ERASMUS+ K.A2, Strategic Partnerships for YOUTH, Development of Innovation
The project involves EU institutions working with youth and aims to share and to test a Model of youth growth within their community. The Model aims to identify and to implement positive rites of passage involving young people and youth workers/ educators, making participants aware about the disregarded role of rites of passage, by designing and improving shared positive “rites of passage experiences” (ROPEs) (Blumenkrantz & Goldstein 2010 “Rites of passage as framework for community interventions with youth” www.gjcpp.org and www.rope.org). The project aims also to enhance the quality in youth work, promoting the cooperation of institutions working with young people and improving the participation of adolescents in designing significant growth experiences in line with their personal values, cultural heritage, and with a shared EU approach to the transition towards adulthood.
The current socio-economic challenges that Europe is facing have multiple effects on young generations. The unemployment, especially increased in the youth population, the gradual marginalization of some young people, the difficulty of social inclusion of youth from different cultures are important issues that affect, in different ways, all European countries. The socio-economic phenomena that Europe is daily facing also have led to a society that feels increasingly in emergency, precariousness and insecurity. These feelings interact with the crisis affecting the adolescent age, when its reference systems are moving from parent group (the family) to the reference group (their peers).
The YOU-ROPE project wants to prevent youth problems through a more effective, integrated and coordinated approach to education and social inclusion, to be realized by adopting a model "youth and community development through rites of passage" and by integrating interventions during critical points in children’s transition from childhood to adulthood. Thanks to the improvement of social inclusion and its contribution to the marginalization prevention, the YOU-ROPE project also intends to engage young persons as part of powerful forces in mentoring younger children. This will effectively contribute to the reduction of the social withdrawal, allowing final beneficiaries to be more confident and competitive in their future access to the labor market.
Within the YOU-ROPE project will be developed 2 products (Intellectual Outputs): the first one, a Framework Survey, collecting important information about Rites of Passage in partners' countries, and the second one, the Guidelines, useful for organizations who intend to use this information in the future. The Guidelines will supply information to the youth workers/professionals interested in applying the ROPEs Model in their working environment.
The project’s target groups will be adolescents, who will be directly involved during the Survey and the test-run of the ROPEs Model, and youth workers, educative professionals, training centres, associations, etc. Even these social actors will be involved during activities realization: some of them will be employed as stakeholders or experts about the treated topics and, in general, they will be also involved as recipients of the dissemination.
The PARTNERSHIP
Applicant Coordinator
CEPISS – Soc. Coop. (Florence, ITA)
Partners
Centro Machiavelli Srl - Training Agency & EU Projects Dept. (Florence, ITA)
LABCOM Ricerca e Azione per il benessere Psicosociale Soc. Coop. (Florence, ITA)
ASOCIATIA PSITERRA (Iasi, RO)
ECTE - European Center In Training for Employment (Rethymnon, GR)
Cooperativa ETCS sccl (Barcelona, ES)
CONSULT AND DOWNLOAD YOU-ROPE PROJECT PRODUCTS
I.O1 FRAMEWORK SURVEY (EN Version-6.36 MB)
I.O1 is a comparative research on youth rites of passage held in Italy, Greece, Spain and Romania. The research aimed to identify and map the youth rites in the 4 partner countries, highlighting the meanings attributed to them in the process of personal and social growth of young people. The survey was focused the perception on the rites of passage of adolescents as well as of the significant adults, also identifying the relationship between rites of passage and sense of community, empowerment and participation of adolescents.
I.O3 YOU-ROPE GUIDELINES (EN Version-8.78 MB)
I.O3 YOU-ROPE GUIDELINES (IT Version-5.60 MB)
I.O3 consists of specific Guidelines for youth workers, teachers and other educational professionals to work with adolescents, adopting the YOU-ROPE Model.
The Model aims to identify and implement positive rites of passages involving young people, their parents, families and communities and to engage policy makers and youth workers/educators, making participants aware about the important role of rites of passage, by designing and improving shared positive “rites of passage experiences” (ROPEs) (Blumenkrantz & Goldstein, 2014; www.gjcpp.org; www. rope.org; Blumenkrantz, 2016). The model of intervention is aimed to promote a sense of individual’s belonging to the community and to strengthen communities through the enhancement of community-oriented, culturally sensitive and develop mentally appropriate rites of passages guiding and supporting children’s transition from adolescence to adult life.