This project was created after an official French study showing that 36% of young homeless (18 to 25) where previously supported by social work organizations. Although France has strong social nets, they seem to be inefficient on a range of children at risk. Why? We compared the social system of 5 countries, and analyzed the needs in each country, but also the needs in social work education. We were inspired by notorious research papers and studies. Our conclusion is that the training methods and contents are dated and need to be renewed. We aim to use empowerment methods, and a research action to create innovative training methods. 12 partners, coming from 5 countries, support the Philia project: 6 universities (two of them equipped with research centers), and organizations supporting actions for children at risk and foreign unaccompanied minors. We, education and social work professionals, want to work differently: progressing from assistance to the development of empowerment. We aim to train a new generation of professionals working with inclusive technics, more appropriate for the needs of these children and youngsters. We will create innovative training modules in order for professors to teach future social workers (and professional at work) how to : _prevent and tackle early school leaving develop professional networks for professional orientation and improve work inclusion of the children they support _ include the community helpers (neighbors, extended family…) in the accompanying social measure 3 transversal axes in the training modules will consider ethics questions; the contextualization, and the specificity of foreign unaccompanied minors. This research action driven by PhD teachers will allow these innovative training modules to be created. We will experiment them during the period of the project, and we will adjust. The training modules will represent 10 ECTS, free of rights and easily downloadable. They will be translated in French and English. The partners of the project will eventually translate them in there local language. These modules will be (through several actions) disseminated largely in Europe, in order to help to transform practice. Several videos will be launched and hosted in a wider training package.
Participating in the renovation of social work training in order to make social action more efficient for young people, this is the meaning of the European project Philia carried out in France, Belgium, Romania and Portugal. The result? A pedagogical kit to train professionals to better accompany young people in welfare services and to develop their power to act. Concretely, it is a question of giving tools to social work training professionals to equip social workers to better accompany children and youth : in the mobilization of their network of belonging and support and in identifying and achieving their own vision of success. A pedagogical kit in the form of a website has been created, it is built in two distinct parts. A first part is dedicated to the presentation of the project, a second part is dedicated to the training contents. There are teaching videos, interviews, teaching tools, exercises, quizzes... Philia's innovative dimension is its Research-Action Collaborative (RAC) method. All the actors involved in the project are considered as co-researchers: teacher-researchers but also social work students, trainers, social workers and young people in social and medico-social institutions. This Collaborative Action-Research has allowed a transfer of academic knowledge to the social workers, and a transfer of life knowledge to the researchers. These exchanges and cooperation are at the heart of the project. The collaboration took place on a European scale, with the involvement of 4 countries: France, Belgium, Portugal and Romania. The articulation between the theories and practices of social work, fed by the knowledge of young people and professionals who live these issues on a daily basis, is the added value of the Philia project. The Collaborative Action-Research is based on the DPA-PC approach. In social work, the approach centered on the Development of the power to act of individuals and collectives, or DPA-PC, is defined by Yann le Bossé. This approach restores power to the person being accompanied, by considering and relying on his theoretical and experiential knowledge, his logics and what is important to him. All the realisations of the project can be seen on the following website: www.philiaplus.org