Applicant: Hazissa – Institute for the Prevention of Sexualized ViolenceKarmeliterplatz 2, 8010 Graz, AUSTRIADuration: 01.02.2015 – 31.01.2017Project: “European Flirt Experts”Partners: Foundacion Indera, Barcelona, SpainYoung Partners, Bucharest, RomaniaNowa Kultura i Edukacja, Grodzisk Mazowiecki, PolandMain activities: preventive projects with adolescents, development of information materials and materials by the adolescents to reach their peer group, distribution of these materials, creation of a manual for multipliers, survey on the sexual health of adolescents, homepageTarget groups: Adolescents from the minimum age of criminal responsibility (Austria: 14 to 21 years) and their peer-groups, youth worker, pedagogues, multipliersThe project “European Flirt-Expert” wants to contribute to the prevention of sexualized violence, especially sexualized infringements among adolescents. International studies and criminal statistics show, that a majority of sexualized infringements are committed by young people on young people.The reasons are complex and based – among other things – on a lack of sex education, a culture of boarder-violations, traditional gender roles and a lack of possibilities for adolescents to deal with issues like love, relationship, sexuality, to develop a positive attitude and to face competent representatives with their questions.The consequences of sexualized violence are complex and individually different. They can appear over the short to media and long term, they can manifest in psychic and physical level. The consequences could influence the whole life time. Problems in relationships, sexual malfunctions, addiction diseases, adjustment disorders, depressions, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, etc. affect the life of many adults which experienced sexualized violence in their childhood.In this context the benefit of preventative measures is not just individual but also enormous from a macroeconomic point of view. This fact is taken into account in other parts of health prevention for a long time.Sexuality is a human’s right. Children and adolescents have to be supported in their right on sex education and development of their sexuality. Protection of those rights, information and education of children, adolescents and adults about the existence of those rights is a fundamental attitude of the work of Hazissa and of this project.The Project “European Flirt-Expert” is based on the interaction of science and practice. Hazissa is endeavored to implement new research in practical work. As contribution to prevention science a survey about the sexual health of adolescents is conducted. The aim is to answer following questions: How informed are adolescents about sexuality? From where do they get their information? Do they have reference persons to talk to about love, sexuality and relationship? Are or have they been confronted with sexualized violence? Etc.The survey allows insights in the living conditions of adolescents, in their experiences and needs. Through this survey the situation in the different countries can be compared and needed actions like the increasing of preventative measures and sex education, the implementation of adult education or special institutes for prevention could be recognized. The survey can and should be the base for further international projects and cooperation.Second element of the project is the development and implementation of preventative projects with adolescents in the participating countries. The multipliers develop methods and concepts to work participatory with the adolescents on following issues: Where and how do they get to know each other? What do they like in flirting and what not? Are they influenced by role models in their behavior? Are they confronted with violence? Which competences do they have in reacting to violent situations? Etc. The adolescents get space (partially in gender homogenous settings) to share and discuss their realities, wishes and needs. They are supported and leaded by qualified trainers. The trainers also give information to the adolescents like behavioral strategies, where to get help and support, legal basics about sexuality and sexualized violence. After this part the adolescents should develop materials, which refer to the peer group with preventative messages. This could be videos, comics, pictures, etc. – the creativity and initiative of the adolescents is promoted. The workshop-course and methods are described in a way that multipliers can implement it with adolescents. Beneath the course and methods the manual will contain basic knowledge and advice.

The project “Breaking the silence together” is based on the educational priorities of the Europe 2020 strategy, the recommendations proposed by the Council of Europe Convention on child protection regarding exploitation and child sexual abuse, as well as the outcomes resulting from the main academic studies addressing the consequences of child abuse. Child sexual abuse is currently a significant problem in Europe affecting between 10% and 20% of children from any social and economic class in all European countries. The main research confirms the direct impact on academic performance. The project has successfully achieved the two main objectives: (1) To develop a Community programme on the prevention of child sexual abuse for European primary schools. 2) To provide a concrete tool for primary schools to become safe and child protection institutions, creating a climate that reduces early school leaving and increasing the rate of academic success.The loa project team has created five organizations. Three organisations from Spain, Austria and Poland with an extensive knowledge in the prevention and treatment of child sexual abuse. A research centre in Greece specialising in childhood and child abuse. The fifth organisation has been a Europe-wide organisation, based in the Netherlands, bringing together directors from all European countries. Teachers, families and pupils from six rural and urban primary schools (two in Spain, two in Austria and two in Poland) as well as local and national reference organisations have also participated very actively in the project. The project initially carried out a collection and analysis of previous experiences in the development of prevention programmes of child sexual abuse in the school context, analysing the keys to success as well as the remaining challenges. This analysis is included in the report Learning from the experience (O1), available only in English in the project website (www.preventingchildsexualabuse.eu). This report was one of the starting points of the project. The final products obtained have been the result of a participative and collaborative methodology in which the beneficiaries themselves have taken part in all phases of the project. In this way, an initial training was carried out in the six collaborating primary schools aimed to teachers, families and pupils (separately). Subsequently, discussion groups were held (a total of 18, three in each school) to collect their proposals and needs to be covered in the community prevention program. At the same time, five expert advisory councils were created in each country, which also defined at their first meeting the challenges and needs to be addressed by the prevention programme. All this, together with the experience and knowledge of the project team, led to the creation of a first version of the prevention programme and the related resources. This first version of the products was piloted and assessed in the six schools by teachers, families and students as well as by the five advisory councils. The final version of the prevention program was obtained with the contributions performed. The prevention programme consists of four articulated base products, complementary and mutually supportive and concretely: The Community prevention programme (O2) as a framework document for primary school management teams; Teachers Manual(O3) for school teachers; Material for families and students (O4) made up of a booklet and a set of cards aimed at families and their children; Awareness Kit (O5) aimed at the community and with the aim to make the program visible and made up of a brief document, a poster and brochures aimed at families and children with key messages. The prevention programme and related products are available free of charge on the project website in five languages (German, Catalan, Spanish, English and Polish). Within the project framework, four national seminars have been organised in Spain, Austria, Greece and Poland as well as a final European Conference to present the final products obtained. Overall, more than 500 people took part while the prevention programme was very favourably received and highly valued in terms of quality, usefulness and need. As a result of the impact and success of the project, we can state that once the project has been financed by the European Commission, the products obtained are being implemented at different levels in all the countries participating in the project. We can state that the project has contributed directly to make progress in tackling a problem that affects a significant part of the European child population.

