JustUs Programme Gets Second Unanimous Endorsement!

Our second training workshop for teachers and youth workers was held on the 12th and 13th February 2015 in the Everglades Hotel, Derry.  

Seeding JustUs

An additional 4 teachers and 10 youth workers completed the training bringing to 25 the full complement of teachers and youth workers who will work with us to seed the project in the coming year.  This important phase of the project will also us to field test the resoure and its delivery methodology in real and live situations both in the the class room and within various youth work settings right across the north of Ireland.

It was our second opportunity to hear first hand from frontline professionals who recognise a need for innovative approaches to the issues JustUs is designed to tackle and stay open to suggestions and tweaks that might strengthen the resource.  It was also an opportunity to share approaches to how the issues opened up by the film material might be facilitated, and allow space for cross fertilisation between school and youth work approaches to the issues.

Besides the engaging nature of the film content, the private, working end of the JustUs website generated a buzz.  This will allow the teacher or youth worker to set up an online group zoned for that particular class or youth group only.  This means that the educational exchange initiated in the classroom or youth centre can continue between sessions, with group members able to share views that can only be seen by other members of their group and their teacher or youth worker.  This peer to peer aspect can then be picked up by the teacher or youth worker in the subsequent session and brings a new media creative edge to the whole project.  It will encourage and enable participants to produce new media resources to explore the programmes various subject areas themselves.  This aspect of the site will also allow young people to complete and store the educational tasks that are used to assess their learning.  Outside the formal educaiton setting the programme will be OCNNI accredited.

While this private confidential aspect of the site will not go live until March, Feargal O'Kane of BT48 the site's designers took participants though a virtual tour of how it will work.  

Feedback was unanimously positive.  There was again a shared sense that the programme brings a fresh new approach to a key area of youth work and education that is currently not being adequately engaged with.