In an unprecedented virtual mode, the last of the INTEGRA workshops ended last week. Since November, workshops have brought together social workers, professionals in the care sector, members of the INTEGRA network, legal guardians and heads of communities for minors with the aim of learning new ways of helping young people to leave out of care.
INTEGRA is aimed at supporting these young people path towards autonomy in relation to education, career, financial management, to communicating with the local community, among others.
To support them, during these months of workshops, INTEGRA has played two roles:
- It has provided mentoring tools for the professionals in the field with the MIP – Mentoring Program. The program includes an Online Assessment to understand young people’s needs and an Offline Assessment, an interview guide to address these topics in depth. In addition, the MIP Programme also includes a Workshop Activities guide to be used with young people, and a Guide for mentors to use at the same time. You can find all INTEGRA tools here.
- INTEGRA has created the INTEGRA network, a collaborative network between civil society, private social organizations and public institutions committed to working together, providing their expertise and sharing experiences, initiatives and opportunities in favour of young people leaving out of care.
“INTEGRA is an atypical, multidisciplinary and multilevel network that unlike the others brings together everyone: bodies, institutions, companies, young people, individual professionals. This allows us to collect the many different experiences of the social field. This is its great strength”.
– Maria Teresa Favoloro, representative from the Extraordinary Reception Centre Nuovi Orizzonti
From April 2020, professionals in the field and the network will use the P4C – Platform for Cooperation to share these initiatives regularly. Sign up too!
After several training sessions in December 2019, January – February 2020 and the last one in March 2020, the INTEGRA workshops have come to an end. Participants have shown great appreciation for the tool’s user-friendliness and for the possibility to know the individual needs of boys and girls at 360 degrees.
“The mentoring programme is not only useful for us community professionals but should also be included in the training of future mentors, legal guardians or professionals working in this field in general as well as in the study programs of those who aspire to one of these professions”.
– Participant of INTEGRA workshops
If you didn’t participate, you can still be part of it! Would you like to try the MIP Programme and help us improve it? Contact Cloé Saint-Nom cloe.saintnom@cesie.org
About the project
INTEGRA – Multidisciplinary Mentorship program to support the entrepreneurship of children in care and young care-leavers is co-funded by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme of the European Commission.
The INTEGRA approach envisions a personalised participatory framework, where the stakeholders take the role of guiding, connecting, mediating and supporting the children in the restoration process of new reference points for their future socio-economic inclusion as a persona integra into the community.
DG JUST – Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020) – Capacity-building in the area of rights of the child
Partners
Who are the INTEGRA partners?
- Coordinator: “Hope For Children” UNCRC Policy Center (Cipro)
- Associacao Portuguesa Conversas De Psicologia Apcdp (Portogallo)
- Associacio per a la Creacio i Estudis de Projectes Socials C.E.P.S. (Spagna)
- The Smile of the Child (Grecia)
- M.C. Management center limited (Cipro)
- CESIE (Italia)
For further information
Read the INTEGRA project sheet.
Contact Cloé Saint-Nom: cloe.saintnom@cesie.org
