WAVE (Workshops+Awareness+Values+Engagement) is a 2,5 year educational project that aims to create a new method of guidance counselling and career decision making for European students and NEET youth, based on creative and participatory group work that anchors decisions about school and work on a community-based and collective dialogue about how to contribute to meaningful and sustainable future(s). When young people are faced with uncertainty about the future (questions about the environment, economy, society) and their role in it, and the compulsion to make potentially life-altering choices (school- or careerwise) simultaneously, tremendous pressure and isolation looms over them. This may lead to misinformed, desperate, unsure decisions, or worse, neglect and denial in making a decision – leaving a young person stagnated and not knowing how to realize itself academically or professionally, and meaningfully contributing to the cohesion and prosperity of the society it is part of. TILLT AB, STOP-KLATKA, and Teatro Prova have many years of experience working with drama therapy as a form of alternative/popular education, young people as target groups, and socially-engaged projects in which artistic methods and exercises are used to inspire and empower individuals to create innovative approaches to longlasting social problems. The partnership has the objective of developing an innovative guidance counselling method, to better equip guidance counsellors to work more innovatively and with groups; to support students’ choices, leading to better academic performance, wellbeing and employment; to contribute to a more innovative and well-functioning school system and school-to-work transition process across Europe. WAVE engages 300 students/youth as active participants of the method development, of which 9 become ambassadors of the project (receiving a Youthpass certificate) and joining transnational training events, as well as inform 125 educational staff (guidance counsellors, teachers, parents, youth workers, civil servants) about the method. After a period of preparation, partners will work directly with target groups (young people and guidance counsellors) to develop the method via workshop series, including transnational training activities for 9 young participants, and later turn the method into an interactive e-book, that will then be presented in 3 national seminars and 1 final conference. The main result of the project is the method itself, both the know-how and working process developed by partners, as well as an e-book that can inform and educate others on how to work with the method. The method will empower 300 students/youth to make choices in dialogue with peers instead of in isolation, and equip 125 educational staff to work with the method or develop it further if required. Furthermore, 9 students/youth showing special interest in the method and or studies/career in education will develop specific skills for that purpose in an international setting. The long term benefits of the project are improved provision of information/career guidance by schools and educational staff, that facilitates transitions between different levels and types of education and training, as well as between education/training and the world of work, in a way that tackles skills gaps, and answers young citizen’s own formulations of their desired/sustainable future.
The partnership had the objective of developing an innovative guidance counselling method, to better equip guidance counsellors to work more innovatively and with groups; to support students’ choices, leading to better academic performance, wellbeing and employment; to contribute to a more innovative and well-functioning school system and school-to-work transition process across Europe. This was to be done by developing and disseminating a method with which educators* - firstly guidance counsellors, art pedagogues, but even youth leaders and teachers - could work with young people in groups, using drama and applied theatre to explore their career possibilities as well as their values and motivations.
To develop original, art and drama-based methods for young people to make more conscious future career choices. The partners wanted to find an approach dedicated to educating school personnel and guidance counsellors to support students – with a new method that combines the expertise of drama pedagogues and guidance counsellors – as a new way of guiding young people to navigate the demands and possibilities of further studies and working life. The method development revolves around working with students in groups, using drama, culture and art along with guidance counselling to find their motivation, their goals, fears, values and dreams for their future. This approach was a direct way of addressing the need to find ways for young Europeans to develop confidence about their future, and engaging in the building of desired society, a need formulated from the European Commission's observations that “many young people do not look with confidence at their future. 57% of the young generation feel that young people are excluded from economic, social and democratic life. At the same time, young people are eager to engage and participate in society.” (7.12.2016 COM(2016) INVESTING IN EUROPE'S YOUTH)