The project "Social Media AbUse" (SMAU) is based on observations from youth associations across Europe which indicate that the use of information and communication technology (ICT) by young people often exceeds the constructive limits. A need has been detected to develop a project to address the issue of the use and abuse of ICT and social networks in which educators often do not feel sufficiently competent and lack knowledge and tools to prevent and intervene. While some intervention projects are being developed in areas of education, a lack of this type of projects in areas of non-formal education is perceived. To address these needs, the project SMAU is proposed. It aims at equipping youth and youth workers with competencies which are crucial for prevention and intervention in the case of social media abuse. The project SMAU offers an innovative approach to achieve the objectives of Strategic Partnerships in the field of Youth related to training of youth workers, innovation, use of ICT and REA, as well as the program priorities for 2014. The project brings together nine partners from four countries: Spain, France, Slovenia and Germany, two partners from each, plus the coordinator (Spain). The partners are organizations with expertise and experience in the field of training of youth workers and social intervention for young people, European projects and international cooperation and with prior experience in the field of ICT. The project is primarily aimed at two different target groups: youth workers and young people aged 15 to 25 and is based on the principles of non-formal education that promotes active participation and adapting activities to the reality of the participants. In order to address the needs of training, activities and products for youth workers aimed at raising awareness, developing tools and professional development. Furthermore, we detected the need for direct work with young people, since they are the ones affected by the abuse of social media and often do not have resources and tools to combat it. In order to inform and raise awareness among youth, improve their digital skills and together with them develop tools and guidelines to combat abuse and promote appropriate use of social networks and ICT, activities for youth are developed. Besides that, the project offers an opportunity to live a European experience and thus arouse the curiosity or interest in languages and other European cultures. Besides the participants directly involved, the project aims at achieving a greater number of people through multipliers events and dissemination of results and products - both workers and youth aged 15 to 25 years, as well as other stakeholders, such as families, public institutions , youth centers, associations, etc. at local, regional, national, and international level. The objectives of this project are to: - Raise awareness among youth about the abuse of social networks and ICT. For this purpose awareness raising sessions and participatory workshops will be held. - Involve young people with fewer opportunities. This will be achieved through the participation of partners and professionals who work with youth with learning difficulties and poor school performance, members of ethnic minorities, youth with immigrant background or those from families with lower socio-economic status. We believe that these groups deserve special attention, since they often have poorer access to information resources and tools and are therefore particularly vulnerable in terms of social media abuse. - Define and recognize the different forms of abuse of social networks and ICT at European level. To meet this objective an analysis of reality will be carried out in each partner country, which will lead to a comparative study and will form the basis for the development of other project activities. - Promote appropriate use of social networks and ICT forms. To meet this objective, open educational resources based on the project results will be designed and events will be organized to disseminate the project results. - Provide young people with tools to recognize and combat against the abuse of social networks and ICT, namely through open educational resources. - Improve youth workers’ skills so they can intervene in cases of social media abuse. This will be done through a training course for professionals and an open educational resource.
“Social Media AbUse” (SMAU) Project is based on the observation carried out by the youth organizations across Europe, that points out that the use of Technologies of Information and Communication (TIC) by young people often exceeds the constructive limits. It has been noticed that there is the need to carry out a project that addresses the issues of the use and misuse of TIC and social networks, in which the educators often feel as they are not competent enough and they do not have the proper tools and knowledge to prevent and intervene. Whilst some intervention projects take place in a formal-educational context, there is a lack of such projects in a non-formal-educational field. SMAU project aims to provide young people and youth workers with the proper competence to detect and to intervene in the process of the misuse of social media. SMAU Project is an innovative proposal to achieve the objectives of strategic associations in the context of youth related with training of youth professionals, innovation, TIC and REA use, as well as the priorities for 2014. The project brought together nine partners from four countries: Spain, France, Slovenia and Germany, two from each country and the coordinator (from Spain). The partners are organizations with competence and experience in the field of youth professionals training and social intervention in youth, with prior European paths and experience in the field of TIC. However, the project started with seven partners as the German partners withdrew. The project aims at two groups: youth workers and young people aged 15 to 25. It has been based in the principles of non-formal education that allow active participation and adaptation of the actions to the participants’ realities. The project aimed not only at the participants who are directly involved in its activities, but also – through the dissemination of the results and the outputs - at the largest number possible of people, both youth workers and young people aged 15 to 25 and other interested parties, such as families, public institutions, youth centers, associations etc. both at a local, regional, national and international level. The goals this project achieved are: - Increasing young people’s awareness of the misuse of social media and TIC; - Involving young people with fewer opportunities, through the participation in the project of the partners and professionals who daily work with young people, who have educational difficulties, ethnic minorities members, immigrant population descendants or whose families have socio-economic problems; - Defining and recognizing, at European level, the different forms of misuse of social media and TIC; - Promoting proper forms of use of social media and TIC; - Providing young people with tools to recognize and fight against the misuse of social media and TIC, through the open educational resources created; - Improving professionals’ competences in the field of youth to intervene in case of misuses of the networks. To do so, the following elements were developed: - Teamwork among the partners to define the context and the contents; - Development of a research among young people and teams of educators in order to get to know the use of social networks and of the existing profiles. The results were gathered in the three participating countries; - Development of workshops targeted at young people in the three countries to work on topics of awareness and stances; - Creation of a “dissemination kit” made up of 5 infographics, the original in English and then translated into the languages of the project; - Dissemination of contents through the Internet, social networks and articles. The Project developed through three international meetings (in Madrid, Bordeaux and Litija), sessions (workshops) carried out in the three countries and the International Seminar in Madrid. The final output published was a guide about good practices for prevention containing the infographics in the four languages of the project (Spanish, English, French and Slovenian). SMAU allowed us to bring more than 720 children, 160 educators to the topic of cyberbullying. 17 people participated in the seminar.