Over the years, Diagrama’s social intervention model has led to the establishment in other countries
These various associations which are non-profit, independent, have their own legal personality, and who share the same values and principles as Diagrama Foundation.
Erasmus + E-PROFID Project
Diagrama UK was proud to be leading one of only a handful of projects chosen to receive Erasmus Plus funding in the UK's last year of eligibility for EU funding. Diagrama led E-Profid (Enhancing Professional Identity with Digital Tools)—one of the final UK projects funded by Erasmus+, before the UK’s exit from the EU.
This international initiative, in partnership with organisations from Spain, Belgium, and Italy, aimed to change public perceptions of disability, promote the talents of those in residential care, and train Care Workers to become digital-savvy “Facilitators of Change.”
The Covid-19 pandemic exposed the urgent need for digital inclusion in care settings. Many residents were cut off from loved ones, and staff lacked the tools or confidence to bridge the gap. E-Profid responded by empowering Care Workers with new communication skills and promoting residents' creativity, identity, and inclusion.
About the European Union Erasmus + Programme
Erasmus Plus was a European Lifelong Learning Programme designed to give access to new skills, experiences, and opportunities to adults of all ages and from all backgrounds. Known as a Higher Education study option, Erasmus Plus offered scope for broadening horizons and opening learning opportunities across Europe for adults of all ages, working alongside people from other countries.
GALA - Gentle Art, Living Art
Diagrama Foundation was the lead partner in this project, funded by the Erasmus Plus Programme (European Lifelong Learning, Adult Education measures) with partners from four other European countries: Groep Ubuntu (Belgium), Association ProVita (Romania), Fundacion Diagrama (Spain), l’Art et la Maniere (France).
The project was based around a series of creative art training workshops and culminated in a mixed art exhibition held in Rochester in June 2019. As part of each workshop the participants and staff worked together to create a legacy artwork donated to the local community.
Diagrama Foundation worked with adults with learning disabilities at its residential home Cabrini House in Orpington and the elderly at Edensor Care Centre in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex. International beneficiaries included young offenders, victims of domestic abuse, homeless, and the elderly.
Maureen Walby, trustee of Diagrama Foundation said: “This is such a wonderful project and will help the vulnerable people that we work with express themselves in a way they may never have done before.”
EuroSol
EuroSol formed part of the Europe for Citizens programme and brought together partners from eight EU member states to promote European citizens' solidarity in times of the refugee crisis.
The project, which finished in 2018, was formed of a series of events held throughout Europe aimed at initiating debate among stakeholders in a bid to find common accepted solutions at local level and exchange of opinions at European level.
The objective is was to influence politicians and policy makers to promote intercultural dialogue, to combat stigmatisation of immigrants and to foster tolerance and empathy to bring about more cohesive, respectful, peaceful and tolerant EU societies.
In June 2017 Diagrama Foundation hosted the Sensitive Labyrinth Theatre, from Germany, at Sun Pier House in Chatham where they applied the Access. Release. Transform (ART) method to introduce EU history and achievement to an audience of migrants and refugees.
Participants were encouraged to become active citizens in the EU society by fostering their social awareness through participative art. The method uses a holistic, multi-modal approach to the expressive and creative arts focusing on community building, exploration, self-discovery and problem solving.
THRIVE - Teachers' Professional Development
The aim of the European project 'THRIVE' was to reinforce the professional development of teachers of children up to 7 years old, in order to effectively promote positive behaviours in the classroom as well as future school attendance and achievement.
REVIJ - Reparation to the victim in the European Juvenile Justice Systems: Comparative analysis and transfer of best practices
The project REVIJ - Reparation to the victim in the European Juvenile Justice Systems: Comparative analysis and transfer of best practices, aimed to conduct a comparative of the measures provided for victims in the European Juvenile Justice Systems.
GET THERE
The overall aim of the GET THERE project is to equip vocational, educational and training (VET) provider organisations with methodologies, tools and competences in order to be the future employability educators and thus speed up the development of employability skills among unemployed people in all partner countries.
PROVYP
The PROVYP (Professional Orientation of Vulnerable Young People) project aims to reduce the number of low-skilled adults by providing improved careers guidance using open educational resources and tailored learning opportunities, particularly aimed at vulnerable young people. The project is in line with the Europe 2020 Strategy and the European Agenda for Adult Learning.
EURehabChildren
The EURehabChildren project is a research Project in the field of Vocational Education and Training aimed to establish an integrated approach towards Rehabilitation of Victim and Offender Children.
Empowerment Approaches and Social Inclusion (EASI)
The Empowerment Approaches and Social Inclusion (EASI) project is being delivered through a partnership with Dialogues and Basta, The project is working on identifying good working methods through regular meetings and discussions and exchange of good practice. It is developing new tools for disadvantaged groups to use towards their integration into society.
Activities include seminars, workshops and discussion groups with the objective of finding ways to eliminate social exclusion through the development of new tools aimed at helping disadvantaged groups reintegrate into society. This is a good opportunity for those involved to share ideas and learn from other people's experiences and methods.
Juvenile Drug Use: Tertiary Prevention Strategies
The Juvenile Drug Use: Tertiary Prevention Strategies project is delivered in partnership with four other partner countries - Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Estonia.
It aims to support the development of more specific and effective prevention interventions in the field of juvenile substance misuse by looking at existing practice in each partner country. The research gathered from the project will then be used to plan future interventions and raise awareness amongst key stakeholders and service providers.
