“Working for a Better World” aims to build resilient practices and cultures within Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to address the psychosocial support needs of staff and volunteers involved in migrant reception and integration. The project will encourage peer-learning approaches that will help to mainstream self-care into organisational responses. By developing innovative resources to upskill practitioners as key trainers/peer educators, it will build organisational competence to combat vicarious trauma & burnout, deepen social and political engagement, and ultimately strengthen practice around supporting migrants. The project will draw on and adapt peer support approaches for psychosocial interventions identified as good practice within international humanitarian contexts. It will produce tailored resources and training courses that respond to the specific needs of people working in the EU, with a focus on contextualising systemic issues around migration, developing collective strategies to address racism, and providing practical psychosocial supports for practitioners engaging directly with migrants. This will involve blended learning supports, to facilitate participants to undertake continuous learning with peers from around the EU. Led by Comhlámh (Ireland), the 30-month project will begin in Oct 2019 and involves partners from Greece (AA Hellas), Italy (CESIE) and Spain (Ulex). Their collective expertise includes: the development and delivery of non-formal training for adult learners on sustaining activism and supporting collaborative transformations; capacity building for organisations and networks responding to migrant arrivals; provision of psychosocial supports & debriefing for international volunteers and development workers; and direct experience of migrant reception and integration. The project will produce 4 intellectual outputs: - Research to document good practice in psychosocial supports for practitioners that draws on good practice in humanitarian interventions in the Global South. Findings will inform good practice guidelines that will subsequently underpin the project’s direction and outputs (M1-7);- A training of trainers’ manual that will focus on structural, collective and personal dimensions of building psychosocial resilience. It will foster the key skills and competencies peer educators require to effectively cascade psychosocial supports within a variety of CSOs (M8-17);- A learning journal & associated online peer learning circles that encourage peer educators to cultivate reflexive practice (M17-21); and - An online learning platform, incorporating a self-care course and peer learning space, which will support and promote CSOs, their staff and volunteers to develop resilient practice (M22-29).The resources will be disseminated locally, nationally and internationally, through partners’ existing contacts (reaching an estimated 1,050 organisations), and through multiplier events in Greece, Ireland, Italy and Spain during M29/30 of the project (reaching 160 key stakeholders across the four countries). We will hold 5 transnational partner meetings over the course of the project (M1, 9, 16, 24 and 29), in addition to developing and running 2 training courses & 4 multiplier events that will enable us to cascade training in each national context (directly involving 105 participants): - A joint staff training will take place in Greece (M9), to build capacity within partner organisations to address key trainers’ support needs (16 participants, subsequently reaching 400 practitioners through their outreach/training); - A training of trainers’ (ToT) course for key representatives of migrant support CSOs will be held in Spain in M16 (24 participants, subsequently reaching 250 colleagues), which will similarly build their capacity; and - Four multiplier events will be held in each partner country (M19-21); these will enable participants in the ToT to bring their knowledge to a wider group of practitioners (65 participants, subsequently reaching 360 practitioners). All participants will be encouraged to bring learning from the training and from their engagement with the learning journal and online platform into their organisational practice and/or networks, thereby reaching further audiences and ensuring that the project’s outputs have longevity beyond its lifespan. The project will develop a common good practice framework that is appropriate for and replicable across a wide range of migrant support CSOs. This will help ensure that practitioners’ psychosocial support needs are not deprioritised in the face of their clients’ overwhelming needs by fostering resilient organisational practice, preventing burnout, and focusing on systemic change. Ultimately, the project’s resources will improve the quality of CSOs’ interventions and sustain the crucial work they are doing to promote tolerance and social inclusion in the communities and wider societies in which they engage.

