In April our team invited colleagues from Children and Youth Association and Reachout.BG to join us in a mobility visit to Osijek in Croatia where our partner organisation Youth Association Breza develops a number of projects for children and young people in the community.

The first day was really busy with presentations of the host organisation and its  partners in Osijek. We learned about different examples of intervention for children and youth in the community when prevention work fails in Croatia including the work of Breza, the early intervention approach of DOKKICA – Children’s Creative House, the work of mobile teams for foster care of Center IZVOR. Examples of the intervention for  families, children and youth in the community from Germany, Great Britain, Sweden and Bulgaria followed. Mariana Pisarska-Toteva and Kristina Gologanova presented the activities of their organisations in Sofia. In the late afternoon we visited the Social-therapeutic community Breza for children and young people with challenging behaviour. At the end of the day we spent time at the Centre for provision of services in community “Klasje”, Osijek.

The second day started with an interesting visit to DOKKICA – Children’s Creative House, where we learned about their local public campaign to engage fathers in lives of children.

Right after this visit we all joined a national EFFECTS conference. The participating partners from Germany - Das Diakonische Werk der Evangelischen Landeskirche in Baden, Great Britain - Everton Nursery school and Family Center and Sweden - Haro, presented their activities and new initiatives. The presentation of Tulip Foundation was about the development of the Family Group Conference model in Bulgaria.

Experiences from Croatia shared Association Children First; Children Creative House DOKKICA; BELL Association of Children and Youth with Disabilities; Youth Association Breza; Centre for provision of services in community “Klasje”; Center Izvor; Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Osijek and Psycho-rehabilitation center Osijek.

The visit was part of the activities in the frame of the EFFECTS project realised with co-funding from Erasmus+ programme of the EC.