Type of Activity:
❑ Mentoring
❑ Peer Mentoring
x Workshop
Relevant pillar: Bureaucracy, legislation and networking
Relevant competence(s): Communication competences; Learning to learn; Social and civic competence
Duration: 4-5 hours
This workshop ‘’Active Citizen mode: ON’’ focuses on familiarizing participants with their human rights and duties, so they can respond to any difficulties as effectively as possible. Participants with the help of the Leaving Care Professionals will map local services and reflect on any bureaucratic challenges they may face during their transition to adulthood.
- To get to know each other, share experiences and learn from ones’ experiences.
- To get familiar with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- To help care leavers recognize their rights and duties and raise awareness about active citizenship.
- To help care leavers understand the bureaucratic system of the country of residence and the services to be addressed as well as different paperwork needed.
Children in care being aware of their next steps and process of ageing out, should start taking responsibilities while still being in care to ease a smooth integration into the community context. This workshop will provide participants with necessary information they need to know about their rights, duties, bureaucratic system of the country, the services to be addressed and documents requested.
This workshop will also focus on communication as it is vital for participants to have flexible communicational skills when they have to face public services in the country of residence and respond to its challenges.
- Linguistic barriers among participants.
- Sensitiveness of some participants while remembering their personal journeys.
- Participants might have no knowledge about the concept of human rights.
- Participants might have no knowledge on map reading.
- The LCP will encourage peer-to-peer translation or will ask for support from a translator.
- The LCP will be informed about the strategies of how to address sensitive issues.
- The LCP will be prepared to provide a general introduction to the concept of human rights.
- The LCP will help participants to understand how to read maps.
Tips & Hints
- LCP should be familiar with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- LCP should prepare a local city/town map in advance where the most important public services relevant for care leavers are marked.
- LCP should get copies of city/town maps for each participant.
- LCP should get copies of forms from different services/agencies that are requested.
- LCP should think of most common problems care leavers face and prepare case studies.
Implementation Steps
INTRODUCTION:
1st Icebreaking Activity – Getting to know each other “ID Numbers” (10-15 minutes)
(The LCP can introduce this activity if participants do not know each other)
To start, you shall distribute a blank index card and a pen to each person in your group. Obviously, you need at least one writing instrument per person, but if you can, invite your group to share a big bucket of coloured pens and markers to add a little interest.
Instruct each person to write their name in the top half or section of the card, in big letters. Then, directly below, write a series of numbers and letters which provide a set of cryptic clues which represent an interesting personal insight – an ‘id number’. For example, you could write the following:
MARK
1994-11M-1S-13B-4D
This set of ‘id numbers’ mean I was born in 1994, I’ve been in this country for 11 months, I have one sister, I have read 13 books, and I had 4 dogs.
Encourage participants to consider interesting or engaging aspects of their life. All of the clues are cryptic and remain unknown to most observers, but if these numbers and letters reveal something interesting, stronger bonds may form between participants.
Once everyone has created his or her numerical nametags, pin them to their clothing, or simply hold them facing forward so others can see the clues. Then, invite people to mix and mingle and engage in a series of conversations with others to discover what all of the clues mean.
Ask each person to meet with at least 5 or 6 people over the course of 10-15 minutes, but never limit the timing unless the energy in the group is beginning to wane.
2nd Icebreaking Activity – What are human rights? Can you name any? (45 minutes)
This particular activity will help participants to familiarize with the main human rights.
Ask participants to get into small groups (arrange groups depending on the total number) and choose a name for their team, while explaining that for this activity they will be working in teams.
Give each team an Article from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and ask them to draw how they understand it. Allow enough time (at least 10-15 minutes) for the participants to draw. They have to draw only images; no numbers or words may be used. You can mingle around the groups and explain them about the rights they have received. When time is over the teams have to present their drawings and other teams have to guess which right it is. The team that guesses correctly has to explain their understanding about that particular rights.
You have to facilitate and guide the discussion explaining to the group about the meaning of human rights, their rights and also duties. At the end, ask the teams to put their different representations on the wall so they are visible to the whole group.
MAIN PART:
Active Citizen mode: ON
After a short break, tell the participants that they will participate in a treasure-hunting activity. Highlight that participants are at the age of their lives when they can take responsibility and make their own decisions.
‘Map the services’ (30-50 minutes)
Firstly, ask care leavers which services would be useful for them to know or they have already visited or looked for and didn’t know where to find information.
Present them the main services, such as police stations, public services, hospitals, state’s attorney services, etc. and discuss about the role of each service and services provided. You could also mention working days and hours of each public service.
Then distribute the local city (town) maps to the participants and ask them in pairs to map services allowing them to use PCs, their phones, tablets to search for information. If you have the possibility to use the internet and a beamer, you can show an online map pointing to different services and asking participants to mark those in their maps.
At the end of this activity, participants will have personal maps will all relevant services mapped.
‘Documenting’ (40-50 minutes, depending on the number of documents discussed)
Then introduce the necessary paperwork the participants should prepare, what documents each service demands and where to find them.
In advance, get some different copies of forms for each participant that are requested by different services: e.g. form for residency; doctor request form etc., present to participants and ask them individually to fill them in. Discuss the modalities and the necessary info to fill in correctly these documents.
Ensure that your presentation is engaging and interactive. Allow time for participants to ask questions.
‘My problem is…’ (50-60 minutes)
When participants are familiar with different forms, tell them that now you will play a role-play.
- Divide participants in groups of three or four.
- Give each group a file with an explanation of a problem a care leaver may face as well as some documents.
- Tell each group that they have to discuss the problem and decide which service they should address to solve their problems.
- Don’t include all needed documents into the file. Participants should understand which documents are missing if they want to solve the problem and which services they have to address to get documents were missing.
CONCLUSIONS:
At the end of the workshop, reflect on all the topics were covered and introduce the concept of an active citizenship.
Active citizenship means people getting involved in their local communities and democracy at all levels, from towns to cities to nationwide activity. Active citizenship can be as small as a campaign to clean up your street or as big as educating young people about democratic values, skills and participation (Zéger, 2013).
Explain to participants how they could evolve as active citizens at a local as well as European level and present some role models from the history to the mentees (such as Mahatma Gandhi, Malala, Greta, etc.).
For concluding, ask participants to reflect on what they have learnt and how they will be able to use their knowledge. Also, clarify if something is not clear for them and if they would like to know more.