Tavaszi Szél
Start date: Jan 1, 2015,
End date: Jun 30, 2017
PROJECT
FINISHED
Youngsters living in foster home institutions are are particularly vulnerable groups of our society, who will be permanently pushed to the edge of the society without the support of self-reliance development processes. Due to the poor family backround they have lack of self-esteem, behavioral and personality disorders, learning difficulties and reach lower educational level than their peers. Additionally, the deprivation level of the environment - unemployment, housing problems, health and mental deficits – are present in their lives in multiple forms. Without having development processes that boost their self-reliance and positive self-image, these youngsters will suffer even more from the earlier mentioned disadvantages by the time they leave the foster care institutions. This will result in higher rates of unemployment, drug use, homelessness and criminality of the youngsters living in foster care compared to their peers brought up in families.
The aim of the project is to contribute to the provision of the youth in foster care (with a special focus on youngsters with special needs) with efficient development processes in order that they become responsible, creative and active citizens with entrepreneurial skills, so that their employability, social inclusion and well-being will increase in Europe.
The partnership composed of 2 child care institutions and 2 youth organizations expert in non-formal education methods wishes to reach the set targets through the following steps: based on a collection of good practices two innovative development plans and methodologies will be elaborated targeting on one hand the youth workers of child care institutions with high multiplying potential, and, on the other hand, the youth living in child care institutions. Thus, the development process will result in the elaboration of easy to use handy guides presenting practical solutions (case-studies, success stories) and composed of practical tools/methods that are searchable by several dimensions (e.g. development need, target group, age).
The innovative character of the project is due to the fact that both development plans and methodologies will be elaborated with an integrative approach contributing to the institutional learning that is with the active involvement of foster care workers (20 people) and youngsters in foster care (40 people) in all steps of the development, testing and finalization. Additionally, the outputs will be finalized based on the evaluations results of the test phase. The institutional and financial sustainability of the results will be supported by the development of an implementation and resources plan for both child care institutions, while the wide-spread promotion and dissemination (e.g. thematic conference and workshop) of project results, as well as the continuous international stakeholder involvement will also be the guarantee of sustainability.
Results:
40 disadvantaged youth living in foster homes with increased basic and transversal skills and higher capacity for social and labor market integration
20 foster care workers with increased professional knowledge, higher motivated, higher recognition and with a more mature personality
4 organizations with increased capacities, cooperation potentials and professionalism
Qualitative indicators :
Improvement of the attitude and professional knowledge of the staff of foster homes;
Increase of the social and labor market inclusion, self-esteem and self-confidence of youth living in foster homes, plus the decrease of their personality disorders;
Contribution to the recovery of social deficits of youngsters living in foster homes (e.g. attachment, social relationships, social integration , communication, aggression and conflict management, less hospitalization, gender and ethnic group identity) and to overcoming learning difficulties and the development of basic and transversal skills;
· Providing a positive lifestyle patterns;
· Improvement of the attitude of society towards young people growing up in foster homes
· Improvement of the recognition, prestige and professionalism of the youth workers.
All in all, thanks to the elaborated development plans and methodologies and continuously collected best practices the quality of the youth work in foster care institutions will improve guaranteeing the sustainability of project results. Thus, the basic and transversal skills of highly endangered youthliving in foster homes will be continuously developed on a long term as well. Thus they will become active, creative and promoter citizens with entrepreneurial skills, so their employability, social inclusion and well-being will increase even after they will have left their foster homes.
Moreover, the whole society will attain more knowledge and understanding about the youth living in foster homes and their special needs, that will also contribute to the social and labour market inclusion of this youth with fewer opportunities.