The digital revolution has transformed and is transforming our daily lives and the way people interact and organize to reach common goals. This is particularly true for younger generations: the way they interact, access information, communicate with each other and learn has tremendously changed. But, so far, school classrooms haven’t been nor at the forefront nor the main stage of this revolution. Especially in the countries touched by the project, teaching and learning processes in the formal education sector remain largely uninvested by this transformation. The lockdown across most EU countries, including Italy, Romania, Greece and Portugal, with the sudden deployment of distance digital learning for schools of all levels has suddenly highlighted the extreme difficulties experienced by a large section of teachers to effectively engage students, and particularly those with disadvantaged backgrounds, in on line learning processes and to manage the digital environment. The educational community has made important efforts to maintain learning continuity with on line lessons and distance learning support: however these measures have failed many children, especially those with special needs or fewer economic/social opportunities. European teachers were largely not equipped to adapt to the new circumstances: only 20% to 25% of students in EU are taught by teachers who are confident using technology in the classroom, and this is confirmed by all national level surveys in Italy, Greece, Romania and Portugal. Many teachers have tried to respond to the challenge in different forms but with no prior training they reported high level of stress and tiredness and were not successful to help students achieve their educational objectives. The BET! project contributes to innovate the professional practices, skills and knowledge of European teachers to respond properly at the challenges of the future of a global and digital society, by specifically: 1) delivering a needs analysis research on educational innovation and digital skills development in school curricula in the Covid 19 and post-Covid 19 era in the 4 countries involved. The research aim is to assess digital competences gaps emerged during 2020 lockdowns and identify a common needs of teachers and schools (IO 1 Betting on research) 2) designing a European Digital Curriculum aimed at identifying the best learning strategies and the most appropriate digital and technological tools to address the formative needs of socially, economically, culturally disadvantaged students, or cognitive/emotionally vulnerable students (IO2 Betting on teachers;3) implementing an EU BET! Academy (IO3 Betting on our future): a comprehensive set of on line and in presence training courses and webinars for teachers on the issues of Agenda 2030, inclusive education, and ICTs applied to learning environments. These outputs will focus on: a) improving teachers ICTs skills to guide and teach their students to use digital technologies creatively, responsibly and cooperatively; b) providing digital resources and tools on the cross cutting issue of Agenda 2030 – a theme chosen because of the role that the Agenda 2030 can play to understand the present and future implications of the COVID 19 pandemic. The main direct target of the BET project will be: 12 hub primary/secondary schools (mainly working with disadvantaged target); 12 classrooms totalling av. 240 students; 60 vulnerable and disadvantaged students; 80 teachers involved to test the training program and workshops with students and 400 teachers and educators involved to the webinar and EU BET! Academy. In terms of methodology, each CSO partner will work with 1 hub school to identify the teachers and classrooms to be involved in the project. The BET! Dissemination strategy will also involve educational institutions, CSOs and the wider educational network at country level. The BET! project aims to produce the following lasting impacts at local, national and EU level: •strengthening the schools’ management and the teachers’ skills to innovate the learning and teaching processes; •innovating the regional and national strategy for the promotion of GCE into the curricula. •reinforced connections and networking among CSOs, schools, municipalities and other local entities to guarantee the sustainability and wider implementation of the digital practices. •provide a unified framework at EU level to build a transnational community of teachers (the BET! Community) that would have a digital space to interact on the specific challenges entailed with adapting their teaching styles and methods to the digital environment •inform EU-level decision makers (namely, MEP) with the BET! Project results to stand as example of a fruitful adaptation of teaching to the new digital era. This will be possible thanks to the international networks where Oxfam Italia and Action Aid Hellas are represented, as well as to the Impact Hub Network.

