Coaching tools for youth personal development

Background The partners wanted to introduce and develop non-formal coaching methods as a method to provide support and career guidance to young people from the preparatory stage support to recognise their potential, personal development and self-discovery; in addition to a balanced approach (among young people) to career guidance, support and empower young people to develop skills that build their own potential and maximise their performance. As partners recognised that the formal education system in most European countries is based on learning standards, one method for all and learning hard skills, the gap between the needs of students and their interest in understanding their development has grown. Formal education staff lack the knowledge and methods to support young people. Youth workers do not know how to engage young people in the process of self-development, they do not use non-formal education methodologies, which can be crucial for learning in this area and at this stage of life (children and transition to adulthood). The partners identified this as a cross-border issue that could be developed to influence youth workers, teachers, young people, students, children. Objectives Through the implementation of the project, the partner organisations aimed to: 1) create a sustainable practice focused on orientation and teaching method to develop self-awareness and entrepreneurship among young people in order to reduce NEET problems; 2) to implement guiding behaviours that support young people in their individual development, especially in terms of maturity: - listening/recognition skills and recognising or raising awareness of the importance of active listening, - motivating students to make educational choices in order to stimulate and encourage the development of decision-making autonomy; placing young people in situations of cognitive conflict so that they can develop problem-solving strategies independently; 3) to provide theoretical support to educators in acquiring the skills to identify resources, needs and difficulties in young people; 4) to provide theoretical support in planning for empowerment, development, in-depth analysis, recovery and support in education. Implementation All project activities have been realised. Four international project meetings between the partners, an online meeting, a pilot meeting and four dissemination meetings in the countries of the partner organisations were held. A project website was created, where information about the project stages was posted on an ongoing basis and the results of the intellectual work were uploaded. A Facebook account was created. Cooperation with vocational counsellors, research was carried out. Intellectual outputs IO1 and IO2 were created: - IO1 in the form of a Guidebook Coaching tools to support the personal and professional development of young people (published in book form 1000 copies in languages: EN, PL, IT, ES, and the edition is available as a PDF in these languages); - IO2 in the form of a "MOOC Course for Youth Workers on Coaching Methods to develop support for young people" - this is an open course to support the Guidebook. What's more - the partner organisations have also promoted, are promoting and will continue to disseminate the project results in the future. Achievements The intellectual outputs of IO1 and IO2 have been created: - IO1 in the form of a Guidebook Coaching tools to support the personal and professional development of young people (published in book form 1000 copies in languages: EN, PL, IT, ES, and the edition is available as a PDF in these languages); - IO2 in the form of a "MOOC Course for Youth Workers on Coaching Methods to develop support for young people" - this is an open course to support the Guide (also available on the project website in English, Polish, Italian and Spanish). Moreover - the partner organisations have also promoted, are promoting and will continue to disseminate the project results. 1000 copies of the Guidebook have already been distributed among partners, who are distributing them others.