TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Francesco Cavicchioli
Connecting Dots was a training course that led to unity, collaboration, and building an integrated and supportive community.
The project was born from the experience of youth workers from six European countries who experienced the positive results of experiential learning firsthand, and the centralization of a support system for young people marginalized by society. The project partners were trained by youth workers dedicated to the involvement of the local community through specific experiential methods, who played a fundamental role in the organization of the project activities.
Connecting Dots aimed to train young youth workers to create social inclusion within their community through experiential learning methods. In particular, during the main training course activity, the participants had the opportunity to get in touch, train, and coordinate workshops aimed at involving ex-convicts and homeless people.
Connecting Dots worked on the need for concrete change in the local communities involved, building systems of dialogue between young people, associations and local bodies.
It was the intention of the project, in particular, to put into practice a common, coordinated and parallel strategy in the five local communities.
We believe that the project was in line with the objectives set by the Erasmus+ programme, as it equipped youth workers with skills and methods for their professional development in the social field, particularly dedicated to the involvement of marginalized young people at risk of violent radicalization, such as the former preserved and homeless. Furthermore, the project stimulated participants' initiative and professional learning on a digital level.
The project has adapted to the objectives of the organizations involved because it has made possible the sharing of the individual practices of the operators of each partner, a transmission of direct skills by expert trainers in the sector, and the creation of a common action plan which had a direct impact on communities, with consequent identification as a model for the implementation of actions in other international communities.
The project involved 6 international partners for a period of 6 months.
The partners were located in Italy, Romania, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Bulgaria.
The consortium actively collaborated in a series of interconnected activities in which people from different cultural backgrounds are encounter and experience non-formal and informal learning in an intercultural environment for multiple days.
The mobility involved 18 people (with an average age of 25) + 2 trainers. The profile of the participants involved in the mobility activity corresponded to that of youth workers active in the territories of action of each partner.
We can say that they worked hard from the beginning to the end of the project. Some were already collaborators, others were active in the area ready to begin a professional career in the social sector and to focus their professional career on supporting young people from marginalized contexts.
All the youth workers shared the skills learned with colleagues and collaborators at home, increasing the impact on the territory in the local communities involved, of our objectives and of solidarity with social integration.
The central activity was a training course whose workshop days were focused on a different theme, using various non-formal methodologies.
In particular, we have identified a recurring structure for learning and internalisation of specific techniques, based on three consecutive sessions recurring over the days: training session on the specific method of its applicability in a context of youth volunteering (Tool), planning of the activity through the use of the tool learned in international groups (Workshop), implementation of the activity through the use of the tool and involving the entire project team (Activity).
A recurring structure was group reflection, which took place at the end of each day and was guided on the basis of the competences included in the Youthpass certificate.
Among the methodologies, the following have been proposed: energizers, games to break the ice and knowledge games, brainstorming, team building activities, the world café, the SMART objective for solving local problems, simulations in
form of experiential learning, interviews, direct experiential learning together with the people welcomed by the "Casa Famiglia San Francesco", which for years has welcomed ex-convicts into a large family, and visiting "Il Pungiglione", a hub that welcomes people who have had dramatic as the imprisonment or enslavement imposed by the prostitution racket through integrated sectors such as honey, carpentry, candle making.
Lastly, the active involvement of the local citizens on the part of the participants was a highly successful result, involved in pursuing the main objective of social inclusion.
The achievement of the project results has been proven by different levels of evaluation:
In the first level, the indicators of learning and satisfaction of the participants were noted. In particular, youth workers were invited to reflect on their own learnings. In particular, a diary was provided for each one, in which a page was indicated for each competence included in the Youthpass certificate.
By writing the skills achieved step by step during the mobility in the diary, all participants had the opportunity to increase their awareness of personal learning and identify stimuli to deepen their skills. Furthermore, during the training two specific sessions were dedicated, respectively, to an intermediate evaluation and a final evaluation of all aspects of mobility: quality of the proposed activities, impact, logistics. At the end of the follow-up phase, after the implementation of local activities aimed at applying the skills learned during the mobility, the participants held a discussion with the partners and filled in an internal final form for the evaluation of the whole duration of the project.
