TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Eszter Szabo
The training activity of BurnOut Lab aimed to address the invisible yet systemic issue of burnout among young people active in NGOs and youth work. Its core purpose was to name, legitimize, and de-stigmatize burnout in the non-profit and voluntary sector, framing youth work as emotionally demanding labour with real psychological and social costs.
The activity aimed to:
- Raise awareness of burnout as a structural phenomenon in youth NGOs, not an individual failure
- Equip participants with practical tools for burnout prevention, stress management, and energy regulation
- Strengthen competences for healthy NGO management, sustainable leadership, and non-exploitative organizational cultures
- Support young people and group leaders in developing clear work–life boundaries and self-care practices
- Create a safe learning space for reflection, peer exchange, and mutual support
- Build an international network committed to long-term advocacy and follow-up actions on youth burnout
- Ultimately, the training sought to initiate a cultural shift in the third sector, placing wellbeing and sustainability at the core of youth work values.
Which needs did the training address?
The training responded to several interconnected needs identified by the coordinating and partner organisations:
- Lack of dialogue and recognition around burnout in youth NGOs at European level
- High levels of emotional exhaustion, over-commitment, and workaholism among young volunteers, activists, and youth workers
- Absence of practical, youth-friendly tools for early burnout detection and prevention
- Need for healthier organisational practices, including communication, workload distribution, and expectation management
- Need for spaces where youth workers could slow down, disconnect from constant productivity, and reconnect with their motivations
- Need for peer learning and exchange of good and bad practices across different national NGO contexts
By combining experiential learning, reflection in nature, expert input, and peer exchange, the training directly met these personal, organisational, and sectoral needs.
How did the training activity fit the goals of the organisations?
The BurnOut Lab youth exchange was highly aligned with the missions and strategic orientations of all partner organisations, each of which works with young people, wellbeing, empowerment, or civic engagement across Europe. By focusing on burnout awareness, healthy organisational culture, and self-care practices, the project supported partners in building more resilient, reflective, and future-ready youth work practices.
Specifically:
1. Well-Being Lab (Sweden) – As the coordinating organisation with a core mission of making wellbeing tools accessible to all, delivering a project that foregrounded mental health, self-care, and burnout prevention was directly in line with its values and ongoing work on holistic support and non-formal learning. The project deepened their capacity to design wellbeing-centred youth exchanges and develop resources for European youth work contexts.
2. LEVEL UP (Poland) – Focused on strengthening youth skills and community wellbeing, LEVEL UP benefited from developing and implementing workshops on stress management, healthy communication, and organisational structures that avoid burnout. These themes reinforce their goals of youth empowerment and supporting positive mental health practices among young volunteers and activists.
3. Active Youth (Malta) – With a mission to engage young people in social issues and active citizenship, Active Youth found that addressing burnout helped participants sustain long-term involvement in social change work. It equipped them to nurture robust youth leadership and retain committed volunteers, aligning with their aim of fostering proactive, healthy civic engagement.
4. Gençlik Mevsimi Derneği (Turkey) – As an organisation supporting youth development, participation, and intercultural learning, the burnout-focused exchange offered Gençlik Mevsimi tools to enhance mental wellbeing dimensions in their programmes. It helped them integrate reflective practices into their youth work and share insights with their broader community.
5. GO Alive (Greece) – Working in empowerment, mindfulness, and wellbeing, GO Alive found BurnOut Lab perfectly matched their organisational purpose by combining non-formal learning with practices that cultivate inner resilience, mindful communication, and balanced organisational culture.
6. VulcanicaMente (Italy) – With a focus on social innovation and personal development, VulcanicaMente used the exchange to strengthen its expertise in supporting youth wellbeing and to bring back concrete tools for preventing burnout within community projects and local activities.
7. Tudatos Tervezésért (Hungary) – As a partner rooted in planning for mindful, intentional living and community impact, Tudatos Tervezésért found BurnOut Lab enriched its ability to support young people in setting sustainable boundaries, reflecting on personal resources, and embedding wellbeing in organisational practices.
In sum, BurnOut Lab was not only relevant to all partners but a natural extension of their core goals, because it:
- Strengthened capacity in mental health and burnout prevention
- Promoted youth empowerment and sustainable engagement
- Supported organisational cultures that value wellbeing and long-term impact
- Built intercultural cooperation and shared learning among NGOs
Each partner was able to apply, adapt, and share the learning outcomes within their own youth networks, multiplying the impact beyond the exchange itself.
The target group of the BurnOut Lab international youth exchange consisted of 60 participants, including young people aged 18–30 and group leaders, all of whom were actively involved in youth NGOs, volunteering, or non-formal education.
