Coaching: Level one
At the end of September, 35 participants — teachers, youth workers, community leaders, and psychologists — from 11 countries gathered in Kysak, in eastern Slovakia. They came from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Austria, Slovakia, Italy, and Latvia.
COACHING: Level One was an international training course focused on individual and group coaching, with particular attention to the topics of unemployment and young people in NEET situations. Throughout the programme, participants explored coaching as a practical and empowering approach that can support young people in better understanding themselves, identifying their strengths, making decisions, and moving forward in challenging life situations.
The training combined theoretical input with experiential learning, reflection, practical exercises, and methods that participants could later adapt to their own work. Together, they explored coaching principles, tools for personal development, group processes, rituals, motivation, and ways of creating meaningful support spaces for young people.
One of the project outcomes was the creation of the Youth Worker Coaching Manual, developed as a resource to help youth workers, teachers, social workers, and psychologists strengthen their coaching competences and reflect on how coaching can enrich their professional practice.
The training was not only about learning new methods, but also about experiencing the power of coaching personally. Participants were invited to step into deep reflection, connect with their own stories, and discover how transformative carefully guided processes can be.
As Natália, one of the participants, shared:
“How I see the previous day – it was a preparation for the main event, the Hero journey. First – we worked again with our wheels of balance. It was interesting to combine this tool with a spiral dynamic, Maslow’s pyramid and the hero journey. All together. Then we talked about rituals and rites, explored 3 phases of all rituals, and thought about how to use this principle in coaching. However, we created our own ritual to begin the hero journey. What happened in the afternoon is very difficult to explain, it was a real adventure in the night forest. It’s impossible to describe, it’s important to experience. Thanks to the whole team of trainers for such a deep and great experience and a warm meeting after.”
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Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or NIVAM – the Slovak National Agency for Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.