Introduction
Comparative Youth, Justice and Welfare Intensive programme (IP)
The European Commission funded education and training programme Erasmus has supported co-operation actions between higher education institutions in Europe since 1987. Its general aim now is to create a European Higher Education Area following the guidelines of the Bologna Process. In 2007 Erasmus became part of the Lifelong Learning Programme emphasizing adult education and supporting financially also the exchange of the staff of business enterprises working alongside with educational establishments.
Intensive Programme (IP) represents Erasmus actions, which promote mobility of individuals. It is a short period of study (2-6 weeks of subject related work) which brings students and staff together from at least three participating countries. The idea of the programme is first to encourage multinational teaching of specialist topics which might otherwise be taught in a very restricted number of universities, secondly to enable students and teachers to benefit from special learning conditions and new perspectives and thirdly, to allow members of the staff to exchange views on teaching content and new curricula approaches as well to test new teaching methods together.
Source: Center for International Mobility, CIMO, Helsinki 2008
2006 - 2007: Tartu Common Study Programme
The first part of the three year Socrates Erasmus Intensive Programme was organized at the University of Tartu in the early winter 2007. Before the actual 10-day studying period, the students of HUMAK University of Applied Sciences, University of Bedfordshire and University of Tartu participated in a series of lectures and local seminars on the topic of youth welfare and justice in their home universities.
Project participants by the Fountain of Kissing Students, Tartu, Estonia. Photo: John Pitts
The aim of the course was to compare the routes and services available for troublesome young people in Estonia, Finland, England and Wales and to try and find similarities and differences in the practises of professionals. In addition to lectures, the students were given case studies to be solved and made visits to local services.
Each national group of students also prepared presentations of the cultural and social characteristics, which lie behind the regulations guiding the work of professionals, to present to the others. The student work was supervised by Professor John Pitts, Assistant Professor Judit Strömpl and Researcher-lecturer Tarja Kuula.
The implemented Common Study Programme was part of a wider project, which endeavoured to develop joint teaching and increase co-operation between partners at the European Union level. It offered a platform for networking and handful of new ideas of how to develop the work with young people in need and in trouble.
The programme was internally evaluated by Principal lecturer Kimmo Lind, HUMAK, and Researcher Tim Bateman, University of Bedfordshire, and externally by Senior lecturer Kari Paakkunainen, University of Helsinki and Finnish Youth Research Network.
2007 - 2008: Helsinki Common Study Programme
The second Comparative youth, Justice and Welfare Socrates Intensive Programme took place in Helsinki at the beginning of the year 2008. Around 30 Estonian, British and Finnish students and at least six members of staff attended regularly at the new premises of Human Connection Center of HUMAK, the largest youth and NGO training organization in Finland.
Photo: Maria
Kukhareva
The 2007-2008 common study programme focused on the philosophy, policy and practice of young people in trouble in the three countries. The Scandinavian preventative social welfare model of dealing with the issue of young people in trouble was emphazised in Helsinki. The students received key-lectures from the professors and senior lecturers of organizing institutions as well as presentations from the top national experts in Finnish youth justice such as Professors Tapio Lappi-Seppälä and Janne Kivivuori from the National Research Institute of Legal Policy, Ministry of Justice, and made visits to different local preventative youth services. The cost-effectiveness of different systems and their practices was consequently the topic of many lively discussions in the cross-cultural seminars following the lecturers. Particularly the lecture and workshop on the Finnish Youth Process given by a visiting prosecutor, social worker and the police from the main Helsinki Police Station, Pasila, generated a lot of international discussion as well as did the presentations of youth workers at HYD, Helsinki City Youth Department, on a social youth work such as the pilot project Luotsi, which aimed at producing services for young people at risk. Culturally the participants visited the Museum of contemporary Art Kiasma and had a freezing experience of popping into the Arctic Icebar situtated in Yliopistonkatu. Student feedback of the programme was inspiring and continuing effort was decided to make in order to organize the programme in England in the academic year 2008-2009.
2008–2009: Bedfordshire Common Study Programme
The final part of the Intensive Programme was organized in Bedford during early summer 2009. Before the contact period the participating students got acquainted with the different welfare and youth justice systems of England and Wales, Finland and Estonia according to each institution’s own curriculum.
Photo: Kirsi Koivunen
The aim of the summer school intensive period was to introduce students to the phenomenon of youth violence and victimization in each country and to take a look at the three countries different responses to it both at the policy and professional levels. The British experiences of parenting policy on the one hand and children’s rights on the other were the topics of lively discussions this year. Attention was also drawn to the impact of inequality in the realms of education and welfare expenditure in Estonia and Finland. Providing high quality services to multicultural young people was a shared challenge for the students of all three universities.
The group of around 30 students made visits to projects in London such as Robust training and the X-IT-Programme in Brixton. The former especially was mind blowing as the students got to meet Michael Groce, a poet, community worker and a former criminal himself, who told them about turning points in the lives of excluded young people. During a day hosted by the Safer Luton Partnership, in Luton, students were introduced to the forms interventions used to combat anti-social behavior in England, which was intriguing as the same problem is solved very differently in the three countries.
The best day of the Common Programme, however, was Sunday, which focused on cultural activities – based on visiting historical sites in central London, associated with youth crime and the justice system. The day took the form of a City Treasure Hunt, in which students were given maps and places to find. At the same time they had to answer and discuss questions of youth justice in multinational groups. In student written assignments handed in subsequently the participants regarded the programme as a "great opportunity to learn something totally new and interact with other countries’ professionals, who all work with young people at risk".