Young people’s lives should be filled with friends, learning opportunities and fun and memorable moments. Instead, more teenagers than we would like to see, end up in the criminal justice system for committing offenses. They are young people in conflict with the law who come from troubled backgrounds with deep emotional and behavioral problems. Their behavior is a cry for help for a lack of motivation and role models in life.

So, how do we help young offenders to integrate into society? How do we improve their social, emotion and citizenship competencies in an engaging way?

This is the challenge ActiveGames4Change wants to overcome. ActivesGames is a new project that seeks to bridge the gap by addressing vulnerable young people in community and detention centers with new instruments. The project aims at creating motivating learning environments for young offenders through sports and physical activities to improve their citizenship competences, attitudes, social and emotional skills. It intends to improve their e-skills using non-formal methods to facilitate their inclusion, education and employment prospects.  Finally, it seeks to empower educators and staff working with them in using this method.

ActiveGames4Change will involve key stakeholders and policymakers in the field of youth, social inclusion and education to impact the next education policies. If we want to give young people at risk a chance, we need to support engaging and inclusive learning environments for them to thrive in the long term.

With these purposes, partners met on the 11^th and 12^th February in Cheltenham, UK to discuss the project’s next steps. Thanks to each partner’s unique expertise the meeting successfully planned the activities that will be developed during the next 3 years of the project:

• A framework with socio-emotional competencies that can be developed through sports and exercise.
• A context research of the situation of young offenders on each of the partner countries to adapt the training activities.
• A manual with aims, exercises and assessment tools to be implemented during the piloting of the activities.
• A mobile app to support ActiveGames4Change.
• A Handbook with the project’s methodology.

With the development of these resources, the ActiveGames will contribute to improving the education and social inclusion of young offenders.