EmoTrain

"<< Background >>Since the beginning of 2020 the field of youth work, and particularly schools, were experiencing a big crisis. Most activities were canceled, postponed, or in the best case scenario moved online. With all the Covid 19 restrictions and requirements the everyday life of students and teachers, the youngsters and youth workers became a chaos, with no clear view on what will be tomorrow, as well as depression. Plenty of research clearly demonstrates that young people do not feel good. Latvian NA with the support of The Ministry of Education has organized a great project ""The Roadmap of Wellbeing"" for more than 100 Latvian schools, involving students in own contribution to their wellbeing at schools. Mentoring 10 Latgalian schools during this project, Miromida board member Kristina Castronovo recognized that students felt better with the project, but for the teachers it was more responsibility and tasks that they could not stand any more. Similar findings were in Miromida' s project YOULA. Conflicts among students and teachers, tensions among the colleagues, stress, desperacy and no motivation because of the lack of emotional intelligence understanding and lack of tools for self-help.<< Objectives >>EmoTrain aimed to raise the psychological balance of teachers and youth workers for their motivation to work in youth sector. As the result we foresaw our target group to be more calm, stable, happy and inspiring creative role models for the young people they work with.Thanks to the project the participants would•Understand what Emotional Intelligence is and why it’s important•Know different methods and tools (combination of neurographica, emotional intelligence training tools and non-formal education) for dealing with stress and strong emotions•Know different methods and tools for improving own mental health•Be able to apply these methods and tools in their work with young people and train them in these techniques•Get inspiration and create new working methods themselves for the more efficient work with young people<< Implementation >>The project was a combination of emotional intelligence, neurographica and non-formal education methodologies. The implemented activities:5-7 October 2022 - Kick-off meeting;October - November, 2022 - Local survey activities ""Youth workers' and teachers' emotional mood"", in parallel in Bulgaria and Latvia: 151 respondents reached;20 November 2022 - Transnational online conference/seminar on survey results: over 90 participants;November 2022-February 2023 - Neurographica coaching to school groups, locally in parallel in Bulgaria and Latvia: 17 workshops, 126 participants;13-17 March 2023 - Training course /Study Visit in Bulgaria, including new algorithms and methods creation: 28 participants and 4 facilitators, 8 NFE methods and 5 new neurographica models;March-April 2023 - New method testing and dissemination locally, in parallel in Bulgaria and Latvia: 18 workshops, 201 participant;10 June 2023 - Online evaluation meeting for all interested participants: 15 participants.<< Results >>The involved teachers and youth workers are more calm, stable, happy and inspiring creative role models for the young people they work with. Thanks to the TC in Bulgaria, 95% felt emotionally better after the course than before, admitting the y have learned about emotional intelligence, non-formal education, neurographica, non-violent communication. According to the final evaluation, 89% respondents demonstrated better emotional condition and readiness to inspire the young people they work with with their own positive examples and new methodological approaches.Project outputs are: 8 new NFE methods and 5 new neurographica models.The important indicators reached:in total 21 schools involved151 survey responsesover 90 participants in online transnational conference17 coaching workshops for 126 participants plus one follow-up event for young people28 participants in TC in Bulgaria18 dissemination workshops testing methods for 201 participants8 new NFE methods5 new neurographica models"