“Application of Mentoring Programmes in Supporting Young People At Risk”

On October 2 in the town of Panagyurishte “Marie Curie Association” conducted training which had as a topic “Application of Mentoring Programmes in Supporting Young People At Risk”. The purpose was to present the mentoring programmes as an innovative tool which encourages social inclusion and professional development of the disadvantaged. In this training psychologists and social workers from the Local Social Support Center (LSSC) as well as the Manager of the “House for Accommodating Children and Young People Deprived of Parents’ Care” took part. LSSC has started work on the territory of Panagyurishte since May 2009. From that time, more than a hundred young people have asked the team working in the center for support. The work with young people is aimed at their socialisation and at acquiring skills for an independent and active living. The young and ambitious team seeks various opportunities for the young people’s development. Therefore the representatives of Marie Curie Association were asked to provide training to the psychologists and to the social workers in organising and applying mentoring programmes.

Within 6 hours the professionals were familiarised with all the steps going along with planning and implementation of the mentoring process. The trainers Petya Grudeva from Marie Curie Association and Svetla Dimitrova from the Sheltered House in the town of Sliven familiarised the participants with the theoretical information about the mentoring support method, presented real cases and conducted several role play games reproducing possible situations in the mentoring process. The participants also received the training materials necessary for the organisation of such kind of programme. Currently LSSC and The House for Accommodating Children and Young People Deprived of Parents’ Cares” have the following materials available: “A Guide for Mentoring Promoters”, Training Packs for Mentors and for Mentees and The Code of Practice for Mentoring. All of these materials have been developed by the Team of experts in the “Validating Mentoring 2” project.
At the end of the training session the participants stated that they were strongly impressed by the effectiveness of the mentoring and will seek opportunities for applying this method in their work with young people in a disadvantaged position. Here you can view some photographs from the training process. The team of Marie Curie Association will maintain the contact with the professionals from LSSC in Panagyurishte and will be supporting them further in the implementation of the mentoring approach.