Page 98 - Guiding-at-risk-youth-through-learning-to-work-Lessons-from-across-Europe

Guiding at-risk youth through learning to work
Lessons from across Europe

5.3.5. Flexible delivery
Flexibility in the organisation(s) delivering the reintegration initiative is also
important, so they can tailor the support provided. To ensure all those in need of
support receive it, procedures should be robust, but not rigid. For example, the
Danish legal provision for tracking early school leavers now (since 2003) obliges
guidance counsellors to make a limitless number of contacts with the young
person (or until the young person decides they no longer want to be contacted),
where previously only two contacts per year were required. Guidance counsellors
are given flexibility in the way they contact the young people. They use their
judgement to decide the best approach, both in terms of when and how to
contact them. Another example of flexibility in delivery is the Lithuanian youth
schools, which are granted (under the guidelines for bringing children back to
school) additional freedom when working within the school curricula. This
flexibility allows them to tailor education and training to the young person, taking
account of their personal and family circumstances.

5.3.6. Multi-disciplinary teams
The range of support provided through reintegration measures requires staff with
specific skills and experience. Alongside education and training provision,
support services are an integral part of the programme on offer. Across the
initiatives identified, staff come from a range of backgrounds including teaching,
vocational education and training, psychological support, youth-work and welfare.
In the Austrian Project Gaaden, which supports students with a long history of
non-attendance at school, beneficiaries are supported by both specialist teachers
and educational psychologists.
As well as ensuring project teams comprise staff with differing professional
experience, a multi-disciplinary approach can be developed by providing training
to front-line staff (i.e. teachers/trainers) to enable them to take on additional
responsibilities such as counselling. For instance, the NotSchool.net mentors are
qualified teachers and are recruited from diverse backgrounds in terms of their
age, gender and expertise; it is recognised that mentors from different
backgrounds can support participants in a range of different ways. Primary
school teachers are particularly successful at developing literacy and numeracy
skills, while secondary school teachers bring more experience of accreditation
and further education and training.
Multi-disciplinary provision can also be achieved through strong partnerships
between local actors (social services, employment services, employers,
education and training providers, etc.). The voluntary labour corps in Poland have

92