CARAVAN PROJECT: DETAILS OF THE PROPOSED TRAINING PROGRAMME

- Knowledge, skills and competence to be acquired:

The main professional field of the Project Caravan is the social-pedagogic care-taking in a home for
unaccompanied minor refugees. Organisation of every days life, cooperation with social, legal, medical and
psychological specialists is part of the general goals of the project as well as the support in educational
questions and intercultural coexistence of boys and girls from many different countries and ethnic groups.
The trainee will participate in every part of the work of the professional staff of the project: Case work and
personal care-taking of minor refugees (asylum case, medical treatment and prophylaxis, school matters and
educational support, leisure-time activities, education to tolerance and democratic responsibility etc...); group
work with a concentration on intercultural education; administrative framework of the project and its
organisational, financial and legal conditions.
- Detailed programme of the training period:
The first three weeks are designated to the introduction to the project, to its rules and conditions. After that
period the intern should help and accompany the caretakers of the project in almost every aspect of the
projects tasks, always, of course, according to his or her ability and capacities. In the beginning the intern
will work mostly in one-to-one situations (for example: escorting minors to medical institutions) The intern will
take part in the weekly team meetings and daily change of personnel.
After the intern has gained some reliability he or she will be able to fulfil some tasks more independently.
Escorts to medical institutions, learning aid for minors, leisure-time activities for small groups of minors and
similar activities should be planned and carried out by the intern under the supervision of the professionals
on duty and with regular reflexions with his or her personal mentor.
In the end of a long term internship we like to ask the intern to plan and carry out a small project of his or
her own (for example: A table-tennis tournament together with a neighbouring youth-centre, or a
video/photo/painting project of the inhabitants or something like that...)
- Tasks of the trainee:
The intern should do as much as possible the same work as the employees of the project do (as described
above), but on a controlled and monitored level, according to his or her abilities. The regular reflexion
meetings between the trainee and the personal mentor should help to find out the trainees interests,
strengths and personal limits. He or she should learn how to act within a multi-professional und multi-cultural
team. The trainee will have about one nightshift every two weeks where he or she accompanies the
professional care-taker from about 17:00 in the afternoon until 11:00 in the next morning.
The main fields where the trainee will perform tasks independently are learning aid and escorting youngsters
to external institutions.
- Monitoring and evaluation plan:
There is a structured schedule for the whole period of internship that helps the intern to get orientation and
clearness from the beginning to the end of the training period. The mentor of the intern is pointed out from
the very beginning, regular meetings with the mentor are obligatory for the whole time. There will be
additional supervision for the intern carried out by a colleague from another project of the organisation
(psychologist or social worker). The intern has to make daily notes of the experiences he or she has made
during a working day. This logbook is the base of the regular reflexion meetings with the interns mentor.
After about one month the intern is asked to point out a field of special interest within the project (according
to his or her profession) and together with the mentor a special program for this field has to be worked out
and absolved by the trainee (for example: co-attendance of one or two of the minors in the project) The
training should be completed with a detailed report of the whole period.
Contact: Otto Hollerwger, o.hollerwoeger@integrationshaus.at