Summing up the results of 5 years long project “Bridging the Gaps: Health and Rights for Key Populations” in Ukraine we realized that it will not be enough to simply present the project outcomes. A lot has been done, but yet there is so much more to do on the way ahead. AFEW-Ukraine and its partners gained tremendous knowledge and experience, and right now, as never before, the time for decisive actions has come. That is why the motto of the final conference #FromKnowledgeToActions describes so well its main goal – sharing specific evidence-based effective working tools with professionals who provide services to the project’s target group – most vulnerable children and adolescents.
On 18-20 of November 2015 the International Scientific and Practical Conference “Effective approaches to working with adolescents who use drugs” in Kyiv gathered over 200 specialists from 10 countries who presented more than 20 effective methods and tools of working with adolescents and young people aged from 14 to 24 years. The main topics of the Conference included: adaptation of harm reduction and outreach work approaches for underage drug users, solution focused approaches in working with adolescents, family group conferences, effective methods of working with adolescents in juvenile detention and correctional facilities, models of work with parents in the period of teenage puberty, psychological support and rehabilitation programmes for adolescents. Separate sessions were dedicated to specifics of working with internally displaced adolescents – the topic of great importance for current Ukraine, preventive activities in educational institutions, ensuring human rights of minors, restorative practices at schools, juvenile justice system and prospects of reforming juvenile justice and probation system in Ukraine. Online broadcasting of all sessions made the Conference accessible for a large number of professionals, both in Ukraine and abroad.
Despite the usual protocol for such events, the first words at the opening of the Conference were given not to the officials in the Presidium, but to adolescents representing project clients. They voiced the problems they had faced personally and made their own proposals on how to change the current situation:
“My name in Anya, I am 18 years old, live in Kharkiv and I am a mother of two children. I would like to draw your attention to the problem of sexual education for the teenagers. […] It is necessary to stop being afraid to talk with teenagers about sex. By keeping silence you are not making the problem disappear.”
“My name in Maksym, I am 19 years old and I am from Kharkiv. When I got to prison I was 16. There I was taught on how to live “obeying the criminal traditions [rather than law]” and to protect myself.”
“Every second teenagers [from my surroundings] faced the breach of their rights.”
This beginning of the conference helped to set the right tone to the Conference in a way that even the presentations with the official statistics contained specific suggestions and recommendations in addition to dry figures.
During the Conference two manuals, developed and published under the framework of the project “Bridging the Gaps: Health and Rights for Key Populations” were presented: “Social work with adolescents” and “Communications in civil society organizations”. The long-awaited educational animated cartoon about family group conferences (FGC), that was inspired by AFEW’s friend and long-time expert in working with MARA from Latvia Arseny Pavlovskiy .
Conference participants could in practice learn the tools for working with vulnerable adolescents during “Interactive platform” – exhibition that presented the proven successful models demonstrated by various organizations. The visitors of the platform learned about the StreetSmart method, which is being used in work with street children; experienced personally “Join-In Circuit on AIDS, Love, and Sexuality”; examined the online platform “Knowledge Centre”; played board games that could be afterward taken along to be used in personal work with clients of their organizations, and so much more.
“The International Scientific and Practical Conference on working with youth using psychoactive substances in Kyiv was rich with new approaches and instruments. Experts from Ukraine shared their experience and knowledge, new technologies and developments in a format of workshops. Especially useful for me were the sessions on communication with mass media and family conferences model. We have already started to adjust these approaches to the current activities of our Youth Centre. I was very impressed by the support of governmental authorities demonstrated during the conference and their readiness to share mission and goals of AFEW-Ukraine. I received priceless experience and knowledge, established new business contacts that I plan to use in my country”, – shared his impressions Arseny Maslov, Coordinator of the Youth Centre of the Public Association “Alliance on Reproductive Health” from Kyrgyzstan.
Conference once again demonstrated the key role of cooperation within the partnership network and the important role of intersectoral cooperation. It was very important that colleagues from the regions were not only able to meet and discuss their current work issues, but also received the same set of innovative tools that they will be able to use in the future in their communities local level.
Lyubov Loriashvili, leading specialist at Kyiv City Centre of Social Services for Family, Children and Youth: “The Conference “Effective approaches to working with adolescents that use drugs” was interesting for me as a professional in terms of receiving knowledge about new technologies and methods of working with teenagers, and also on how to involve families in this work. I was glad that the atmosphere of the Conference tuned everyone to sharing and gaining knowledge. There were many things among presented from the experience of my colleagues from different countries and organizations that at first seemed impossible to be done, but as I learned more about it, I got better understanding on how they can be used in my work. The information that I received inspired me to discover new things and encouraged my desire to apply the successful experience of international colleagues in my own work.”
The discussions about the issues related to the rights and health of children and adolescents that took place in the plenary and parallel thematic sessions, served as a basis for the Resolution that was approved by all participants and presented to the Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for Children’s Rights Mykola Kuleba.
More information about the experts of the Conference, as well as all the details and results of the Conference (including records of sessions, photos, presentations and literature) can be found at the official web-site of AFEW-Ukraine in the section Conference-2015 (http://afew.org.ua/en/category/conference-materials/) and on the Facebook page of the Conference (https://www.facebook.com/FromKnowledgeToActions/).
Photo: Taras Chaykivskyy.
