Are you looking for new inspirations for your youth groups? Do you feel up to tackle even challenging hot issues? If you nod your head, you will definitely find useful the new Practice Resources, which make part of the RIDE’s comprehensive Toolbox for youth workers focused on the promotion of inclusion, diversity and equality.
RIDE Partners from UK, Italy, Slovakia, Croatia and Turkey have already collected different kinds of existing practical tools for youth workers, such as icebreakers, session plans, websites etc. Subsequently they developed 10 new session plans on topics less treated in existing resources, and on some of the most important and urgent issues for young people across Europe.
All session plans include an introduction into the topic, relevant statistics and data overview from partner countries, and a proposal how to run a session for groups of young people with a set of non-formal activities. Proposed activities such as ice-breakers, roleplaying, discussions and many more are designed to take 2-4 hours. Further reading and tips for follow-up activities complete the session plans.
Newly created resources deal with some hot issues concerning social media and hate speech, radicalisation and extremism. Other sessions are dedicated to young people living in rural areas, the reinforcement of young people’s self-esteem and projecting future of NEET young people whose numbers are disturbingly high in some European countries. Non-formal activities included in the session plans are also designed to raise youngsters’ awareness of economic differences, migration, unemployment or disabilities. Further attention is paid to the encouragement of interfaith dialogue and promoting understanding of cultural diversity. The new resources designed within the Partnership were presented and discussed during the fourth partners’ meeting in Zagreb, Croatia, which was held on 10th and 11th April 2017. They are being amended and will soon be available on the RIDE website.
Education and Training Resource is on the way
Discussion of the fifth Intellectual Output (the Education and Training Resource) recently designed by the RIDE Partner from UK, University of Gloucestershire, and amended by other Partners took part of the meeting’s agenda as well. It is composed of two different kinds of training contents:
- a University module,
- a Training Course for youth work practitioners.
As found out during previous research, in some European countries there isn’t any specific university or professional course to follow in order to become a youth worker. On this account, the RIDE University module can be adapted by University lecturers to provide future youth workers, social workers and other professionals working with young people with relevant and comprehensive training on “Inclusion, Diversity and Equality” topics. It contains various suggestions for themes to be discussed with students and European and country-specific literature. The module may be used in different study courses such as social work, pedagogy or social sciences.
The Training Course is focused on youth workers’ better understanding of inclusive youth work, exploring equality and diversity. It was presented for the first time to a group of 12 youth workers from Croatia during the partners’ meeting in Zagreb. The pilot session conducted by Simon Gillings from University of Gloucestershire was followed by a fruitful discussion with the participating youth workers and comments of the observing partners, thanks to which new ideas to improve and amend the training course emerged.
All of the resources and materials will be published and available to download on the RIDE website.
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