Stiftelsen Fryshuset and Sosped Foundation propose a partnership between two Scandinavian countries to enhance social inclusion of psychosocially challenged youth through empowerment. Sosped is working with young adults (18-35 yers) who are suffering from mental health problems whereas Fryshuset is working with young people (13-30). Through exchange of expertise and good practice the project aims to enhance social inclusion of psychosocially excluded youth and young adults and to empower youth by training them to become peer tutors and empower young adults by training them to become young leaders. The project activities focus especially on youth and young adults (13-35 years) who are attending and participating in both organizations operations and who suffer from mental problems and psykosocial disorders. One of the main goals of the exchange of practices is to enhance social inclusion of socially excluded youth and young adults. The project does this by promoting empowerement through peer-tutor training for Swedish young people and leadership-training for Finnish young adult who are suffering from mental health problems. Youth work is more developed in Sweden where as low threshold mental health work is more developed in Finland. This is why the project is: 1) Testing and implementing the Culture house model to Fryshuset enabling Fryshuset to better support young people who are suffering from mental health problems or psykosocial disorders. 2) Testing and implementing Fryshuset youth leadership programme to the long-term participants and peer tutors at Sospeds Culture houses in order to help them to develop their innate abillity and find their way into society. The Cultural house model, where persons with metally health issues are being trained to become functional peer tutors, does not exist outside of Finland. Fryshuset strength is to provide opportunities for young people to develop their innate abillities and find their way into society. Fryshusets methods on promoting social inclusion and empowement of youth together with the Culture house model enables Fryshuset to reach out and support a new target group as well as supporting existing youth within the organization more effectively. The Culture house model is in line with Fryshuset's mission and it will be tested and implemented at their venue in Stockholm. Sosped´s personnel will provide two 3 days training sessions for Fryshuset´s personnel and partcipants in Fryshuset´s premises in Stockholm. Training sessions involve lectures and both individual and group exercices converning following themes: social skills, goal-setting, coping methods and personal stregths. Culture house´s local and national need has been growing in Finland at the same time when the number of long term participants has been rising. If culture houses (and other low threshold mental health services) are not able to find new way to empower long term participants, these people might experience a relapse or/ and they become a new reason for younger participants for NOT to attend to Culture houses, because they´ll become passive or chronic. Provision of leadership skills to mental health rehabilitators doesn´t exist in Finland. With the help of leadership skills these people would not only be able to lead themselves and others but also be able to grow in responsibility, independence and management skills. All these are valuable in today´s society and hopefully some of the trained leaders would be rehabilitated so that they could eventually get some part-time jobs. Fryshuset´s personnel will provide two 3 days training sessions for Sosped´s personnel and partcipants in Sosped´s premises in Helsinki. Training sessions involve lectures and both individual and group exercices converning following themes: self-knowledge, conflict-handling, project-management and being a role model. Project starts in February 2018 and ends in January 2018. National trainings will be held during spring 2018 and assessment of the project will be done under Autumn 2018.
Stiftelsen Fryshuset's and Sosped Foundation's project "LEAPE - Training of leaders and peer tutors for the wounded generations" aimed to enhance social inclusion of psycho socially challenged youth through peer support & leadership skills. Project main goal was to exchange practices to enhance social inclusion of socially excluded youth and young adults. The project did this by promoting empowerment through peer-tutor training for Swedish young people and leadership-training for Finnish young adult who are suffering from mental health problems. Project started in February 2018 and ended in January 2019. Youth work is more developed in Sweden where as low threshold mental health work is more developed in Finland. The project contributed to mutual learning and sharing of good practice and knowledge between the partner organizations, but also plan long-term implementation of it in each organization. Also cooperation between organizations working in the field of youth development - and mental health services is inadequate. The Sosped Foundation Culture house- concept, where mentally challenged people are being trained to become functional peers, doesn't exist outside of Finland. Fryshuset instead has a several years experience of training hundreds and hundreds of youth and other target groups with their value -based leadership program. Through exchange of expertise and good practice the project aimed to empower youth by training them to become peer tutors and empower young adults by training them to become youth leaders. The project activities focused especially on youth and young adults (13-35 years) who were suffered from mental problems and social exclusion. Sosped has been working with young adults (18-35 yers) who are suffering from mental health problems whereas Fryshuset had been working with young people (13-30). If Culture houses (and other low threshold mental health services) are not able to find new ways to empower long term participants, these people might experience a relapse or/ and they become a new reason for younger participants for NOT to attend to Culture houses, because they´ll become passive or chronic. With the help of leadership skills these people would not only be able to lead themselves and others but also be able to grow in responsibility, independence and management and self management skills. Fryshuset, like many other youth houses in Sweden has had a challenge of attracting youngsters who are in the most vulnerable position. Those who are suffering from mental health problems and are socially excluded from the society. These people are often the ones who are too afraid to attend to "normal" activities with other youngsters. Training of Fryshuset's Särskolan's students to become peer tutors gave Fryshuset sufficient tools to reach out to an entirely new and often forgotten target group. Project activities consisted of five different meetings: 1) (2/2018) A 2 days preparative transnational project meeting (2 days) in Stockholm where both learning event where planned 2) (4/2018) A 5 days learning event in Stockholm during which Sosped organized a peer tutor training to Fryshuset's 14 youngsters. Two of the trainers were Sosped's peer tutors. 3) (5/2018) A 5 days learning event in Helsinki where Fryshuset trained Sosped's 12 peer tutors to become youth leaders 4) (9/2018) A 2 days evaluative transnational project meeting in Helsinki 5) (12/2018) A 5 days follow-up transnational project meeting in Finland during which all the trained peer tutors where met one more time. After the project Sosped got a leadership model with which it could train peer tutors to deepen their leadership skills. Fryshuset got instead peer tutor model with which they could serve the needs of youngsters who are suffering from mental health problems.