Time for Change Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

Time for Change Europe

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 addressing more than one field

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

Time for Change Europe (TFCE) tackled some of the most difficult challenges that young people in Europe face: unemployment, homelessness, breakdown of family relationships, and dropping out of training or education. All of these challenges can lead to problems such as exclusion, loss of confidence, substance misuse, as well as aggressive, risk taking and anti-social behaviour which produce negative consequences for young people, affecting both their long term future and the lives of those around them (both their families and communities).
The TFCE Project developed and transferred an innovative personal development youth programme called Time for Change (TFC) developed in UK-NI. The programme was transferred to Germany, Lithuania and Spain. The TFCE Programme is unique in its approach to supporting young people at risk of social exclusion as it provides young people with space and time away from situations in their life that are impacting on their situations and choices. These situations include; relationship breakdown, family problems, drug/alcohol misuse, mental health issues, unplanned pregnancy and parenthood, and low confidence issues. All partners in the Project were involved in working with young people and families affected by these issues. TFCE is a unique, intense person centred programme which makes use of group work, peer support, residential and experiential learning using a range of outdoor and centre based activities to explore and reflect on personal circumstances and behaviours.
TFCE supports each young person taking part to identify their priorities for change and to build actions into a plan. Each of the partners worked with young people who were vulnerable in some way. Partners were therefore able to integrate TFC into their work with young people during and beyond the Project.
For young people who have lost contact with or trust in mainstream services, TFCE served as a first step back. It was suitable for partners to use with their most vulnerable clients, helping to draw them into other training, education and employment support services and programmes. Partners who adapted TFCE identified that, although they already work with vulnerable young people, there were gaps in their provision for a structured programme like TFCE.
The value base of TFCE identifies that the young person is not ‘the problem’ and recognises the range of contributing factors that have contributed to the need for change. An important innovative aspect of TFCE was the peer support for young people and the importance of building strong relationships with youth workers, their families, and the community. Activities and interventions in TFCE focused on challenge and reflection and were delivered both as individual and group based sessions. In the final phase of TFCE young people and their youth organisations agreed a ‘ next steps’ action plan, which was shared within the group to create a sense of responsibility and accountability enabling young people to link into group and community support following TFCE. This was a crucial element in sustaining change beyond their time on TFCE. TFCE also includes ‘Turning Point’, a moving on graduation celebration involving family and community representatives. At this stage, support networks were set in place for the young people which provided encouragement to keep them moving in a positive direction. This was vital for young people to be able to sustain change as the challenges they faced were still there, even when they had become resilient in dealing with them during the programme, it was vital that this progress was maintained.
The aspect of drawing in and making use of complementary community based services was replicated by each of the partners. It was supported by the establishment of Stakeholder Forums by each partner. Stakeholders were people who had an interest in supporting young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and were able to offer support during and after the life of the project. They were involved in TFCE: advising on design and delivery as well as explaining what additional and complementary services they could offer. To ensure that TFCE remained grounded in the needs of the target group, the Stakeholder Forums also involved young people themselves. The Stakeholders were invited to meet with partners and were invited to attend a Stakeholder Seminar related to project outputs.
By addressing the barriers and challenges faced by young people today, this project enabled at risk young people to increase their chances and opportunities for the future, working towards education, training, participation in the labour market, and active citizenship in European society so that they can participate in and benefit fully from the outcomes of strategies such as Europe 2020 and the European Youth Strategy. This project related particularly to the principles of social equity and equality of opportunity for all that underpin those strategies.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 285202,77 Eur

Project Coordinator

Possibilities NI & Country: UK

Project Partners

• CJD Maximiliansau
• Vilnius Archdiocesan Caritas
• FEDERACION ANDALUCIA ACOGE