TITLE OF THE PUBLICATION
Helping Teenagers who are Dropping Out – Global Motivation
« Accompagner des ados en rupture scolaire – La motivation globale »
SURNAME AND NAME OF AUTHOR(S)
Nicolas Roubaud, Catherine Sztencel
PUBLISHER
Editions De Boeck
PLACE AND DATE OF PUBLICATION
Brussels – March 2012
LANGUAGE OF THE DOCUMENT
French
LANGUAGE OF THE REVIEW
English
THEMATIC AREA
Identification of students’ at risk
DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS
How to reintegrate young people in school and socially relying on their global relations? How to create links with a teenager who is dropping out? How to, thanks to those links, help them change their representations of themselves, of their abilities and of their future?
The book presents a pragmatic intervention approach based on “global motivation”, a new type of coordination to extend the action of the school beyond its wall with the help of specialists.
This strategy makes it possible to act in a flexible way at the crucial moment of school drop out, when it is detected by the school, and before the “dropping out spiral”!
The book is based on real-life experiences. It presents many examples of assistance, experiences, accounts… It also proposes models of conventions and operating documents to create links between the school and associations.
Chapter 1 presents the context of school and social drop out of young people.
Chapter 2 develops the search for an intervention method project creation for an innovative methodology, “global motivation”.
Chapter 3 details the various steps of this methodology:
• Receiving the school request and setting up coordination
• Approaching the teenager in difficulty (first contact by phone)
• Conducting the first interview: inducing the will to change
• Personal assistance: governing principle of change
• Closing the assistance and evaluating the results
COMMENTS ON THIS PUBLICATION
This work presents a deep reflection on young people dropping out and a really innovative intervention approach, at the crossroads between education, youth aid, and even mental health.
Practical guide for social agents in the youth sector, this work is also a reflection tool on the world of school.
Nicolas Roubaud created this social intervention methodology for “heavy” school dropout addressed to Brussels secondary schools (5-year action-research). Following this he created the association Odyssée that applies in everyday life this intervention strategy.
Catherine Sztencel is the headmaster of asbl Odyssée. She works on the field with young people who are dropping out.
She explains that: “Most of the time, failure has extremely diverse reasons. But if we can make the teenager aware of their resources, they will be able to get through. We are convinced of it and it is on this basis that we work. Apart from the individual workshops, we run group workshops with them and make them do playful activities, while debriefing the resources they have to connect to in order to reach the objectives of the day”.
Name of Compiler
Julien Keutgen
Name of Institution
Inforef
Role in the institution
Translator – project assistant
