Young people (in their adolescence and their tween-age, aged 13-20) are in the process of identity formation, and this is the time when their self-esteem, self-efficacy is also built. This process is connected to their feeling of agency – their feeling of control over their lives (Zimmerman and Cleary, 2006). Being an agent in your life have a clear connection of seeing why to finish school and be able to work. Rates of early school leaving (12,1% EU average, with a peak of 12,5% in Hungary, 14% in Italy) and increasing, as well as a 14% in Italy from partner countries), as well as of youth unemployment (14,9% in the EU). Schools, and especially teachers have a very important role in both tackling these challenges of social background as well as tackling the everyday phenomenon of bullying within school. However this is a field, where teachers feel on unsafe grounds, as original teachers training is less focused on this area. What teachers face that usually there are no available psychological / mental health help for young people, even less at the countryside, and they have to deal with these issues themselves if they want or not. They themselves feel helpless several time, and need support. This project aims exactly at that: assisting teachers working with these problem-facing young people, to gain methods, which can be used in the difficult peer-to-peer situations, including peer-mentoring. During our project, after analysing what can be well implemented locally, we would like to develop a reference frame / national adaptation plans for schools, a toolkit for teachers, a teacher training curriculum, and run pilots, and finally develop an Empowerment Platform for gaining access to materials, case studies and online help.
Our main objective with the project was to support teachers, by providign them with the necessary information and tools they can use in their daily practice to support their students’ personal development. We introduced tools from three different methodologies to them: symbolwork, folk tale work and storytelling. These are methodologies that all support the development of the identity of participants, young people and schools students in our case: by telling the stories of their own life; by learning from our ancestors well of knowledge through folk tales; and by putting the content of their mind ont he outside through symbols, they will better understand who they are, and will be better able to feel active agents in their lives. They will become more self-confident and more empathetic towards others – and such healthier individuals will be better able to create an inclusive environment with less bullying, which then leads to a reduction of early school leaving. ESL is partly because of outside factors (economical difficulties or cutlrual differences), but by providing a school community that is good to be a part of, students will be personally more engaged in attending the school.
Young people (aged 13-20) are in the process of identity formation, and this is the time when their self-esteem, self-efficacy is also built. This process is connected to their feeling of agency – their feeling of control over their lives. Being an agent in your life have a clear connection of seeing why to finish school and be able to work. Rates of early school leaving (12,1% EU average) are increasing, as well as of youth unemployment (14,9% in the EU). Schools, and especially teachers have a very important role in both tackling these challenges of social background as well as tackling the everyday phenomenon of bullying within school. However this is a field, where teachers feel on unsafe grounds, as original teachers training is less focused on this area. What teachers face that usually there are no available psychological / mental health help for young people, even less at the countryside, and they have to deal with these issues themselves if they want or not. They themselves feel helpless several time, and need support. This project aimed exactly at that: assisting teachers working with these problem-facing young people, to gain methods, which can be used in the difficult peer-to-peer situations, including peer-mentoring.