About the project

Why

Children and adolescents became one of the collectives that suffered a major impact during the COVID-19 pandemic as schools closed and the spaces that had been traditionally used by this collective to “escape” and socially integrate were not accessible for them.

The combination of financial stress, uncertainty over the future, and families confined at home during the lockdown inevitably led to more anxiety cases and other mental health problems and a significant overuse of the internet. Due to COVID-19, the risk of children and adolescents becoming victims of violence increased 30% and the spread of abusive messages also increased 30% compared to 2019.

What

REcover Spaces for traumatized Children in CommUnity sEttings post COVID-19 (RESCCUE) aims to recover and rescue safe spaces to prevent and detect domestic and online violence against children and adolescents.

It is a collaborative model that targets the educational sector, the primary healthcare system and the mental health system and focuses on 1. Empowering children and adolescents to reduce their exposure to violent situations and 2. Empowering education professionals and families to prevent violence and support victims of violence.

Who

The project partners are Hospital Sant Joan de Déu and Fundació Sant Joan de Déu (coordinator), Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Ajuntament de Cornellà de LLobregat and Ospedale Pediatrico Bambino Gesù.

Where and when

RESCCUE is a two-year project (2023-2025) and the main intervention will take place in the locality of Cornellà de Llobregat (Catalonia, Spain) during the 2023-2024 school year. The transferability of the RESCCUE methodology will be tested in Rome (Italy) also during the 2023-2024 school year.

How

The project’s main goal is to conduct workshops to strengthen and promote the cycle of violence protection, prevention and detection involving a multi stakeholder approach: targeting the educational sector (12-16-year-old students and education professionals), the primary healthcare system (families of 12-16-year-olds), and the mental health system (special cases in high emotional risk).

Project phases

RESCCUE’s line of action in three phases:

1. Co-creation  2. Validation and  3. Implementation.

01
Co-creation

Following a “from them to them” approach, the RESCCUE team conceptualizes the resources in collaboration with 12-16-year-old students and education professionals from Cornellà de Llobregat.

The co-creation sessions take place during the first months of the project. The participating students come from Institut Joan Miró and two Espais Joves from Cornellà de Llobregat (Riera Centre i Sant Idelfons).

02
Validation

The RESCCUE team develops a prototype of the resources and validates the format and the content with the students that participate in the co-creation sessions.

03
Implementation

The RESCCUE intervention program implements the co-created resources in a series of workshops called “Creating Safe Spaces to prevent violence” that take place during the 2023-2024 school year. There are three types of workshops and a special intervention.

RESOURCES

Creating safe spaces

The project’s main goal is to create resources and conduct workshops to strengthen and promote the cycle of violence protection, prevention and detection involving a multi stakeholder approach: targeting the educational sector (12-16-year-old students and education professionals), the primary healthcare system (families of 12-16-year-olds), and the mental health system (special cases in high emotional risk).

Children and
adolescents

DIGITAL PACK. Loving ourselves to reconnect with one another DIGITAL PACK. Cyberviolence: my role

Education
professionals

DIGITAL PACK. Taking care of yourself to support your students DIGITAL PACK. Creating a bond: the key to foster a safe space

Families

DIGITAL PACK. Creating Safe Spaces at home to prevent violence

Special intervention (High Emotional Risk)

RESCCUE does not provide publicly available resources for the special intervention because it is a medical intervention that should only be carried out by mental health professionals.

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