Climb for Good

<< Background >>Climbing and outdoors have enormous potential for social-, emotional-, and behavioural- skills development, used as part of a therapy or working on group cohesion and inclusion. Indeed, in a number of recent scientific articles, the potential for climbing therapy is being recognised at the academic level. At the same time there are only a few specific programs able to tap into this potential and even fewer people with diverse backgrounds practising climbing in Europe. As an accredited organisation in Key Action 1, a fundamental need of Lernlabor was to broaden and consolidate its network of European partners and experts. Another was to develop our competences in offering programmes for young people who may be experience emotional difficulties or have experienced trauma (as a result of war, lockdown, climate breakdown - in a word. the multiple crises of our age).We assess that both these needs have been fully addressed by climb4good, not only through cooperation and peer learning with Experientia and increased engagement with our local target groups but also through the emergence of a wider conglomeration of international partners that arose from this project.<< Objectives >>Our objectives were:1. Strengthen our ability to cooperate at the European level through competence and knowledge sharing and joint experiential learning opportunities between the participating organisations.2. Reach out to stakeholders interested in using climbing as a tool for inclusion and personal development and create the bases of a community of professionals in local communities in Spain and Germany.3. Gather sources and resources on using climbing for inclusion and personal development in the European Youth Work field.4. Create opportunities to share best practices from past experiences, cross feed ideas and create new pilots.5. Create opportunities for stakeholders to test pilot ideas for future programs and receive feedback from peers.6. Test out ideas and bring back experiences to peer stakeholders and connect stakeholders with youth work at the European level.7. Create a documentation with recommendations, best practices for inclusion and skills development projects in climbing.<< Implementation >>Kick off meeting in Barcelona and Evaluation meeting in BerlinStudy visit to Catalunya: Here we engaged in peer exchange, learning from staff members at Experientia on how to use psychology in Experiential Education. The Study visit took place in Barcelona and Montserat, where we visited local climbing gyms, meet with Experientia's local target groups and visited training areas outside Barcelona. Study visit to GermanyHere we hosted staff members and professional psychologists from Experientia in Swiss Saxony, showing them our approach to outdoor education using traditional saxon climbing methods and co-developing workshop scripts for the tool-kitCapacity building and dissemination activities, including professional development of our staffProject outputs: tool kit, literature review, needs analysis, padlets as well as a series of pilot initiatives in Berlin and CateloniaMultiplier events in Berlin and Barcelona<< Results >>- Professional development and networking of 10 staff (5 from each organisation) in the framework of 2 study visits- Needs analysis of climbing as an effective tool for engaging with mental health in the framework of two country-specific case studies (Germany & Spain)- Accessible tool-kit designed for our network of climbing instructors and facilitators providing 13 workshops integrating psychology and climbing- Literature review and padlet outlining the latest publications on adventure therapy - Staff development and capacity buildings of organisations: in the framework of the project Dr. Peter Mitchell (Lernlabor) successfully qualified as a German Alpine Club Trainer C in Mountaineering, while Jules Knight (Lernlabor) successfully passed two modules to become German Alpine Club Trainer C in sport climbing; Dora Hardy (Experientia) qualified to be a Spanish state approved climbing instructor; Nita Ivanishvili (Lernlabor), Salome Kakabadze (Lernlabor) and Marko Boyko (Lernlabor) received their German Alpine Club certification in indoor climbing. - series of local pilots with migrants and refugees in Berlin and Barcelona- development of partnership conglomerate and concept for cooperation partnership in Erasmus+ sport