TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Nika Bunziak
Our aim was to improve the quality youth workers’ work and, thus, to improve the quality of Erasmus+ projects at all stages, by developing practical recommendations on symptom recognition and minimizing the consequences of professional burnout. Also, we wanted to develop their resilient skills and know how to deal effectively with stress using tools and resources for further application of these methods within their organization in order to be able to help young people with building social stability and resilience in their environment.
DRTYW objectives were:
- to support youth organisations in increasing their capacity of on their work and thereby –becoming better in explaining their latest achievements and improving their future work;
- to resolve the common definition «phenomenon of professional burnout of NGO workers»;
- to formulate recommendations (brochure) for preventing burnout and overcoming its consequences, as well as exchange best practices, how to solve the difficulties of the work process and maintain motivation in work for youth workers and for youth;
- to increase participants’ competences to disseminate learning achievements within youth NGOs and youth work on local and international level;
- to equip youth workers with the knowledge and tools to effectively work with youth through developing resilience;
- to foster networking among participants and create space for project building, especially in Erasmus+ context;
- to create space for sharing knowledge and exchanging experiences and good practices with the atmosphere of common understanding between people representing different cultures, working styles, etc.;
- to strengthen positive mental health and well-being of participants by promoting self-worth, responsibility, autonomy, accountability, self-awareness, emotional competencies, membership and belonging, and civic and social competence.
Our TC gathered 33 youth workers, leaders from 10 different program and partner countries: Poland, Italy, Lithuania, Romania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Turkey.
The participants were selected based on the following criteria defined by the partnership:
- Youth workers and youth leaders who are involved into the daily activities of the youth organizations and who are interested to develop networking projects in this field.
- Youth workers experienced in team work, project development - Human resources coordinators, team manager and other project managers who are at risk of syndrome
- Potentially working with the health and healthy lifestyle of youth topics as well as well-being topics
- The age of participants are agreed among partners on +18 years old.
- Fluent English as it will ensure effective communication between all participants and all relevant stakeholders.
- Developed project management skills/ newbies in the NGOs.
- The participants must reside in the country they represent, independently of their citizenship.
Methodology was based on the fundamental principles of NFE, also with the basic skills of self-work, NLP and psychology. These methods enabled participants to fully participate in the learning process. Learning from experience was a fundamental pillar in the way the course were facilitated. The project focused on key aspects of NFE like the participant centered approach. The non-formal approach had been used during the whole project, giving opportunity to youth workers to have informal minutes. Participants were divided to small reflection groups, in order to reflect on the personal and professional outcomes of the day and also, to give feedback to the organizers of the activity. Self-reflection was an essential part of the activity, as participants were also encouraged to create their own action plans, that requires self-awareness and the clear vision of professional aims and goals. Among the working methods we used group dynamic games, ice breakers and warmers, brainstorming, group discussions and bilateral discussions, group presentations, workshop, individual work, brainstorming, problem analysis techniques (for example, NLP-analysis and TOTE method connected with motivation), design thinking model, elements of role playing and simulation games. We tackled the topics of emotional intelligence, soft skills development, comfort zone and organizational structure analysis for personal and group burnout and possible ways to avoid them. Further on we focused on the development of solving problems on professional burnout for healthy well-being youth workers dealing with challenges in society.
Outcome was the Brochure with practical recommendations on symptom recognition and minimizing the consequences of professional burnout and infographics which were published in all web-pages of partners as well as SALTO page and disseminated for other stakeholders. Final days were given to develop actions and projects in local level for avoiding similar problems in our society as well as raising awareness, moreover supporting other organizations as being example in resilience through youth work.
After returning home, participants were invited to conduct two workshops: one for their colleagues–youth workers, second is for the youth with whom they work, to disseminate the knowledge they have gained about the resilience and methods of achieving it through the multicultural aspect of perception.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/672549166530479/
https://www.facebook.com/kyivligauba/posts/2524652294262166
https://www.facebook.com/IdeaLAB.DRG/posts/2476199442657513
https://issuu.com/labdrg/docs/professional_burnout_in_youth_work_idea_lab?fbclid=IwAR3ZacD1JE-4fw23M9ztIBm43Y2jGYGzQ6c3bxz7Gga8WrL0P9ToLa93lPY
Full-time trainers' work on the co-trainer's position: preparation, implementation, follow up, evaluation. Facilitation and mentoring of the learning process. Interaction with participants, Senior trainer and project team. Adaptation of the Program, according to group dynamic and learning needs of the participants.