Providing Empathy and Care in non formal Education (PEACE)

project

Dec 18, 2024 - Oct 17, 2027

The PEACE project brings mental health support into youth debate work. The project trains youth workers to recognise and respond to young people's mental health needs, starting with debate clubs.

Young people today face more stress, anxiety and isolation, and youth workers often don't have the tools to deal with it. PEACE looks at existing mental health practices across the partner countries, picks out what works, and turns this into protocols youth workers can use, including in debate clubs. The project also treats mental health as part of everyday youth work, not something separate from it.

The goal of this project is to develop protocols and skills primarily for youth workers, so they can effectively recognise, understand and address mental health issues among young people. The project maps existing mental health protocols across the partner countries, selects the best practices from each, and creates and tests protocols that can be used in youth work, including in debate clubs.

Impact:
The project will reach over 200 debate clubs with updated methods and train more than 200 youth workers. It will also build lasting partnerships between youth organisations and mental health providers. The protocols and training developed through PEACE are meant to become a standard for mental health support in youth work across the partner countries.

Key activities

Mapping and knowledge exchange: partners map existing mental health practices in their countries and share experience between institutional and NGO partners.
Curriculum updates: existing youth work curricula are updated to include mental health and sustainability.
National and international training: eight national training events and two international events for youth workers.
Qualification course: a nine-module, 18-day, digitally certified qualification course for youth workers.
Lasting cooperation: partnerships between youth work and mental health organisations, meant to continue after the project ends.

Project partners are Hrvatsko debatno društvo (coordinator, Croatia), Asociace debatních klubů (Czechia), Institut drustvenih znanosti Ivo Pilar (Croatia), IDEA (Netherlands), Neformaliojo Švietimo Debatų Centras (Lithuania), Nevypusť Duši (Czechia), and Nastavni zavod za javno zdravstvo Dr. Andrija Štampar (Croatia).