TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Mariia Herashchenko
● to create a safer space for self-reflection and build up a personal understanding of wellbeing by highlighting the importance of safety spaces and provide with tools and techniques to create such;
● to create a safe community and network to share best-practices to support each other in their day-to-day activities with youngsters and provide them with tools and methods of self-care and emotional balance;
● to provide youth workers with body work techniques to release tension and stress, to cope with emotions and to apply them in their youth work;
● to learn about boundaries to foster personal wellbeing in youth work and private life;
● to supply youth workers with instruments and self-discovered tools to work on wellbeing with young people as well as empowerment tools to understand their
mental health as a life skill and erase the taboo of asking for help.
The group consisted of 24 Youth workers from a variety of European countries working regularly with young people on the local and on the international level.
The trainers' team consisted of 4 trainers from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Ukraine.
The methods were based on non-formal education and experiential learning principles. The approach of this training was learning through embodied movement techniques. The methodology we used was movement in all its varieties – “out of our heads and into our bodies” to literally embodying this wellbeing ourselves. The start of the training was about creating a safer environment where everybody was able to concentrate on one’s own wellbeing. Later in the training we focused on wellbeing while working with a group of young people and how to create safer spaces while working with them. To achieve these different steps of wellbeing we also created space for self-directed learning.
At the end of the training the participants left with
- More awareness of self-regulation and personal wellbeing-strategies;
- Better ability to build and maintain own boundaries professionally and personally as well as respect them;
- Better ability to address own needs with the acknowledgement and recognition of its high importance;
- New knowledge of a variety of body-oriented tools to work towards emotional safety with youngsters;
- Increased feeling of confidence in order to incorporate the learned tools and knowledge in personal and professional life.
We worked all together for 7 months to prepare the training course, the input of each trainer was significant and essential. I worked on the description of the proposal itself, building the objectives and programme together with my team-mates. I was conducting sessions connected with movement, providing the youth workers with various possibilities and tools to be used in their work practice and in daily life; I co-created the self-directed learning space with tools and opportunities, led group-building activities and provided with theoretical input on movement with the equal involvement of each of the trainer in this topic. The same way, each of us was equally involved into evaluating the project with the participants, dealing with certain issues popping up among the participants on the way and writing the report.
Working together with Mary in this Training Course was a blast. Already in the preparation she inspired us with different body movement techniques and always shared her ideas and thoughts. Mary facilitated her sessions in the Training Course with a lot of power and self-esteem and always checked in with our team to make sure we are approaching the right method for the group and moment. I would love to work with her again!