Teen Dating Violence (TDV) is a phenomenon that is prevalent and has serious impacts on the physical and psychological health of teenagers and young people, affecting also their ability to establish future healthy relationships. This topic is quite unknown, there are not data and researches available, TDV is not defined in legislation either policy papers, it is not anchored in the prevention materials. However, from the prior experience of proFem, teens and young people do experience this phenomenon. Thus we decided to focus on this topic in-depth, and we wanted to raise awareness about this unknown phenomenon not only in the Czech Republic – therefore the international partnership among 7 countries was established.The project aimed to build an international partnership for the prevention of teen dating violence. To achieve so, these objectives were defined:- To highlight the TDV problem and advocate for better and systematic prevention on national and European levels- To develop innovative tools for prevention of TDV (mobile application-quiz)- To raise awareness about TDV and healthy relationships among youth- To create a platform for cooperation and sharing of experiences and best practices- To increase competencies of youth workers and educators in effective prevention of TDVIn the project seven different participating organizations from seven countries among Europe and South Caucasus cooperated: Verein Hazissa - Fachstelle für Prävention (Austria), Fundación Privada Indera (Spain), Fondazione Hallgarten-Franchetti Centro Studi Villa Montesca (Italy), Sakhli - Advice Center for Women (Georgia), CESI- Centar za edukaciju, savjetovanje i istrazivanje (Croatia), Society Without Violence (Armenia) and proFem – centrum pro oběti domácího a sexuálního násilí, o.p.s. (Czech Republic). All of the participating organizations are non-governmental organization, partner organization from Italy is a foundation. The specialization and focus of each organization differ from direct work with victims of GBV, to prevention, education or research activities.Following major outputs were created within the project:O1 – Research: quantitative research on the representative sample of 1.000 young people (age 16-26) was conducted in each partner country, with aim of exploring how is the teen dating violence prevalent, in what types of violence it manifests, what are the effects and how do they deal with the violence in their relationships. After conducting national researches, data were compared to provide us with an international comparison.O2 – Facebook groups: in this output we focused on teenagers and youths themselves, providing them with safe space where they can ask and learn about relationships, dating, violence, and related topics, in order to promote healthy relationships and prevent teen dating violence. Volunteers as peer workers, who were trained thanks to KA1 project Ambassadors of Love and Respect, were also involved in creating the content of these Facebook groups/Instagram accounts and discussion with followers.O3 – Shared platform: is aimed for both youngsters and professionals, bringing a wide range of information and materials on TDV and relationships: national legislation researches, articles about TDV or tips how to address this topic in education, contacts to helping organizations or questions and answers regarding these topics. The platform is available in 8 languages (national languages of partner organizations + English).O4 – Online quiz: aim to provide an entertaining way through which teenagers can learn about violence, healthy relationships, and related topics. The quiz was again created in 8 language versions.Round Tables: were the main dissemination event organized in each partner country, bringing various professionals, policymakers and stakeholders together to present outputs of the project, to discuss the topic of TDV and existing prevention and awareness-raising activities as well as available help to its victims.We believe that the project was very successful in influencing the situation of teen dating violence on local as well as on international levels, based on our monitoring and evaluation of the project impacts: more than 2.400 young people following Facebook groups and/or Instagram accounts learned, asked and discussed about the topic of teen dating violence, 9.894 young people and youth workers visited online shared platform; 2.354 young people run interactive quizzes, and 182 professionals participated in round tables. Moreover, in some partner countries we also succeeded in impacting policies, when the topic of TDV was defined and highlighted in new Action Plan of the Prevention of Domestic and Gender-Based Violence for 2019-2022 (Czech Republic), and when close cooperation with Ministry of Education (Croatia), Ministry of Justice (Armenia) and local municipality (Italy) was established with aim of further cooperation in prevention of TDV.