<< Background >>The changing needs of 21st century society and related recuring challenges (economic recession, poverty, social inequalities, climate crisis, health crisis) are having a significant impact on the world of education, requiring a shift from ‘learning to know’ to ‘learning to be, to do and live together’ approaches (Council Recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning, 2018). Thus, the traditional formal education approach (‘learning to know’), focusing on the verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences, is considered a rather limited one in addressing the enhanced social and emotional needs of 21st century individuals, namely creative thinking, resilience, and creativity (NESET II, 2018). Although most Member States recognize the importance of Social and Emotional Education (SEE), national policies lack a clear set of goals, schools miss concrete plans and practical paradigms to teach and apply it, and educators often do not have sufficient training, experience, or motivation to embrace and deliver sustainable SEE programs (H2020 Boost policy brief 2020, JRC 2019). There is also a documented knowledge gap on evidence-based pedagogical guidelines and teaching approaches that would help educators to enhance students’ social and emotional skills (OECD, 2015). Despite the available research demonstrating that arts-based learning leads to improvement in student engagement and positive school culture and climate (DeMoss, 2002; Camille, 2019) and has strong correlation with the objectives of SEE (Karen, 2014), cross curricular arts-based school learning in Europe is rather limited. Simultaneously, Covid-19 impact on mental health and emotional wellbeing of school communities, with emphasis on children facing social and economic exclusion (Moroni et al., 2020, Hamedani et. al, 2015), overemphasizes the afore-mentioned needs, considering the long-lasted school lockdown measures and distance learning (JRC, EC, 2020). Based on the above, the REIMAGINED project aims to jointly address the EU-wide needs: a) of providing pedagogies, frameworks and tools to support educators to apply SEE on a cross-curricular approach, building on lower secondary educators’ collaboration, as it has been documented by the Greek Institute of Educational Policy and evidenced by University of Jyväskylä; b) of supporting adolescents’ social and emotional skills development to successfully respond to recurring crises and shocks (JRC, LifeComp 2020, OECD 2020), with a focus on those coming from vulnerable socio-economic environments heavily impacted by Covid-19 measures.<< Objectives >>The REIMAGINED project aims to: a) equip 75 lower secondary schools’ educators and directors with the necessary competences, pedagogic Social and Emotional Education methodologies and tools to embrace and deliver arts-based techniques into their disciplines, following a cross- and extra-curricular collaborative approach; b) to enhance the social and emotional skills of 180 adolescents aged 11-15 years old, with a focus on those facing social and economic exclusion, supporting their recovery from COVID-19, and enabling them to become resilient, responsible and active citizens at community level; and c) to contribute to evidence-based educational policy change, by proving a pilot tested paradigm and its learnings in order to institutionalize the correlation of arts education with SEE at secondary school level in Europe. Built based on the logic that improvements in learning practices do not necessarily require major reforms, but rather connections, REIMAGINED aims to provide the processes and methodological means for the development of a practical educational integrated paradigm correlating SEE with arts education through a cross- and extra-curricular approach, targeting lower secondary educators and students. It therefore seeks to connect: a) educators and school directors to collaborative apply arts-integrated techniques across the school curriculum using creativity as a lens to promote SEE within the classroom; b) educators, local CSOs already engaged in non-formal education, parents and community members, in order to promote learning-by-doing through extracurricular activities that build social and emotional skills through application at community level, enhancing the association between the school classroom and local realities.<< Implementation >>To achieve the REIMAGINED’s objectives, the following activities will be implemented: A desk research focusing on: a) overview of current status of SEE in EU, with a focus on partner countries, b) the interrelation between SEE and arts education, c) identification of arts-integrated best practices in a cross-curricular approach, and d) merging formal with non-formal education initiatives to promote application of skills. An online survey targeting educators and directors of lower secondary education in Greece, Italy and Hungary to document their training needs on SEE and arts-integrated methodologies. Focus groups with national educational public authorities, CSOs, and students aged 11-15 years old in Greece, Italy and Hungary to identify their needs and challenges in terms of national educational policy context, curricular and extra-curricular collaboration, and socio-emotional skill needs. Based on the above needs analysis, the REIMAGINED whole-school Intervention Framework for enhancing social and emotional education in lower secondary schools will be developed, guiding the next project’s Results. The REIMAGINED pedagogic methodology and training material will be specified, promoting learning-by-doing and arts-based practices. A cooperation framework will be developed to promote cross-curricular collaboration among diverse educators and extra-curricular collaboration with local CSOs. The organisation of national adaptation workshops with educational public authorities and experts will ensure