The BRIDGE project promotes well-being and mental health within classrooms through a shift in pedagogical paradigm. This approach views activities supporting the integration of students at risk of dropping out as not a separate or compensatory intervention, but rather an educational opportunity for the entire class. The approach embraces the school as a learning community where nurturing relationships and valuing differences become fundamental tools for developing emotional, social, and collaborative skills. From this perspective, activities dedicated to supporting vulnerable students are transformed into opportunities for shared growth: teachers, educators, and students are engaged in programs that foster empathy, cooperation, effective communication, and the mindful management of group dynamics. BRIDGE thus transcends the logic of emergency intervention, proposing an inclusive and systemic vision of well-being in schools, where integration becomes the driving force for the evolution of educational practices and the construction of more equitable and sustainable learning environments.
The project's partner organizations have long been active in the field of education and intervene in school settings with educational programs aimed at the 10-18 age group. BRIDGE was created to foster a shift in the pedagogical paradigm through the development of tools aimed at improving the relationship between school teachers and educators, and at fostering a broader educational focus across the class, not just on individual students at risk of dropping out. The needs BRIDGE seeks to address are: persistent difficulties among teachers in developing shared approaches with educators increasingly present in schools; difficulties in schools in dealing with non-formal and informal learning models; teaching and learning efforts limited to the development of knowledge and cognitive skills, and a lack of attention and methods capable of working on the development, strengthening, and improvement of emotional and social skills; climate unable to promote well-being due to the prevalence of prescriptive approaches, frontal lessons in which the influence of social and emotional aspects on learning is ignored.