Context/backgroundFrom the 1980s, research - mainly in the United States and the United Kingdom - started to provide evidence of the extent of sexual abuse of children and young people in out-of-home care. While it is generally acknowledged that prevalence rates differ amongst studies because of the different formulation of questions, different definitions of sexual abuse, current figures are known to be underestimates and girls and disabled children and young people are at greater risk of being sexually abused in the general population as well as in care. Research has not only shown that sexual abuse in care occurs but that abuse can be perpetrated by other children and young people in care, children of foster carers, as well as by foster carers and residential staff members.Over the last two decades, there has been increasing political attention on sexual abuse in care because of the testimonies of care leavers, and inquiries and truth commissions. An important conclusion of the inquiries and investigations is that professionals working in care settings often lack the competencies and skills to address sex and sexuality, assist young people’s healthy sexual development, and safeguard children and young people from abuse.ObjectivesAs most professionals working in care in Europe graduate from schools of Social Work, social work education should prepare (future) professionals to address this issue. In general, social work education does not pay sufficient attention to the subject. This project aimed to help (future) professionals build competencies on this specific subject by providing the following products:1.An international summer school for social work students2.An online course for professionals working in residential care or working with foster3.A website with materials for (European) lecturers who teach future social workers4.A reflection instrument on the core competencies, as a tool for on-the-job training on the subject.Participating organizationsThe project has been conducted in a collaboration of four Universities - Absalon University of Applied Sciences (Denmark), Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands), Artesis Plantijn University of Applied Sciences (Belgium) and Strathclyde University (Scotland), and three organizations for Children’s services offering residential and/or foster care (along with other services): Clemens (Denmark), Spirit (The Netherlands) and Wingerdbloei (Belgium). Spirit participated in the project with a special department: Qpido, a sex specific center of expertise, involved in training professionals on the subject of sex and sexuality (https://www.qpido.nl/).Main activitiesThe project consisted of three phases with distinct activities. As the goal of the project was to develop educational materials for (future) professionals the first step was to investigate the competencies professionals need to address sex and sexuality with young people in care and their carers. This was done by conducting two research projects on which all information can be found in reports and factsheets on the website.The results of the research (O6) also gave input to a text on the background and framework (O1) of the project, to the definition of five main themes and to development a reflection tool, based on the core competencies (O2). All information on these products of phase one can be found at: http://www.amsterdamuas.com/safe.In the second phase materials for lecturers (O3), the summer school (O4) and an online course were developed (O5). All can be found at www.amsterdamuas.com/safe.In June 2018 a closing conference has been organized in Amsterdam. The program and evaluation of the conference can be found at: http://www.amsterdamuas.com/safe/about/conference/conference-lets-talk-about.htmlResults and impact•All products are available online line at: www.amsterdamuas.com/safe and the link to the online course will be added to the child protection hub for Eastern Europe. This is due before the end of 2018.•The partners are working with the materials in their own organization and many activities have been undertaken to disseminate the information on the project (see implementation and dissemination plan). •In the participating countries a reference group was formed, which has been an important vehicle for dissemination of the project, as were the pilots conducted. •Partners agreed on keeping the products online and update them for the upcoming 5 years. Also partners agreed on exchange on further development of the products (see letter of intent enclosed).With the introduction of the website the name of the project has changed from 'Promotion of Healthy Sexual Development of Children' to 'Safeguarding Young People in Care', since this was more suitable in relation to both content and language.

"""Exchanges for All"" (EFA) is applying for 141.655 € for a 2 -year long strategic research, development- and networking project involving 8 significant organisations from 6 countries in South-Baltic region (DE, DK, PL, LT, LV & SE), who all have cooperated previously on implementing art-based youth-exchanges following the methodology from 15 years experience in the European network ""Drums for Peace"".""Exchanges for All"" want to reserach on the learning outcome from participating in such exchanges and has as one Danish partner a research-team from UCSJ-University College Zealand (DK) and as another DK-partner Center for Education (CFU) in Guldborgsund City Hall (DK), who will secure the dissemination of the project-results to local schools, as well as to Danish Ministry of Education and to other municipalities especially in Region Zealand.The project-coordinator, CultHus - the culture-houses of Guldborgsund Municipality, has many years experience from especially implementing youth-exchanges and will now work on developing a low-cost model for youth-exchanges that can be exported to the schools in order to implement exchanges in school-time as an integrated part of the curriculum for all 8th grade students.""Exchanges for All"" has beyond the 2 research/development parts also 4 transnational meetings, 1 training-course and one youth-exchanges + a row of dissemination conferences.In order to research on the learning-outcome from the youth-exchanges it is necessary to train school-teachers/group-leaders to be able to assist with the project-research and eventually test the participating students before and after taking part in the exchange.All partners (Except UCSJ & CFU) do also have project task as for example of identifying in own region possible exchange-venues as well as schools that are interested in using youth-exchanges as a learning tool, and this will be the platform for both a database open to all interested, and for an immediate project use from 3 Guldborgsund schools, who have cooperated with CultHus on such during the last 2 years.The 3 Guldborgsund schools are themselves applying to Erasmusplus: Comenius-school-partnership together with 9 other schools in same cities in LV, LT, PL & SE, and this project ""IDALT - International Dimension as a Learning Tool"" will examine how the teachers in their daily work can use the fact that they are going to participate in a youth-exchange together with their students and together with young people from 3 other countries.All project results will be described and explained in EN, DE, DK, LV, LT, PL & SE at homepage and a video (with subtitles) & DVD + booklet in EN and will be available at the many decentral dissemination conferences in April 2016.Besides this the project results will be disseminated via members of Drums for Peace (17 members in 12 countries) and via UBC-Union of Baltic Cities, which has more than 100 member-cities in the 10 countries, which are surrounding the Baltic Sea."