applicability into partner countries’ national school and policy contexts. The developed training material will be hosted in an Open Training Course to be developed on SEE targeting educators, directors of schools and CSOs’ trainers. The online course will be delivered and evaluated by transnational participants form Greece, Italy and Hungary, who will form an EU working group on enhancing SEE across curricula in lower secondary education. Selected educators and directors of schools, who will be later involved in the pilot testing of the REIMAGINED Intervention Framework in their school context, will participate in a training workshop in Finland, and following their return will form a multi-disciplinary team per school (6 in total). The trained educators will deliver disciplinary sessions through arts-integrated practices based on the developed training materials. Partner CSOs will cooperate with the involved schools to co-design extra-curricular activities at community level in the form of artistic school projects at community level. JYU will provide continuous mentoring to trained educators from other countries throughout the pilot testing process. An impact assessment exercise will be implemented to assess the impact of REIMAGINED Intervention Framework on educators and students’ learning outcomes achievement. The impact assessment will feed evidence-based EU policy recommendations for educational public authorities and CSOs on the re-imagination of SEE in the school environment, which will be formed in the context of national and an EU policy roundtables with the participation of key EU policy stakeholders.Info days will be organised in Greece, Italy, and Hungary in which the key project results will be disseminated.During the final EU Conference, selected students from partner countries who have been actively involved in the local artistic school projects, will visit Athens to share their experiences, and be involved in the delivery of a transnational / EU artistic school project.<< Results >>REIMAGINED aspires to re-imagine education in lower secondary schools in Greece, Italy and Hungary through SEE mainstreaming, using arts-integrated practices in a cross-curricular approach. To achieve this, the following results will be developed: A whole-school intervention framework for enhancing social and emotional skills in secondary schools through arts-integrated practices and based on cross-curricular and extra-curricular collaboration. A cross-curricular social and emotional education pedagogic methodology equipping educators of lower secondary education with appropriate tools and training material. A cooperation framework, including processes to be followed by educators and directors of schools to establish effective multi-disciplinary teams within the school environment, and extra-curricular collaborations with agents at community level.An open online SEE training for educators, directors of lower secondary schools and CSO’s trainers with open educational resources and pedagogic methodologies to support them to design and deliver effective and sustainable SEE programmes, integrating arts-based practices across curricula, while associating them with extra-curricular community activities (75 trained educators and CSO’s training staff).An EU cooperation group with the participation of the 75 trained stakeholders, acting as a community of practice. 7 artistic school projects designed and delivered at community level in Greece, Italy and Hungary, developed in continuation of the in-class cross-curricular educational sessions (180 students involved in schools’ sessions), enabling students aged 11-15 years old to apply the newly acquired socio-emotional skills, through extra-curricular activities in cooperation with partner CSO, while engaging with parents and community members. 90 students will actively be involved in leading and designing the local artistic school projects. An EU artistic school project will be implemented as a celebration of students’ achievement during the final EU Conference.Evidenced-based policy recommendations on the re-imagination of lower secondary school education through SEE mainstreaming, using arts-integrated practices in a cross-curricular approach, will be co-developed by national and EU educational public authorities, based on the pilot-tested and assessed REIMAGINED Intervention Framework. Overall, it is expected that educators and directors of lower secondary schools across disciplines in GR, IT, HU will benefit from the REIMAGINED pedagogic methodology and online course, acquiring new skills, learning-by-doing methodologies and tools to enhance SEE in the school curriculum through collaborative multi-disciplinary teams of educators and arts-integrated practices. At the same time, students, with a focus on adolescents aged 11-15 years old from vulnerable socio-economic environments heavily impacted by Covid-19, will enhance their socio-emotional skills through their development within the school system and their application at community context in the form of artistic projects. Educational policy makers at national, regional and EU level will benefit from the evidence-based REIMAGINED policy recommendations, acquiring knowledge and strategies for mainstreaming SEE in secondary schools to support adolescents recover from Covid-19 crisis and become resilient citizens. Community members and parents of involved students from Greece, Italy and Hungary will enhance their life skills through their involvement in artistic community projects, reconnecting with their community, and enhancing their sense of belonging. Lastly, CSOs working on life skills development and active citizenship at EU level will benefit from the pilot-tested intervention framework, connecting curricular- (formal education) with extra-curricular activities (non-formal learning) to develop socio-emotional skills of students at community level.

