Yope Trains
YOPE trains professionals and organisations to convey our methodology, approaches and best practices in collaboration with experience experts.
That includes training justice professionals and youth care workers on youth-friendly communication and youth participation inside and outside detention centers. We also support and coach civil society organisations in replicating our services in their own local/national context. We strive to make our expertise accessible through open source materials and resources, such as the Exchanging Perspectives platform.
Photo in banner: Serge Ligtenberg
‘The role of youth experience experts is incredibly important just to be able to bridge the perceptions between the prosecutor and the youth.They are often quite different.’
Disa Jironet – Public Prosecutor
‘Sharing my story actually also helped me understand better how everything could have come this far. It’s also a kind of processing.’
YOPE Expert
Portfolio of activities:
The challenge for professionals working in the juvenile justice chain is to connect with the world of the young person. Since 2017, YOPE has provided the ‘Walk in my shoes’ training, originally developed for lawyers, but now also offered to probation officers, police officers, judges and prosecutors. The training is an encounter between professionals and YOPE Experts in a neutral setting, away from the complex power relations and strict roles, where it is easier to connect and create mutual understanding.
Rooted in the experiences of young people in the justice system, the training offers both parties a transformative experience and the opportunity to exchange perspectives – and create new ones.
Collaboration with Oberstown Children Detention Campus (2023-24)
In 2023, YOPE and Oberstown Children Detention Campus embarked on a journey of collaboration to implement the ‘Walk in my shoes‘ training for Campus employees – from the leadership and management to care workers. A small team was trained on YOPE’s methodology, and they in turn recruited and prepared three young people still deprived of liberty to co-deliver the training. Two sessions were delivered and 36 members of staff were trained. This was the first time the training was delivered inside a closed facility by youth still living in it.
One of the visits of the YOPE team to Oberstown Children Detention Campus (Ireland), as part of the Giving Back project (2021-2024). The project was led by the Netherlands Helsinki Committee and was co-funded by the European Commission.
Building the capacity of child-rights organisations (2021)
As part of the Youthlab project (2019-22), YOPE supported Defence for Children Belgium and Italy in setting up their own group of experts and facilitate training for justice professionals. Despite the COVID-19 restrictions, both YOPE Coordinators and Experts trained, coached and inpired partners in their journey.
As part of this collaboration, the Exchanging Perspectives platform was created, which includes an online toolkit to guide like-minded organisations in setting up a youth experience expert program and implementing the ‘Walk in my shoes’ training. Visit Exchanging Perspectives to learn more: https://exchangingperspectives.org/
Training for detention workers in the Balkans (2021)
Between 2018-21, YOPE collaborated with Caritas in Kosovo and Albania in a project to improve the condition of youth detention centres in the two counties, promoting a safe and rehabilitative environment and introducing new approaches to the programs offered to youth. The model of creative and sports workshop was brought to the countries through a series of online and in person training, and on-the-job coaching for detention staff. In partnership with local artists and athletes, the institutions were able to improve the services to youth and take a step forward towards successful reintegration in society.
This project was led by the Netherlands Helsinki Committee in partnership with the Dutch Custodial Institutions Agency (The Netherlands), Albanian General Directorate of Prisons (Albania), Kosovo Ministry of Justice / Kosovo Correctional Centre (Kosovo), Directorate for Execution of Sanctions of the Macedonian Ministry of Justice (Macedonia), YOPE (The Netherlands), Leiden University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands), Albanian Helsinki Committee (Albania), Kosovo Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims (Kosovo) and Macedonian Helsinki Committee (Macedonia). The project was funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Matra 2017-2020 subsidy framework)