They also compiled the participant report, as the last attestation of the project results.
The second level indicated the evaluation of the collaboration between the partners. It was proposed when the application was sent, and all the partner contacts had the task of filling it out at the end of the project, and therefore of the follow-up phase. This evaluation, followed by discussion, led the partners to analyze the achievement of the objectives, the effectiveness of the project, its problems and the ways of solving them in cooperation, with a view to a continuation of the collaboration. Having met the partners for alignment of topics, and not for previous knowledge, this type of evaluation was a fundamental phase to prove the analysis of the progress of the project.
Qualitative indicators follow at the third level, which testify to the project results actually achieved and the products actually created. The international project team had agreed that, if the planned outputs were achieved, and the planned activities were implemented correctly, especially those coordinated by youth workers, the project would achieve the obtained results.
The quantitative indicators concerned the number of activities and young people involved in the sessions previously mentioned among the qualitative indicators. In particular, we were confident that the activity organized by the project participants in the “Activity-Social Inclusion” section of the program would involve a minimum of 50 people.
Furthermore, the activities organized in the local communities involved 15 people each, belonging to target groups of marginalized young people. Furthermore, quantitative indicators were also considered the people reached through the publication of videos and promotional material via social networks and associations' websites, as well as articles published in local newspapers.
The trainers involved have built and consolidated a network of non-formal activities starting from the analysis of common objectives and methodologies, in order to maximize the impact and relevance of the project for all involved. In particular, what we have in common has been dedicating the activities to the support and involvement of young people from the local community from marginalized cultural or social groups and the experiential approach as a method for facilitating activities.
The trainers of the mobility activity for youth workers were Francesco Cavicchioli and Arianna Impinna.
Francesco Cavicchioli is president and co-founder of Maek APS. He holds a degree in Exercise, Sports and Health Sciences and a Masters in DSA (Specific Learning Disabilities), BES (Special Educational Needs) and Development of Educational Methodologies, Psychopedagogy and Communication.
He has been a socio-cultural educator for five years in various Italian realities through social cooperatives that aim to manage, help and accompany asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors, disabled people with psycho-sensory deficits and homeless people. He has been a volunteer in supranational projects in Northern Central Africa, Eastern and Southern Europe, was a White Helmet with the Civil Service in Brazil, a volunteer with the European Voluntary Service program in Bulgaria and a volunteer with the international ESC program in Thailand. Francesco has taken part in various European mobility projects funded by the Erasmus+ program as a participant, group leader and facilitator.
Arianna Impinna has a degree in modern languages and literature, obtaining a degree on the subject of teaching the English language with non-formal methods, conceiving and collaborating in the planning of a KA229 project. In 2015 she obtained a master's degree in European planning and is currently completing a master's degree in Cooperative Learning Education.
She teaches English language and literature to the inmates of the Lorusso and Cotugno Prison in Turin, as a professor at the First Art School of Turin, a profession that has led her to come into contact with unharmed inmates from different social and cultural backgrounds. She has taken part in more than 50 international projects (international exchanges, training courses and seminars) in the role of participant, group leader, coordinator, facilitator and trainer on the topics of communication and experiential learning as a method for personal growth.
The two trainers met while participating in an international project years earlier. Keeping in touch, participating in a joint training course and meeting in Turin, they realized the combination of their expertise and their interests: the experience of volunteering and working to support marginalized people, especially prisoners and former prisoners, and the effectiveness of experiential learning methods, which had a great impact on the professional training of the two trainers. During the mobility activity, the two trainers have the skills and tools declared in the project writing phase. In particular those practical tools to non-formal educational learning.
Furthermore, they have been a guide and support for the participants, more marked in the early days, in order to ensure a good understanding of the structure and learnings, and more subtle in the last days, in the direction of independence in organizing a participants' activities. The trainers were present throughout the project, and were available to guide and support the participants during the follow-up phase.
The variety of areas of action of the two profiles involved has allowed the creation of a training project for youth workers in social inclusion through a wide and detailed variety of proven experiential methodologies.
I had the opportunity of working with Francesco in Connecting Dots. Francesco is highly competent, his methods are innovative and inclusive. Communicating and cooperating with Francesco is inspiring and productive.