youth

Again-st Abandon

Toucan is a partner in this transnational Leonardo da Vinci European funded project looking at the topic of school non-attenders, particularly years 10 and 11. The lead partner is Italy and other countries involved are France, Latvia and Spain.

The project sets out to identify the numbers involved - for the UK part the location is Manchester, and then to research into where non-attenders meet. It will then look at ways of how to communicate and relate with them, in order to develop a pack to help those involved with their reintegration into meaningful learning, whether at school or with other suitable education and training providers.

Update March 2005

Dave Ellis, Peter Adeney and Les McCarthy visited Latvia to take part in a dissemination conference alongside our partners of the Again-ST Abandon project from Spain, Italy, and Latvia.

On the first day we visited Bauska Secondary School in Bauska where each partner gave a presentation to social workers and teachers on their research so far and their findings to date. The presentation was followed by an ‘open’ forum where the social workers were able to ask questions to the partners and give examples of their work.

The second and final day was a meeting between the partners to discuss progress to date and the requirement of the next phase of the project. This is to readdress the research and look at local effective and efficient communication methodologies with school non-attenders.

The next conference will take place in Barcelona in September 2005.

Update September 2004

The project is now about to go into the next phase as work has now been done on collecting data by each of the partner organisations.
This next phase will include the analysis of the data and, as a result, the development of a resource pack for workers to look at how to communicate and relate with young people who are not attending school, to help them with the young people’s reintegration into meaningful learning, whether at school or with other suitable education and training providers.

Update March 2004

The work is currently moving into the third phase. There have been workshops and seminars in Naples and Manchester, and partners have investigated the background and context of the non-attender phenomenon in their areas and are finalising the research of where non-attenders meet. The third phase, related to communication methods, is now under development.

As the project is to run over two years, further meetings will take place in partner countries and the pack will be developed and refined before it will be finally published.

Partners:
Stoa - Instituto per la Direzione e Gestione di impressa S.c.p.A., Italy
Ce.Ri.S - Centro Ricerche Sociali S.c.a.r.l., Italy
CISL Regionale Campania, Italy
Generalitat de Catalunya - Department d'Ensenyament, Spain
Gruppo Korus, Italy
La Cite des Metiers des "Cotes d'Armor", France
Ministry of Education and Science of Latvia - Centre for Curriculum Development and Examination, Latvia
Studio Staff, Italy
Sviluppo & Competenze, SV&CO S.r.l, Italy
Toucan Europe, UK