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SOS: Seminar on Safeguarding

2021-1-BE05-KA153-YOU-0000113902021Mobility of youth workersfinalized
Countries: BE|MT|DE|IT|PL|ME|AT|CZ|SK|NL|ES|UA · Grant: €12,678
Digital youth workPhysical and mental health, well-beingDevelopment of training courses

Objectives

Don Bosco Youth-Net (DBYN) and its member organisations (MOs) are founded on Don Bosco's teachings, emphasising the preventive pedagogical approach and the significance of safeguarding policies grounded in Human Rights. Nearly a decade ago, DBYN established a document on safeguarding, rooted in Don Bosco traditions. When writing the application, we wanted to first of all give (added) knowledge about safeguarding and good practices to our trainers and the participants (educators and youth workers) of our member organisations. This would serve as a foundation for improving safeguarding policies and practices across our network. The existing safeguarding policy document, "Dignity", was due for a comprehensive review. We recognized the need to adapt it to the changing landscape, especially considering the increased use of digital tools in youth work. As such, we intended to add a chapter on digital safeguarding to address contemporary challenges. Especially because of the pandemic, we wanted to add this extra chapter on digital safeguarding. Digital tools have been heavily used in youth work in order to stay in touch with children and youngsters and have them take advantage of digital youth work possibilities. In general we wanted to evaluate our policies and working procedures if it comes to safeguarding acknowledging the intercultural dimension of our network, taking into account the explicit and implicit results. For example the understanding of proximity and distance can be different in different cultures, but also different between individuals. Another aim of this project was to connect safeguarding officers of our different organisations together so that they could more easily share expertise and good practices. Through this, we aimed to have each organisation identify at least one safeguarding officer locally. We were aiming to create an educational session on safeguarding, offering advice and best practices for educators, to be used both digitally and in-person on international, but also local level. The overarching goal was to ensure the safety and dignity of youth engaged in the network's activities, through enhancing safeguarding practices and knowledge within Don Bosco Youth-Net and its member organisations.

Project partners (15)