In line with Actions supported under Key Action 2 and the needs of this project to be carried out, the expected results of this project is to develop and to transfer implementation of innovative practices at organisational, local, regional, national or European levels and which are expected to bring positive and long-lasting effects on policy systems in which such Actions are framed, on the participating organizations as well as on the organizations and persons directly or indirectly involved in the organized activities. The uppermost purpose of this project is to strive to increase the implementation of alternative measures to prison for juveniles and young offenders in order to increase the positive impacts which implementation of such measures would bring back into the society. This is expected to be achieved through the main activities which include training of professionals working within the juvenile justice systems in order to enhance their knowledge and skills in their work. Furthermore, we strive to strengthen the involvement of the civil society through awareness raising concerning the benefits of implementation of alternative sanctions and measures. Through the involvement of public bodies in the project we strive to a more active dialogue with the policymakers in order to achieve permanent changes in the prevailing practices and policies. The methodology that is used in this project is based on the so called “Results-based management” (RBM) which is a broad management approach with a core focus is achieving results. The RBM methodology can be defined as a “management strategy by which processes, outputs and services contribute to the achievement of clearly stated expected accomplishments and objectives. It is focused on achieving results, improving performance, integrating lessons learned into management decisions and monitoring and reporting on performance”. It is expected that approx. 400 people will have direct benefits from this project’s trainings and good practice manual namely professionals who already work within the juvenile justice systems as well as members of the civil society who wish to contribute through volunteering. Indirect beneficiaries who will benefit through the dissemination of the project are municipalities and NGOs providing community based services and of course juveniles and youth who carry the sanction/measure of community service as a consequence of a judicial decision. The partnership, which geographically covers a large part of the EU territory, consists of organizations relevant to the project’s objective and with significant experience and expertise with key persons possessing high standard scientific knowledge of the framework.
Hence, as a response to the aforementioned needs, this project aimed at developing a set of policy and practice related recommendations for an effective and rehabilitative community service in Europe. Through this project we strived to increase the implementation of alternative measures to prison for juveniles and young offenders in order to increase the positive impacts which implementation of such measures would bring back into the society.
Since 2015 our first cooperation with the Greek Probation services, we have had many discussions about common actions and especially within the Erasmus+ framework. As we approached the Probation services and proposed cooperation for this project, it was accepted with great pleasure by the probation officers. It is known that the institution of alternative measures for juvenile offenders is dysfunctional and lacking in many EU countries and thus we wanted to start tackling this by creating a Erasmus+ project. We then contacted Dr. Durnescu with whom we had already cooperated with and who has significant expertise in this topic and asked for his guidance during the preparation of the proposal. We could conclude that the need that this project was to cover was for an evidence-based and child- friendly system for regulating and implementing community service in Europe, as currently the implementation is mostly led by the retribution of reparation rhetoric and less by the rehabilitation narrative.