Designing Collaborative Educational Resources (CER) for Assets-Based Community Participation (ABCP) across Europe

Evidence suggests that relationships between young people living in socially deprived communities and other local residents are often fraught with mutual distrust and stereotyping. Building on the Strength-Based Approach used in social work, the principles associated with Assets-Based Community Development rely on true empowerment of local residents and community groups while significantly adjusting the mind-sets of service providers to create an equilibrium of understanding and avoid a deficit view of young people and disadvantaged communities.

The project aims to design collaborative educational resources in the form of innovative inter-professional educational resources to enable professionals and practitioners to implement an assets-based approach to foster inter-agency and inter-generational connectivity. In turn, these approaches will nurture and mobilise existing community assets and encourage pioneering collaborative approaches towards enhancing local community participation in order to enhance the protective factors that can both prevent youth disorder and crime and reduce negative public perceptions about young people. The first stage of the project will culminate in the co-production of comparative case studies from across northern, central and eastern Europe illustrating traditional and assets-based approaches to youth crime prevention and intergenerational community participation from different professional perspectives. An interprofessional gap analysis will examine what is required to enable interprofessional teams to implement assets-based approaches to youth crime prevention and promote positive inter- generational community participation initiatives. The second implementation phase of the project will see the development and piloting of an innovative virtual interprofessional learning environment and validated module materials in a range of languages.

The project assembles a five country partnership from Higher Education comprising combined expertise in youth inclusion, crime prevention, policy analysis, civic and political participation, community learning and participation. The project legacy will include the building blocks for a virtual community assets network, a European Academy and the foundations for the establishment of a fully accredited European Masters programme in Community Learning and Participation. The project will refresh approaches to community engagement, will contribute to mobility and virtual mobility and equip the qualified workforce to lead reform and champion evidence–informed approaches to community enhancement through harnessing untapped talent within European Community.

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