CONTEXTAlmost 60% of Europe’s 74 million low-skilled citizens are over 45 years old and are the most hard to reach to participate in training, even though they need lifelong learning most. Efforts to reach out particularly to low-skilled adults over 45 years old, who need special motivation to participate in training are essential to reduce risk of social exclusion. CSOs that already work with low-skilled people living in poverty, have to play an important role in engaging them in training, and thus need methodologies and tailor-made strategies to involve the various stakeholders required. On the other side employers’ involvement in training programs for unemployed low-skilled older adults is essential to increase perception of benefits of upskilling and connection to employment.OBJECTIVES1 Establish effective local ecosystems that encourage participation of unemployed low-skilled adults over 45 years old in training opportunities.2 Increase collaboration among CSOs, employers and trainers.3 Produce recommendations for employers to increase their involvement in training initiatives for low-skilled older adults.4 Improve socio-labour inclusion of unemployed low-skilled adults over 45 years old.THE PARTNERSHIPThe Ac+45 project comprises 5 organisations from 4 EU countries representing the worlds of civil society, adult education, labour, policy and regional development. ActionAid Hellas is an affiliate of ActionAid International experienced in empowering vulnerable groups of people, provision of personalised guidance and delivering training on basic skills. The Labour Institute of Greek Confederation of Labour provides scientific justification about interventions related to labour, and training to socially vulnerable groups. Action Against Hunger is a large CSO in Spain working on the empowerment, training and employability of 10000 vulnerable people in 10 regions. RETE NGO in Italy works on social and labour inclusion of disadvantaged and delivers digital skills courses adjusted to low-skilled older adults. Stara Zagora Regional Economic Development Agency in Bulgaria works with businesses, authorities and civil society towards the regional economic development. The Confederation of Danish Employers (associated partner) represents 14 employers’ organisations and has 28,000 private companies as members.ACTIVITIES & METHODOLOGY 1 Desk research, interviews with low-skilled older adults and focus groups with employers to define the requirements for engaging unemployed low-skilled adults over 45 years old in training.2 Development of a collaboration framework among CSOs, employers and trainers in adult education, an implementation guide and experiential training material to establish effective local ecosystems/learning and employability centres.3 Collection of successful practices to produce knowledge resources for employers and encourage their involvement in training initiatives for low-skilled older adults.4 Training of the partnership on the use of Ac+45 collaboration framework and tools.5 Pilot testing and impact assessment of Ac+45 outputs through establishment of local collaboration schemes.6 Creation of a network of Ac+45 adopters to facilitate stakeholders’ collaboration and sustainability of results.7 Promotion of the Ac+45 outputs through multiplier events.RESULTS & IMPACT1 Requirements and influential factors for engaging unemployed low-skilled older adults in training to provide CSOs and trainers with greater understanding on the needs of this group, and support them in designing more attractive training and empowerment programmes (400 CSOs, 200 Training providers to be reached).2 An integrated collaboration framework and tools to empower CSOs staff to establish effective collaborations with employers and training providers, and motivate potential learners (4000 professionals, 1500 learners to be reached).3 Guidelines for employers to support their involvement in training initiatives for unemployed low-skilled older adults (500 employers to be reached).4 A network of Ac+45 adopters and repository of impact assessment results to promote adoption of project outputs, and support policy makers in the design of employability and upskilling measures for unemployed low-skilled older adults (40 adopters during project, 35 key policy makers to be reached).5 A European conference and four national infodays to reach and involve target groups (285 participants).LONG TERM BENEFITS1 Integration of the Ac+45 collaboration framework, tools and knowledge resources by CSOs, training providers, employers and chambers of commerce in EU, adjusting them in their contexts.2 Uptake and adaptation of the Ac+45 collaboration framework from policy makers in EU, with the aim to improve the impact of current policy measures.3 Participation of a growing number of unemployed low-skilled adults over 45 years old in training programmes on basic and soft skills, promoting their socio-labour inclusion.

