<< Background >>Given the fact that almost 90 perc. of all convicted persons repeating the crimes, we have appreciated the huge added value of youth workers' work in working with young convicts and helping them to develop their social skills. This project focuses on the development of social skills while the young person is still in prison or the most severe sentence has't been applied, in order to give him more opportunities to integrate into civil society and to be able to act in accordance with civic and democratic principles. The need for the project is revealed by the example of a young man who is in a prison since the age of 18, has grown up in an unbalanced family, has been in a prison for almost 9 years and does not want to leave 2 years before his release because he is afraid he will not be able to adapt. We hear such stories both in Lithuania and in partners working with young people in other countries.On the other hand, in some partner countries, either integration measures are not in place at all, or integration officers play a supervisory role. Informal interviews with youth organisations and youth workers in partner countries have shown that youth workers have a fear of working in prisons or with young people who are healthy offenders, have negative prejudices and do not have measurable work tools. It has been found that a large proportion of youth workers use a film screening and discussion method to develop young people’s social skills.It is also worth noting that the idea of ​​the project implementation came to the implementing partner after assessing the integration policy of changing convicts in Lithuania and noticing the critical need for work with young people and gaps in practical tools. The project partners have been selected from countries where the number of convicts also remains very high at EU level and the integration measures in place are not effective enough, with youth workers just starting to provide assistance to delinquent young people. In these countries, the role of the youth worker as an equal partner is not yet established. After assessing the critical need in Lithuania and discussing the project goal and progress with partners, it was decided to describe this project idea and pursue the set goals not only at the national but also at the international level.<< Objectives >>Through this project, we aim to contribute to the consolidation of youth policy by promoting the social inclusion of the target group, with the help of qualified youth workers, who will help young people to develop social skills, develop a sense of citizenship and democratic values. In the long run, this project will contribute to economic stability and growth, as those sentenced to imprisonment will reintegrate into the community and the labor market and become value-added creators.To achieve this goal, we set the following tasks:1) To analyse the reintegration programs applied by partners and socially advanced counties for convicts or young people who made a crime in the integration and the methods of reintegration of young convicts;2) To assess the readiness of youth workers to assist those sentenced to imprisonment in the reintegration process and to establish the role of the youth worker in the reintegration process by creating inter-institutional cooperation networks;3) To develop, apply and evaluate the methodology of developing social skills of young convicts;4) To publicize and promote the results of the project prepared for further use, to continue the activities started during the project and to maintain the established cooperation relations.The project is expected to achieve the following results:- raise awareness of partner organizations and youth workers in the partner country when working with young people prone to crime;- the quality of cooperation between youth workers' organizations and workers in different sectors will improve;- the quality of work with young convicts and the competencies of youth workers will improve;- the matching of opportunities and needs of participating young people with the labor market will be improved;- the basic and universal skills of the participating young convicts will be improved;- The methodology for developing social skills will continue to be used when working with young people in social difficulties.<< Implementation >>Taking into account the set goal of the project and the tasks to achieve this goal, the following activities will be carried out during the project implementation:1) Partner planning visit, activity and quality assessment planning, publicity, agreements with partners.2) Review of methods and policies, research of youth workers, analysis, systematization of information.3) Meetings-discussions (inter-institutional cooperation network) with youth workers, specialists of the education system, employment system, organization of integration of convicts, to actualize the situation and to clarify the needs; publicity.4) Development and publication of social skills training methodology, agreements with correctional or reintegration institutions; publicity of activities and results.5) Development of a training program for the training of youth workers and local training; publicity by providing an active link.6) Testing of training methodology in the project partner countries during the implementation of the program with young convicts or other young people prone to criminal activities, mentoring for youth workers; publicity by reference to the methodology.7) Evaluation of the methodology.8) Development of a training program for international youth workers and organization of training; publicity by reference to the methodology.9) Planning and implementation of an international dissemination conference using remote event organization tools; publicity by reference to the methodology.10) Meetings-discussions (inter-institutional cooperation network) with youth workers, education system, employment system, specialists in the organization of integration of convicts to present and further use the results of the project; publicity by reference to the methodology.11) Month XXIII: final meeting of partners, planning of further activities, self-evaluation, preparation of reports.<< Results >>After the implementation of the project:- raise awareness of partner organizations and youth workers in the partner country when working with young people sentenced to imprisonment or young people prone to crime;- the quality of cooperation between youth workers' organizations and staff in different sectors will improve;- the quality of work with young convicts or offenders and the competences of youth workers will improve;- the matching of opportunities and needs of participating young people with the labor market will be improved;- the basic and universal skills of the young people involved will be improved;- The methodology of developing social skills continues to be used in working with young convicts and young people prone to delinquency (prevention and intervention).Expected results of the project:- analysis of good policies, experiences and methods used by European countries in working with convicts and the development of a practical methodology for developing the social skills of young convicts while they are still serving a sentence of imprisonment or other means of punishment;- an international partnership has been set up between organizations from five different countries, involving a young organization which is just beginning to work on helping young convicts;- creation and development of local and international networks of youth workers;- local interinstitutional cooperation networks have been set up;- a study of the readiness of youth workers to work with convicts was carried out, revealing their attitudes towards the target group and the methods applied in practice;- 60 local meetings with representatives of different sectors were organized to discuss issues related to the implementation of the project through networking and strengthening the role of the youth worker;- 80 youth workers (20 from each country) took part in local training for youth workers, which improved the quality of work;- 20 youth workers use the described methods in their daily activities when working with young people experiencing social exclusion (5 from each country) through mentoring;- 120 young people convicted of a custodial sentence or a criminal offense took part in social skills training sessions and developed their competencies (30 from each country);- the training included 20 young workers with fewer opportunities (5 in each country) whose personal and professional abilities and skills improved during their participation in the project;- transnational trainings were attended by 25 youth workers from different countries (5 from each partner organization) who had the opportunity to learn and share good practice;- An international teleconference was organized to publicize the results of the project and to extend the use of the results to other areas, involving more than 200 stakeholders.