The project Co-Happiness: Happy and safe in the Community aims to promote prevention and raise awareness on issues related with child abuse and maltreatment.
Co-Happiness seminars were organized in all partner countries in the months July and August 2021. The aim of the seminars was to promote the project outcomes and engage national key stakeholders and experts to implement the materials in their future programs. The products, especially the game ‘Happy on a Mission’ was received with great enthusiasm and highly appreciated by the participants.
11th, 12th and 14th May 2021
The training was supposed to take place face-to-face in Portugal, but due to the pandemic situation it was carried out remotely. During the three days training presentations and discussions were held on how to enhance communities’ social capital in order to prevent child abuse and maltreatment.
The Joint Staff Training was attended by 22 trainers and professionals from The Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Romania, and Finland. External experts tackled issues on:
During the training a demonstration was held on how to play “Happy on a Mission” – game for 6-9 years old children to help them gain skills to act and communicate properly in situations when child violence occurs.
Participants were then asked to provide feedback, in order to adapt the developments based on the needs expressed.
Partners organised validation workshops in their countries in order to present and receive feedback from professionals on the training modules that will be included in the Training Curricula on community prevention and awareness on child abuse and maltreatment. The majority of the recipients found the materials user-friendly and of very high quality and expressed their willingness to use them in their work.
The third transnational meeting took place in Athens on 17th and 18th of February 2020. The partners discussed and agreed on the training curriculum and held a brain-storm session about the content of the computer game that will help children to talk more freely and become aware of situations of child abuse and maltreatment.
On 26 and 27 September 2019 partners met in beautiful Cerignola to discuss and agree on upcoming project activities. They shared their experiences from the validation workshops that took place in partner countries to spread and evaluate the results of the overview report on social capital and collective efficacy approaches. Partners discussed hot items on the instruments that were going to be developed to prevent child abuse and maltreatment and held a workshop to define how the main characters of the computer game should look like and in what environments the actions should take place. Further agreements were made on developing of the training program and the staff training in Athens in January next year.
The first joint staff training took place from 14th to 17th May 2019 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. During three inspiring days the participants reviewed and evaluated the work on the first draft overview report on social capital and collective efficacy approaches to prevent child abuse and maltreatment, had workshops with Dutch associated partners exploring good practices and instruments when addressing and involving children in combating child abuse and maltreatment and held work sessions on developing the training course curriculum. On the third day the partners had a field visit to the Twinkeltje and got acquainted with the work of the foundation and shared experiences about raising children.
Second day of staff training
‘Talking about silence, talking about talking’, а lecture by Cees Hoefnagels, University researcher, Hogeschool Utrecht.
In January 2019 the partners met at the premises of the project coordinator Dona Daria in Rotterdam and discussed during two days the work plan for the coming three years. They made several concrete steps towards developing the first product – an Overview Report on social capital and collective efficacy approaches in partner countries – and made plans for the training that will take place in May, again in Rotterdam. On the second day of the meeting a network lunch was held. The partners had the opportunity to meet and share experiences with representatives of Dutch organizations that work in the fields of child care and deal with problems caused by child abuse. A solid ground for future cooperation was laid during this meeting!
