Introducing bibliotherapy in youth work

Introducing bibliotherapy in youth work is a 9 day training course which aims to provide bibliotherapy and storytelling skills to youth workers working with young people at risk of social exclusion. During the training course we will learn how literature of all kinds, from poetry, book passages, quotations, songs, segments of movies, speeches, videos, can help an individual find their own voice and articulate personal experiences. The main goal of the training course is to explore the therapeutic potentials of Bibliotherapy, discovering how literature and storytelling can help navigate better the challenges in our lives.

What are we going to do:

• Learn about historical perspective of bibliotherapy and usage of bibliotherapy and poetry pharmacy that exist in the world
• Explore the concepts of bibliotherapy by personally experiencing different literary forms as vehicle for our self-awareness and personal growth
• Immerse ourselves in the self-reflective process of journaling, writing, reading, debating and such
• Explore how bibliotherapy, storytelling and creative writing methods and exercises can be adjusted and used in working with youth and youngsters at risk  
• Create a Bookguiding Repository with texts and different materials that will be of use in our work back home

Who can apply?

Youthworkers, Educators, LGBTQI+ activists and young leaders, NGO volunteers and others working with youngsters at risk of social exclusion/LGBTQIA+ youth

NB: As LGBTQ+ organisation our aim is to create queer-inclusive and friendly learning spaces especially for people from marginalized communities 

Participants profile:

• willingness to commit to the preparation and follow up of the course, as well as fully be present all days in the course (usually our activities will be spread throghout the whole day so all participants have to be available to take part in all of the programme) 
• motivated to explore principles of non-formal education, shared leadership and experiential learning 
• curious and open to learning about book and story-based methodologies in therapeutic and/or youth work 
• interested in embodied as well as digital storytelling
• willingness to get immersed into self-reflective processes but also work in a group
• sufficient English language skills