of quality of multidisciplinary cooperation. Everyone speak about multidisciplinary collaboration but often the result is just a lot of meetings between professionals where the clients are not participating, creating more hours of futile professional talk that is disconnected from the lives of the people the professionals are supposed to help. The problem is very serious and the only solution is to start to train professionals, to teach them how to generate dialogues with families and how to work in a client centred rather than a professional centred manner. Other problem is that very often “laymen” (people with their own experience in dealing with difficult situations in families) are not really involved in this multidisciplinary cooperation.In this area there is a lack of educational opportunities not only for professionals but as well as for “laymen” and not only in the countries involved in the project. Thanks to such training/ educational opportunity: 1) ""laymen"" could become peer consultants and ambassadors in their area of difficult experience and could help others in a similar situation to become active participants and initiators of multidisciplinary support and 2) professionals will be able to not only be an effective and constructive part of the team, but also to coordinate multidisciplinary teams.Professionals from organizations involved in the project are working with children in families in difficult situations and crisis according to the concept of social constructivism and dialogical, collaborative and solution focused approaches. These approaches create a space for expressing and understanding different perspectives, as well as gaining confidence and experiencing empathy. ActivitiesIn the project we plan to develop Train the trainer training (O1, O2) for professionals of project partners and also manuals (O3, O4) and innovative trainings for “laymen” and for professionals focused on helping them providing multidisciplinary support on currently widely spread constructivist basis and above mentioned approaches. These trainings will be blended and will include face to face (O5, O6) and also e-learnings (O7, O8). Other activities include Best practice guidelines / report on multidisciplinary support models (O10) and Development of multidisciplinary teams – MDT (O9). Better teamwork in mental health services increases job satisfaction. MDTs can promote better coordination and quality of integrated care by fostering collaboration between professionals and laymen. Results, impact and potential longer term benefits:By preparing combined training sessions, as well as the manuals, we would like to achieve the sustainability of the project. For the future we are planning to develop this topic further by maintaining free e-learning portal as well as by providing such trainings and supporting MDTs. Sustainability and transferability will be secured also by language variability as the trainings can be held in English or Czech or Slovak (or combination) and also manuals will be available in these languages.Participants of trainings will develop and strengthen different competences and will become more emp and owered competent in dealing with uncertain and ambiguous situations, building up resilience for managing positive changes. Professionals will also become more competent in involving laymen in searching for solutions, facilitating MDT, etc. Direct impact should be also on development of multidisciplinary teams (MDT), their sustainability and their support. MDT teams can initiate or transform community services. Longer term impact and benefit is in increasing the professionalism of all subjects involved in supporting the family and protecting children and raising awareness of the issues of the professional and general public. It could also have impact on other relevant stakeholders – e.g. public employment services, counselling centres, offices of labour, centres for children and families, institutions that educate these professionals, societies and organisations that deal with clients and families in difficult situations or schools. These institutions can broaden their networks as they will be invited for conferences that take place during the project.The direct impact of the project is to educate as many professional and laymen as possible and to further disseminate the trainings into other countries. The broadened network that will be established by our cooperation will be an additional means for sustainability."