TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Linda Ulane
The training course "CAM - Creativity and Arts for Mental Health" was specifically designed to enhance
youth workers' LifeComp skills to promote mental health and well-being through creativity and the arts.
OBJECTIVES
+ To promote quality and innovation in non-formal education among organizations, youth workers, and young people, aligned with the Erasmus+ European Youth Goals;
+ To develop creative strategies and techniques that foster inclusive and engaging practices in Youth Work, promoting well-being, mental health, and LifeComp skills;
+ To enhance youth workers' empathy and active listening skills, encouraging the development of less competitive and more collaborative mindsets;
+ To reflect on the learning process and explore how the course’s practices can be adapted to different local, national, and European contexts.
The group consisted of 23 people working with young people in Spain, Poland, Latvia, Hungary, Croatia, France, North Macedonia, Lithuania, Turkey.
By balancing cognitive, emotional, and social aspects of learning, the course created opportunities for both,
individual and group growth. Participants were empowered to refine their ideas, challenge biases, and
develop new approaches and strategies in their daily work with young people.
The program that was built based on non-formal education, had methods integrated from the theater, creative writing and other arts.
As a result of the training course, the participants enriched their professional toolbox with variety of art-based methods that they can directly apply in their work with youngsters.
Some of the feedback of the participants included such learning achievements as feeling heard and appreciated and knowing how to offer this type of attitude to the youngsters they work with; new tools of creating a stronger and healthier connection among people, new usable methods for their youthwork practices, becoming more open for using arts. Besides that the participants networked and created international support groups and possible cooperation in future projects. Moreover, participants gained an insight in the theory of professional burnout, its symptoms and possible prevention actions.
My responsibilities were to create and facilitate the learning program together with co-trainer Anna Maria Avella from the host organization, Project xx1. I came in with more creative writing methods exploring emotional well-being, as well as with the topic of burn-out in the field of youth.