European Comparative Analysis and Transfer of Knowledge on Mental Health Resources for Young Offenders (MHYO)
The European Comparative Analysis and Transfer of Knowledge on Mental Health Resources for Young Offenders (MHYO) is an innovative and sustainable project aimed at sharing knowledge and expertise in the field of young offenders with mental health issues; children and young people who are at the same time offenders and victims of their own mental health and who enter in the vicious circle of delinquency and recidivism.
Diagrama works with five other European countries, which include Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Estonia and the UK. It aims to support the development of more specific and effective prevention interventions in the field of young peoples’ drug use/abuse by looking at existing practice in each country, which will then be used to plan future interventions and raise awareness amongst key stakeholders and service providers.
All partners are analysing their national health and judicial systems for young offenders with mental-health disorders aged between 10 and 21. The research findings on comparative analysis of the national legal framework, as well as European good practices, are the basis of the study. The research is working on identifying treatment strategies for young offenders with mental-health needs in order to promote practical tools and adequate policies that involve children’s mental health and the juvenile justice system.
Greener Futures for Young People
Greener Futures for Young People works across a range of community-based organisations and social enterprises to capture entrepreneurship and to develop new business through delivering high quality, local and effective social, health and care services. The aim of the project is to raise the profile of the not-for-profit sector as a career choice for able young people.
Some of the objectives include:
- The transfer of good practice amongst partners
- Identify innovation and develop understanding of how to increase sustainable jobs for young people
- Demonstrate how social enterprises are a key to unlocking the potential of community groups and not for profit associations
- Develop a European Model for Social Franchising
- Facilitate work experience placements for young people whilst supporting the needs of not for profit organisations
- Create Networks for self-help and shared understanding
Into Caring Europe
The project Into Caring Europe - ICE aims to improve the quality of domiciliary community care by learning from each other what qualifications exist in each partner country. A new pilot course will be developed specifically to raise the standard of domiciliary care available and raise awareness about the needs of clients. In order to achieve this goal, client learners will be involved in the development of this new course, contributing their knowledge and highlighting needs that are not currently met by existing provision. The partners hope to get close to the needs of the beneficiaries by working with professionals whose job it is to find domiciliary care solutions for the specific client groups on which this project is focused on.
EASE - Empowerment Approaches and Social Enterprise
The EASE project – Empowerment Approaches and Social Enterprise – consists of ten partner organisations, which represent big and small social organisations with potential for integrating and disseminating the project across Europe.
EASE aims to transfer the Basta model, based on empowerment and social enterprise, to two social organisations, Elia in France and Diagrama in the UK. Both Elia and Diagrama wish to create sustainable social enterprises that will allow for employability and entry to the labour market for marginalised groups.
The target group and participants in the EASE project are the trainers currently involved in the two organisations. They will be in charge of importing and adapting the model to their country-specific context. Furthermore, the project wants to reach those who have little or no formal education, but who want to take on a new path in life with social enterprise, developing their innovative and entrepreneurial skills. This means the training will be targeted for tutors and trainers, but also for those without any previous experience of formal education.
EASE is partly funded by the "Transfer of Innovation” programme and is part of the European Union’s Lifelong Learning Programme.
Diante Bou Bess
Since its inception, in 2007, in Diagrama Foundation has provided technical support and continuous training and has collaborated in the awareness-raising about the activities carried out in Senegal by Diante Bou Bess Association.
Diante Bou Bess is an independent, non-denominational organisation which was established in Senegal to collaborate and contribute to development projects and programmes in the areas of Education and Health.
The organisation’s specific objectives include:
- Promoting education, health and social programmes and services in accordance with the Objectives of the Millennium Development Goals established by the United Nations
- Training and qualification of personnel in the areas of social, health and education, enabling the transfer of knowledge, attention and answers to basic needs and resource management.
- Promoting equal opportunities in access to all educational processes, formative, cultural, health, social and labour
- Conducting studies and research and publishing findings in its fields of activity in order to share knowledge and expertise with other professionals and network with social organisations and municipal government agencies, both nationally and internationally
- Promoting respect for human rights and the rights of the child
- Leading aid operations in situations of natural disasters or humanitarian crises.
International Juvenile Justice Observatory
Since its formation in 2007, Diagrama Foundation has worked towards the comprehensive care of minors and young people, promoting the consolidation of models of educational intervention that, guaranteeing children’s rights, aim to provide means for their re-education and social and labour integration.
Diagrama Foundation has collaborated with the International Juvenile Justice Observatory (IJJO) ever since its creation and continues to do so nowadays, sharing values and goals. Both organisations work to guarantee the rights of minors and young people in social exclusion, especially those in conflict with the law.
The international Juvenile Justice Observatory (IJJO) was established as a non-profit organisation in Brussels in January 2002 by Fundación Diagrama (Spain). Its work focuses on the rights of children and adolescents at risk of social exclusion, especially those in conflict with the law or caught in the cycles of violence and juvenile delinquency.
Established in order to create a space for development, service provision and shared knowledge, the IJJO promotes and encourages the improvement of juvenile justice systems and policies, the implementation of international standards, the strengthening of professional competence in the field, and the exchange of innovative good practices.
Diagrama Foundation is a member of the IJJO's European Council for Juvenile Justice and is joined by more than 80 other members from all over Europe.
Collaborative Research for Social Impact
These associations have similar aims and objectives that relate to the consideration of the needs of vulnerable people or those in social difficulties in each of those countries. We are actively involved in continuous research across a broad range of topics. Our aim is not only to gain knowledge which we can use to help to develop our own employees, but also to develop specific intervention strategies and share best practice for the benefit of those who work within our sphere of interest and the wider society.