The participants were:
- Youth workers, volunteers, activists, and young NGO members
- Young people working with peers in areas such as social inclusion, civic engagement, community development, and youth participation
- Individuals experiencing or at risk of burnout due to long-term engagement in voluntary or semi-professional youth work
- Group leaders and staff members of partner organisations, enabling direct organisational transfer of learning outcomes
- The activity brought together participants from six different countries, ensuring a strong intercultural learning dimension: Sweden, Hungary, Poland, Italy, Greece, Turkey
The international composition of the group allowed participants to compare NGO cultures, working conditions, and burnout-related challenges across different national contexts, while identifying common patterns and shared needs within the European youth sector.
The BurnOut Lab youth exchange was based entirely on non-formal learning methods, with a strong focus on experiential, participatory, and learner-centred approaches. The methodology was designed to support deep reflection, peer learning, and practical skill development related to burnout prevention and sustainable youth work.
Key methods included:
- Experiential learning workshops:
Interactive sessions combining short theoretical inputs with hands-on activities on stress, energy management, and burnout mechanisms, followed by guided reflection and group discussion.
- Self-reflection and individual work: Journaling, guided self-assessment exercises, and personal mapping of stressors, values, limits, and resources to support self-awareness and early burnout detection.
- Peer learning and experience exchange:
Structured small-group sharing, world café formats, and facilitated discussions where participants exchanged real-life NGO experiences, good practices, and challenges from different national contexts.
- Outdoor and nature-based learning:
Reflection walks, grounding exercises, and group activities in nature, using the natural environment to support emotional regulation, focus, and embodied learning.
- Group dynamics and team-building activities:
Cooperative games and trust-building exercises to strengthen group cohesion, intercultural understanding, and psychological safety within the international group.
- Creative and expressive methods:
Visualisation, drawing, role-play, and storytelling to explore emotions, organisational patterns, and alternative ways of working without burnout.
- Simulation and case-study work:
Analysis of real NGO scenarios involving overload, poor communication, or unrealistic expectations, followed by collective problem-solving and role-play of healthier organisational responses.
- Reflection and evaluation circles:
Daily and final reflection rounds using participatory evaluation tools to support collective learning and personal integration of outcomes.
All methods were designed to actively involve participants as co-creators of knowledge, respecting different learning styles and cultural backgrounds. The non-formal methodology ensured that learning outcomes were directly transferable to participants’ personal lives, organisational practices, and future youth work activities.
The BurnOut Lab training activity achieved both individual and organisational impact, addressing burnout as a personal, cultural, and structural issue within youth NGOs.
Key achievements of the training included:
- Increased awareness and recognition of burnout as a systemic phenomenon in youth work and volunteering, rather than an individual weakness
- Improved mental health literacy, enabling participants to identify early warning signs of stress, energy depletion, and burnout
- Development of practical coping and prevention strategies, including self-care routines, boundary-setting, and sustainable workload management
- Strengthened competences in healthy organisational culture, communication, and leadership without workaholism
- Creation of a safe, trust-based international learning community where burnout and emotional strain could be openly discussed
- Establishment of an international partner network committed to follow-up actions, dissemination, and continued cooperation on the topic
Indicators of success included:
- High level of active participation and engagement throughout the mobility
- Positive qualitative feedback from participants during daily reflection and final evaluation sessions
- Participants’ ability to transfer learning outcomes into their organisations through follow-up workshops, peer discussions, and internal changes
- Continued peer support and networking among participants after the project
- Increased confidence among group leaders to address burnout topics within their organisations and local youth work contexts
The success of the training was evident not only during the activity itself but also in the long-term behavioural and organisational changes reported by participants, such as adopting healthier working routines, initiating conversations about burnout, and integrating self-care practices into daily youth work.
https://levelupngo.com/project/burnout-lab-2/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://www.wellbeinglab.org/burnoutlab?utm_source=chatgpt.com
I worked as a full-time co-trainer and facilitator within the trainers’ team of the BurnOut Lab international youth exchange. I was involved in the planning, delivery, and facilitation of the educational programme, contributing to the overall learning design and daily implementation of the activity.
My main responsibilities included facilitating mindfulness-based non-formal learning sessions focused on stress reduction, wellbeing, and burnout prevention, as well as providing accessible, evidence-based input on the psychological and physiological mechanisms of stress and burnout. These sessions were delivered through experiential and participatory methods, adapted to diverse learning styles and intercultural group dynamics.
I facilitated structured reflection groups and daily evaluation processes, supporting participants in meaning-making, self-reflection, and the transfer of learning outcomes to their personal lives and organisational contexts. I also designed and led nature-based and movement-based learning activities, using embodied and outdoor methods to support emotional regulation, self-awareness, group cohesion, and sustainable learning.
Throughout the training, I contributed to creating a safe, inclusive, and learner-centred environment, supported group processes, and worked closely with the trainers’ team to ensure coherence, quality, and alignment with the project’s learning objectives. My involvement covered the full duration of the activity, fulfilling the role of a full-time trainer in accordance with TOY requirements.
Eszter is a very present, thoughtful, wholehearted facilitator with a rich experience in mindfulness and well-being. It was a pleasure co-facilitating this event with her. It was very smooth, easy and joyful to co-facilitate the event with her.