E-QUALITY –Emotional QUotient And LITeracy in Youth work

Aims & objectives

The main aims and objectives:
• to develop Self-Awareness (emotional self-awareness, self-reflection, self-confidence);
• to develop Self-Management (emotional self-control, self-expression, adaptability, achievement orientation, motivation, time and goal management, positive outlook);
• to develop Social Awareness (empathy, active listening, body language awareness, organizational awareness);
• to develop Relationship Management (conflict management, collaboration, team work and inspirational leadership);
• to raise quality and innovation of youth work:
•• to raise E-QUALITY as Emotional QUALITY of youth work, raising emotional and psychological literacy of youth workers;
•• to raise E-QUALITY as Electronic QUALITY of youth work, developing digital competence of youth workers and creating digital handbook and digital tools;
• to develop the Handbook and tools (both off-line and on-line adjusted) as the main visible and practical outcome;
• to develop communication competence, personal, social and learning to learn competence, literacy competence, digital competence, initiative and entrepreneurship competence, cultural awareness and expression competence and self-reflection skills;
• to establish new trustworthy partnerships with youth workers and to provide a partnership building platform for NGO workers.

Target group & international/intercultural composition of the group & team

The participants' profile of the TC:
• 18+ years old youth/social workers/leaders/NGO key staff;
• responsible, motivated and open to the new experience and learning opportunities;
• open-minded and flexible towards new knowledge, viewpoints and perspectives;
• with knowledge and experience in working with NFL programs (desirable, but not mandatory);
• ready to contribute to the project implementation: share relevant knowledge and experience, organize a workshop, lead a session, etc.;
• ready to implement the project results in further work;
• with good command of English.

The training involved 46 participants from 13 countries: Armenia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Georgia, Jordan, Latvia, Moldova, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Spain, Ukraine.

Training methods used & main activities

For 8 days, 46 youth workers deeply dived into the topic, playing, discovering and assimilating our working methods suitable for small and large groups. The aim of this activity was to overview, “taste” and develop your Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and its competences; to create and elaborate new tools for EQ development (reflection, feedback, other tools to promote, develop and improve EQ), to adjust and pilot some of these tools both in the off-line and on-line dimensions. The learning by doing approach ensured many interactive activities, mostly role-plays, simulations, performances and other theatrical techniques. We had long debrief sessions on all the elements of each method, ensuring a detailed understanding and feeling for all participants.

Outcomes of the activity

E-QUALITY is a multi-meaning and multipurpose project!
• E-QUALITY is EQUALITY, which is one of the main values of Erasmus+ and our society (throughout the project, we are struggling for equality in NFE opportunities: we are both involving youngsters with fewer opportunities in the training itself and creating off-line and digital on-line tools for reaching out youngsters, facing various obstacles in education);
• E-QUALITY is Emotional QUALITY of youth work (we raise and improve it through the development of EQ competences – ones of the most crucial in youth and social work);
• E-QUALITY is Electronic QUALITY of youth work (we are not only creating digital handbook as the main visible outcome and developing digital competence of participants, but as well, for added value, we are adjusting some of the elaborated tools for on-line environment for reaching out target groups with fewer opportunities).

Therefore, the main needs tackled by the project are related to:
• improving the quality of youth work through the development of key competences of youth workers (basic eight YouthPass competences and four EQ competences and relevant skills);
• bringing innovations to youth work through developing new tools for the EQ development, specifically, for the face-to-face work with various target groups and as well on-line adjusted to increase the impact of the youth work, reaching out and involving youngsters with fewer opportunities and at risk of exclusion.

Your tasks and responsibilities within the team

I was one of the full time Trainers responsible for the content.

I worked on this training for 8 days as a full time trainer.