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Description
As part of the project, we will implement activities in line with our Foundation''s mission to promote the mental, physical and social health and well-being of young people. In this project we will focus on the prevention of mental health. In particular, our activities will serve to support the creation of safe, diverse communities and to counteract violence and exclusion. We are using this grant to strengthen the capacity of our organisation and to develop our offer. The recipients of the project activities are: the Foundation''s team, school students and prople working with the youth.
Summary of project results
As part of the project, we planned to strengthen the potential of the Foundation''s team and expand our offer of activities for target groups, focusing primarily on the prevention of mental health disorders and the mental well-being of children and young people, as well as people who work with them.
The Foundation''s team operates based on a democratic, coaching and relational approach. When starting the project, we needed a tool that would strengthen our management style in accordance with our values and work culture, streamline and improve the quality of our team''s work, and in the future, manage larger project teams. We also wanted this tool to enrich our range of methods for working with target groups.
At the same time, our team wanted to develop a strategic approach to the Foundation''s brand communication. A communication plan, brand vision, and specified target groups had already been developed. We needed expert support to gather our know-how, direct it and indicate tools that would enrich our communication and simplify the creative process.
In working with the target group of young people, our team identified two needs. Firstly, young people expect processes that will be engaging, attractive, combining substantive value with freedom of play and involvement in the game. Secondly, schools expect a program for young people that will be short (compared to at least 2-day processes of WenDo, SZTAMA, sexual education). We wanted to create an educational tool that meets both of these needs.
Our team also noticed that effective support for people working with young people requires supplementing the market offer with educational supervision, addressed to educators, especially those working in education. Therefore, as part of the project, we planned to train the team in the field of conducting supervision, so that we could conduct educational supervisions, as well as take a leading position in creating supervision standards in Polish education.
Our project activities were planned around educational innovations in two areas. Firstly, facilitation
used to improve the management of the Foundation and projects and to develop the offer of our activities with target groups. Secondly, methodological innovations: educational supervision and gamification in education.
Our team took part in two training courses: in the field of conducting supervision and in the field of Action Learning, as well as in expert consultations in the field of building the image and promotion of the Foundation. The effect of these activities was the improvement of the Foundation''s management processes, creation of a communication strategy, and development of the offer of activities addressed to our target groups (youth and people working with youth).
Activities addressed directly to the groups of recipients were associated with the implementation of the acquired knowledge and competences. Our team conducted a pilot online supervision process for a group of specialists working in education. As part of the project, a preventive game "FortMind. Game about solutions" was also created, supporting the mental well-being of young people, inspired by, among others, the assumptions of Action Learning. The game was tested during workshops in two groups of school-age youth. The evaluation of both tools indicated their effectiveness and good fit for the needs of the target groups. The Foundation team then presented the developed supervisory work model and the game during the conference summarizing the project: “Fruits of Innovation - a conference for lighthouse keepers and lighthouse keepers of education”. The conference was attended mostly by educators, working in non-governmental organizations and working in education. During the event, the Foundation team actively presented the activities undertaken in the project and its products and results. The event was used to promote the Foundation''s activities, in particular educational supervision, Action Learning and our own preventive tools.
Thanks to the participation in the project, 3 people from the Foundation team and 5 people from other NGOs developed their competences in the field of educational supervision. Additionally, the Foundation team acquired skills in the field of Action Learning methodology and the area of brand promotion. In addition, 7 people working with young people in educational institutions of the Zabierzów and Krzeszowice communes took part in the supervision process, and 29 young people took part in educational and preventive workshops using the game "FortMind". 46 people working with young people educationally and preventively, including from the social sector, took part in the conference summarizing the project. As a result of the activities carried out with the grant, we managed to develop, test and implement our own model of educational supervision and an original preventive tool - the FortMind game. This was a milestone in the development of our Foundation''s offer addressed to educators and young people themselves. Both tools are part of our holistic approach to building educational spaces, based on supporting the educational community, dialogue, respect for diversity and counteracting violence. This guarantees that the effects developed within the project will be further developed and implemented in the work of our Foundation. The implementation of the project also allowed us to strengthen the image of our organization - we increased our recognition as an expert team offering educational activities and products of high substantive quality, which is confirmed by the evaluations we conducted. We also managed to significantly expand the circle of people interested in our activities (e.g. almost five times the number of people subscribing to the newsletter). Thanks to the organization of activities within the project, our team also strengthened its contacts in the educational and non-governmental environment.