Stepping into Adulthood: Rites of Passage Tools for Youth Workers

“During periods of major change, we are stripped of our old place in the world. Ritual helps us relax into a lack of stable ground. Times of transition are the best opportunities to renew the search for meaning.” - Bill Plotkin

Each culture carries private, public and ceremonial rituals as crucial currency for communicating values and inviting participation. As modern communities evolve amid rising secularism and radicalisation, reinvigorated rituals can provide frameworks to foster belonging in young people struggling to find place and purpose.

‘Stepping into Adulthood: Rites of Passage Tools for Youth Workers’ is a creative, educational programme to be applied for under the European Commission’s Erasmus+ UK Programme’s KA1 Youth Workers Mobility grant. It is an opportunity for youth centres to participate in a four-month learning journey, comprising online learning, shared project creation and two residential courses at The ASHA Centre (www.ashacentre.org) in the Forest of Dean, UK.

The project will envision healthy communities and examine the role of relationships and elders in guiding young people. It seeks to empower a generation of community leaders by equipping youth workers with creative tools for rigorous and practical leadership.

PART ONE will look at understanding rites of passage, studying the language and history of ritual, ethnographic principles and worldwide examples. Together we will identify the key moments of initiation and transition in a young person’s life and look at what is needed to support them for a future shaped by COVID-19, economic uncertainty and climate change. As part of our dissemination projects, we will activate research that sees us engaging young people in conversation about their needs.

PART TWO will put our learning into practice, applying the methodology of ritual to our own designs and looking at how to lead with both empathy and integrity. We will get practical on what is needed to support young people in ceremonial encounters that can frame their experiences of initiation. We will actively practice how to lead this work in the digital realm, ensuring the resilience of this work as a tool for in-person and online encounters, ensuring each is as rich as each other. Together we will design dissemination projects that make the work a living reality in our communities.

The programme will use non-formal educational methods including presentations, artistic expression, group work, sharing, games and group singing. Participants will be stimulated by active personal participation, project design, development and delivery and furnished with a toolkit.

CONDITIONS OF PARTNERSHIP & PARTICIPATION:
▪️ A youth centre
▪️ Four youth workers per organisation
▪️ 80%/90% travel reimbursement (based on travel distance band)
▪️ No participation fee

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