Research done on Drug and Alcohol Helplines across Europe, identified strengths and expertise as well as three key areas where skills and knowledge gaps exist. This project was designed to address these gaps in a manner that valued C-VET through both formal and informal learning. Partners were sought from both the Training and Helpline sector. Each partner was considered for what they might add to this project. Three Transnational Exchange meetings are planned each to address one of the key areas of interest. The first meeting will look at Helpline skills for new workers, more long-standing workers and also burn-out prevention. The second meeting will look at New Psychoactive Substances and the challenges we encounter in Helpline work and the third meeting will look at Drugs and Mental Health and Helpline work. Following each meeting a curriculum or protocol for C-VET for Helpline workers will be piloted and then published. These will be made available as a resource on all of the partner websites as well as on www.fesat.org, in english (the project language) and also in the main partner languages. These will be available for onward use and re-use by Drug and Alcohol Helplines, as well as by similar services anywhere in the world, for free under an Open License.
Research done on Drug and Alcohol Helpline Workers and Coordinators across Europe, identified strengths and expertise as well as three key areas where skills and knowledge gaps exist in the field. Three topics to emerge from this research were Burnout Prevention; New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) and Co-occurring Substance use and Mental Health Issues (Dual Diagnosis). Following on from previous successful partnership projects, we created an Erasmus+ Key Action 2 project focused on the creation of 3 curricula to address these topics. We put together a project schedule and determined to have 3 Transnational Project Meetings, each focusing on one of the three topics listed above. Each meeting yielded a draft curriculum which listed the desirable Learning Outcomes for the training and development needs of Helpline workers on each topic. For each Learning Outcome we suggested Learning Methods to be used; relevant research; Good Practice and Resources that support this learning outcome. Once complete we shared these curricula across our professional networks and beyond, through email, social media, website postings as well as discussions, team meetings, training inputs inspired by the curricula. Partners were sought from both the Training and Helpline sector and were considered for what they might add to this project. 8 of the project partners were from well established Helpline support services in Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Portugal and the Netherlands. Each partner brought an understanding of the needs of this project but also they had specific experience and skills to share in the creation of the project outputs. The ninth project partner was from the Training Exchange in the UK. This partner brought expertise in training and development and provided invaluable guidance on the Learning Outcomes approach as taking on a key role in the final drafting of the curricula. Three Transnational Project meetings took place, each one addressing one of the three areas of interest. We also had a kick off meeting at the start of the project to help us become acquainted with each other and the learning outcomes approach. At that meeting we also set dates and deadlines and set goals for the project. The final meeting was a dissemination meeting, where we focused not on the curricula but on how to best share our projects work. During this meeting we created several short video outputs that could be shared then but also at points in the future to promote and explain the curricula. There are 3 Short video outputs {https://youtu.be/_w1djnWneeU }{https://youtu.be/bk0uu7emvhs} and {http://youtu.be/nedzzjbEoaY}, 1 Teaser animation {https://youtu.be/wBhx40eMLCQ } and 1 Pecha kucha type presentation {https://youtu.be/Ftl0suWPS9U } that can be shared online as promotional tools now and beyond the project. At the end of the project we had created 3 professionally designed curricula, which are now available to share in both English and Bulgarian. They have a permanent presence on the FESAT website www.fesat.org but also on the partner websites. The SKEPDAH Curriculum for the Training and Development of Helpline Workers on Burnout Prevention ; The SKEPDAH Curriculum for the Training and Development of Helpline Workers on New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) and the SKEPDAH Curriculum for the Training and Development of Helpline Workers on Co-occurring Substance Use and Mental Health Issues are all freely available under a Creative Commons Open License and can be downloaded from www.fesat.org