Representatives of the Language Centre of the Faculty of Arts and Education of Kauno kolegija Higher Education Institution have been successfully strengthening their knowledge and disseminating information about coaching, social emotional learning and awareness by participating in international project activities for several years. This time, they have joined the Erasmus+ ‘Well-being in Networking Schools’ (W.I.N.S.) project, which brings together educational institutions from Italy, Lithuania, Romania, France, Greece and Portugal and creates innovative educational tools focused on practical activities.

The goal is to promote the well-being and happiness of educators and students

The W.I.N.S. project is implemented based on two main priorities: ‘Support for education professionals’ and ‘Civic engagement through values’. The project aims to develop innovative strategies and tools, such as a curriculum and a digital app, to enhance the well-being, happiness and emotional intelligence of school leaders, educators and students. It is planned to create a well-being app, adapted for Mac and Windows platforms, which could be used as a practical tool in the daily work of educators.

Project coordinator – Ademinho / Escola Profissional do Alto Minho Interior (Portugal). Partners: CLIL Association (Italy), Colegiul Național ‘Octavian Goga’ (Romania), Directorate of Primary Education of Western Thessaloniki (Greece), edEUcation SAS (France), Edubox SA (Portugal) and Kauno kolegija (Lithuania). Kauno kolegija is represented in the project by 10 participants from the Faculty of Arts and Education, Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Business.

Area of responsibility – impact analysis

‘This is the fourth project of the Language Centre, focused on coaching methodologies, which brings together institutions that have established a strong partnership,’ emphasises Ieva Brazauskaitė-Zubavičienė, the head of the Language Centre and the head of this project in Lithuania.

Kauno kolegija is responsible for preparing project impact analysis, and the Language Centre already has experience in this activity, as it has prepared such analyses in two international projects before this one. The head of the Language Centre reminds that the department’s lecturers have gained valuable experience in organising and disseminating them in the T.E.A.M.I. and C.O.A.C.H. Erasmus+ coaching activities for educators projects.

Coaching or educational leadership, consultative education, and mentoring is a unique methodology based on special questioning techniques that encourage setting ambitious goals, planning actions to achieve them, and ensuring internal balance in work and personal life.

Impact is focused on the European education sector

The W.I.N.S. project consists of several stages of activities, focused on three aspects: physical and mental health and well-being; initiating and continuing training of teachers, instructors and other educational staff; digital content and pedagogical practice. The training is led and all partner institutions are coordinated by Claudia Consuelo Saccone, a neurolinguistic programming specialist, mindfulness trainer (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction), and a holistic coach from Italy.

In the first phase, partners participated in a remote 8-hour networking event in November 2024, which brought together over 200 participants. In the second phase, a virtual 12-hour training was organised in June this year, focusing on the 5 elements of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, motivation, empathy, and social skills. 60 educators participated in the spring meeting. In September, the latter participants will meet in the third phase – a 3-day contact training in Romania. A final conference is planned for 2026 in Portugal.

Participants, having acquired the necessary knowledge complex, including the applied skills of the welfare app, will carry out dissemination in the format of training for educators in their countries. Educators of kindergartens, secondary schools, vocational schools, and higher education institutions will be able to participate in these training sessions. The project application emphasises the target audiences and the scale of the dissemination chain is extremely wide.

The first direct target group will be 10 educators from each country (60 in total) who are already trained in emotional and social well-being competencies. The second direct target group will consist of another 20 educators from each country (120 in total) who will be trained to work with groups of learners (pupils, students, etc.). The third direct target group will consist of at least 20 learners for each of the 30 educators from each country – a total of 3,600 learners, of which 1,600 are socially disadvantaged. The fourth target group will consist of education policy makers and decision-makers at regional, national and European levels – 5 from each country (30 in total). 

Indirect target groups will include managers, educators, learners, technology experts, researchers (total of around 5,000) and learners’ families (total of around 7,000). In addition, in the long term, the project will benefit staff from participating institutions (total of around 6,000), local health centres and the wider community with contact with the education sector.

Project number: 2024-1-PT01-KA220-SCH-000257628.
Duration: from November 2024 until October 2026.