The Bearable Lightness of Being a Youth Worker

Much has been written about the theory and practice of youth work, especially with a focus on interaction between youth workers and young people. Nevertheless, there is a neglected area within youth work: what impact of stress on youth workers there is, that comes from their occupation? How do individuals and youth organisations react to that? Caring professions are considered as the ones with the highest risks of burnout, therefore professionals operating within the scope of caring professions usually receive supervision. That is not the case in youth work. Most of youth organisations do not/can not provide supervision for different reasons. However, more and more often youth workers in Europe work in with youngsters at risk, or with difficult backgrounds (for example: immigrants, refugees, drop-outs, minorities, rural areas, NEET's and long term unemployed etc.). Also within difficult contexts (prisons, high poverty areas, anti-violence centres, dealing with bullies etc.). Whilst working with young people from such complex situations, youth workers also establish deep and close emotional relations with those people, which inevitably can lead to youth workers burnout. These complex environments are very high- level stressors, therefore care for professionals needs to be available and taken. The working methods of the training: experiential learning, supervision and coaching techniques. OBJECTIVES The main aim of this training course is to provide youth workers with tools and approaches for their own supervision, and to assist them in learning of how to support colleagues in dealing with difficult cases and emotionally charged situations through intervision groups. Specific objectives are: - to create and work in the setting of non-formal education (NFE) - to provide theoretical and practical information about the history and theories on social inclusion and on the different European realities and strategies - to develop professional competencies and ethical approaches in the field of social inclusion and for the professional work with disadvantaged groups - to support reflection about professional backgrounds, needs and development of youth workers - to create an experiential learning environment where participants can discover and learn tools for professional support, supervision, coaching, and peer support (intervision); - to experience and learn from practical professional cases - to learn tools and methods for looking at difficult cases from different points of view - to experience and learn how to cope with close emotional relationships and other stressors connected with the youth work occupation - to improve the ability of participants to support other colleagues in dealing with stress as youth workers - to understand how Erasmus+ can support social inclusion of young people TARGET GROUP: The project is addressed to youth-workers, social workers, teachers, educators who work with disadvantaged groups and have the chance to implement what they will learn once back at work. The priority is given to professionals who have a role in their association/organisation to organize or provide support and supervision for the staff and/or for the volunteers.