Now What?: Preparing and Empowering Youth Leaving Care”: 1st project meeting in Timisoara with the participation of “The Smile of the Child”

The first meeting of the European project " Now What?: Preparing and Empowering Youth Leaving Care " funded by the European Program ERASMUS+, took place in Timisoara on the 22th and 23th of March.

Members of the scientific personnel of “The Smile of the Child” as well as representatives of the organizations of West University Timisoara from Romania (lead partner), Athens Lifelong Learning Institute from Greece, University of Lusofona from Portugal, University of Tirana from Albania, DGASPC from Romania, SOS Villages Romania, SOS Villages Albania and Chao dos Meninos from Portugal, took part in the meeting.

The project’s duration is 24 months and it aims at developing and undertaking a comprehensive strategy to better enable care-experienced children deliver improvements in their educational, social and economic outcomes for their preparation for leaving care system and at developing personal and self-care skills such as budgeting, time management, health, nutrition, hygiene, and conflict resolution.

During the first meeting, the project team reviewed all the activities of the project, and discussed about the roles and the implementation timetable of the first three (3) outputs: output 1 entitled “The Care Leavers Needs Analysis”, output 2 entitled “The Training Curriculum and Material” and output 3 entitled “The Mentoring Component”, that will all take place during the first year of the project.

Administrative and financial management details of the project were also discussed as well as dissemination and sustainability issues. Moreover, the project management team set the next steps of the project’s implementation.

For more information about the project, please click here.