Reaching Further – Exploring the healing effects of Adventure Education and Experiential Learning, a methodology to increase the quality of youth work for European youngsters with fewer opportunities Erasmus Project

Project Title

Reaching Further – Exploring the healing effects of Adventure Education and Experiential Learning, a methodology to increase the quality of youth work for European youngsters with fewer opportunities

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Health and wellbeing; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Mental health issues amongst youngsters are a tremendous challenge for our society. The number of youngsters dealing with socio-emotional problems like depression or anxiety and other related mental troubles has reached a moderate level of concern. There are other benefits as well, but in our opinion, an appreciative point of view is the most important added value that youth work and non-formal education can offer. Adventurous outdoor activities might very well suit this purpose, as they often provide youngsters and young adults a feeling of an extraordinary achievement when participants for example attain the summit after a difficult rock climb.
 
In all our outdoor and adventure educational programs participants are invited to challenge themselves by going out of their comfort zone. In some stages of the learning process, this approach can create emotional and psychological destabilization. These particular stages are very crucial for learning and growing and need appropriate support and care from the youth workers’ side. So it is important that youth workers can receive a frame where they can learn to contain and canalize these moments, using interventions that can also facilitate moments of healing with the youngsters (= also a way of learning).
 
This is why we thought that “Adventure Therapy” (AT) could be an effective method to address the needs of these youngsters. It isn’t therapy ‘as we know it’, but a way in which experiential outdoor programs within the frame of youth work can help young people on a voluntary basis, in their free-time, to overcome some of their problems.
 
This Strategic Partnership has lasted for 18 months and involved organizations from eight different partnership countries. Transnational meetings have taken place in 5 different countries. Participants were 24 trainers and youth workers from Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Iceland and the Netherlands. Together participants shared a passion for AT. This methodology was used as a tool to put more quality into youth work with youth at risk through experiential learning and outdoor education. One of the innovative parts in it is that we aimed for taking the “healing facilitating and sometimes therapeutic skills” out of the “ivory tower” and put them into a more integrated, practical, down to earth method of group experiential learning.
 
Participants all worked directly or indirectly with different target groups of youth in different contexts like youth centers, training/summer camps, family houses, public institutions, therapy centers or in social services, but always within the framework of experiential learning and outdoor education. Participants from five participating countries shared a common experience from participating in an AT training in September 2014 and the others were connected through our network. In January 2015 partners from all organizations, in total 16, held a preparation meeting to form our ideas of the partnership.
 
Our main goals for this partnership were:
 
1. To provide a platform where youth workers can share knowledge, experience and resources regarding AT as an approach
2. To create a common understanding of AT in Europe and define this into clear findings
3. To explore AT as a method used in youth work and experiment with new practices
 
In order to achieve those goals we worked in different action groups: Website, Training and Intervision, Research and Gathering (GATE). This work took place through 5 phases; Preparation phase, Observation phase, Training phase, Testing phase and Dissemination phase.
 
The outcomes of this partnership are a website (www.adventuretherapy.eu), the organisation of the first Gathering for Adventure Therapy in Europe (GATE) and the publication of our findings on AT in Europe in the form of an e-book. These can be used to enrich youth work with more specific approaches to address youngsters with socio- emotional difficulties and fewer opportunities. The findings may also add to youth workers competences in reaching out to this target group as they will be able to use them as resources for increasing the quality of adventure learning programs. Through our national programs with youth at risk, youngsters benefited directly from this approach.
 
The results of this project have impacted the current discourse on a European level about:
– the quality of non-formal learning in youth work with a specific focus on outdoor and adventure programs
– the creation of new tools for equal learning opportunities for young people with psychological, social and behavioral problems.
 
In the long run, every European organization working with youth at risk in outdoor and experiential learning programs, who wants to improve the quality of their work with the methodology of AT, can benefit from our findings and from this platform. We will keep the network alive and include more European countries and AT practitioners. They will be able to participate in all announced training

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 61550 Eur

Project Coordinator

NATURE & Country: BE

Project Partners

• Upplifun – Samtök um reynslunám og útinám
• Pressley Ridge – Associação de Solidariedade Social
• Mutsaersstichting
• A.S.D. Kamaleonte
• iacone & thiesen gbr
• EXPERIENTIA
• Hungarian Experiental Education Foundation