"In most European Member States racist violence in the form of verbal abuse or graffiti or harassment or vandalism or physical assault or even murder remains common and persistent.This is is also reflected in education as according to evidence, racism in class is a persistent issue, in particular in areas where majority and minority social groups co-exist. Existing interventions to prevent and address racism in schools are based on punishment, which is ineffective according to experimental and applied behavior analysis. Specifically:1. When intervention programs are implemented the racist behavior has already been established since the shaping of the behavior starts even before our birth.2. The measures taken against racist violence and racist discourse are not consistent and are not based on scientific laws of behavior. They are ""tricks"" which are employed randomly because we think that it is logical to work or because they have worked in other cases of undesired behaviors. The usefulness of our approach in overcoming these drawbacks is the fact that all kinds of behaviors can be explained, investigated, predicted and altered based on the same principles. 3. According to our approach punishment is partly the cause of racism and it might intensify it. Our approach is based on shaping desirable behavior by employing techniques which are based on the principle of reinforcement. The consortium consists of 6 partners from 4 countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal, Norway ) - 2 Universities (Panteion University, Greece, OSLOMET - STORBYUNIVERSITETET, Norway ), 1 public entity branch of the Greek Ministry of Education (Western Attica Administrative Office) and 3 NGO's (OXFAM ITALIA ONLUS, Italy, ACTION AID HELLAS ASTIKI MI KERDOSKOPIKI ETAIRIA, Greece, 4CHANGE COOPERATIVA CULTURAL E DE SOLIDARIEDADE SOCIAL CRL, Portugal).Partners were chosen based on their research and educational expertise in the field of behaviour analysis, inclusive education, violence prevention, specialized training and educational materials development with the aim to equip the team with the skills required to bring the project to fruitful completion. A mix of Universities, non-for-profit institutions, direct service recipient facilitates knowledge transfer making scientific applications readily available for use in the wider community.The project will involve 3 transnational meetings: the kick-off meeting, during the Mid Term Conference and during the Final Conference. These meetings will serve to coordinate work distributed among partners, monitor progress on assigned tasks, manage time and completion of targets according to agreed timeframe and plan ahead for the following stage of the project. An interim report will be produced by the Leader Organization in month 18.The results of the project which aims at the promotion of the enjoyment of interacting with people from diverse background, through the employment of techniques based on scientific research and basic principles of behavior will be:• Results of desk and field research • Teacher training curriculum developed during the first months of the project • Students and parents training curriculum developed during the first months of the project • Materials developed to train teachers on behaviour analysis and inclusion and specific techniques• Materials developed to train parents and students by teachers on inclusion and videos used by teachers to train students and specific techniques• Results of teacher, parents and students training assessment • Assessment of the project • Website •Registry of trained teachers. Pre and post-assessment of teachers skills will be used to issue certification based on Europass criteria and create registry of certified teachers•e-book Training events for teachers (including 2 transnational training activities) , parents and students will also take place. All training events will take place at convenient places and times for participants (e.g., at schools during working hours or weekends). Attendance will be encouraged and monitored by keeping regular contact with enrolled teachers, parents and students. The training will provide opportunities for trainees to actively engage with contents and obtain hands-on experience, therefore will be presented with an interactive format.Direct beneficiaries of the project will be teachers, students and parents. Teachers and parents will benefit from receiving direct training on behaviour analysis which will allow them to respond effectively to a wide range of situations, create an inclusive school and community overall, develop solidary behaviours and prevent or reduce racist violent acts.This project will lead to the development of best practice in the fields of inclusive education informed by the science of behaviour analysis. Gained expertise will have a direct impact on policies and strategies adopted for the prevention of racist violence and promotion of inclusive education."