Course overview

Distress is a prevalent and costly problem in today's workplace and about one-third of workers report high levels of stress. Excessive work-related stress can have serious consequences both behavioral, physical and psychological. Parents’ behavior, undisciplined students, workplace conflicts and deadlines are all potential causes for distress that teachers shall learn how to manage. For teachers and education staff stress management is a crucial skill to master.
Participants will learn how to identify the sources of stress, how to say no assertively, how to prevent and cope with stressful experiences and how to support students to deal with stress. Through a practical approach participants will acquire concrete methods and will share best practices to better manage stress at school as well as in their personal lives.

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MAIN Objectives

This course allows participants to improve their ability to prevent and manage work-related and personal stress from identifying the sources, to prevent to distress and managing stressful situations.
The general aim of this training course is to foster excellence in education by empowering teachers, trainers, headmasters and other education staff to improve their stress management skills together with other teachers and education staff throughout all Europe gaining as well  a broader understanding of education in Europe and exchanging best practices and experiences.
Thanks to this course the participants will:

• Learn about the dynamics and characteristics of stress, its causes and its effects;
• Get an insight into their individual patterns of stress response;
• Practice and acquire concrete stress management techniques and tools;
• Learn how to apply stress management tools to typical education situations (i.e. parent-teacher relationship, bullying, …);
• Learn how to lead simple relaxation and visualization activities to ease students’ anxiety;
• Exchange good practices and discuss challenges with fellow colleagues and the course trainers;
• Make contacts with individuals and organizations working in the education field in Europe through everyday cooperation and networking activities;
• Visit and network with Italian institutions.

target audience

This training course is open to: teachers, trainers, headmasters, school and education managers, educational counsellors,  career counsellors, school psychologists, human resources managers, other school staff, other adult education staff, other higher education staff, other non-governmental organization staff, public servants.

standard daily programme

Please find below the standard indicative daily programme that will be tailored to the participants needs and professional profiles.
Our standard program comprises 7 days of course, of which the first one is dedicated to networking, preparation and cultural immersion and the last one to follow up, specific needs and cultural activities. Please note that we always do our best to accommodate the specific needs of our participants in a flexible way, including but not limited to budget restrictions and travel arrangement. Participants can choose to arrive 1 day before the start of the course and/or leave one day after the end of it in order to enjoy a deeper cultural immersion. Upon specific request we can organize longer or shorter versions of this course.
For the courses in Palermo and Tenerife the cultural activities are slightly different and comprises visits to Palermo, Cefalù, Puerto de La Cruz, El Teide.

Sunday	-  Participants arrival  -  Individual orientation and information about the venue and the city   -  Networking activities  -  Guided visit in Bologna (optional)  -  Welcome dinner
Monday	-  Course introduction: growing trends towards integrating using web platform into education and blended learning  -  Competences ex-ante evaluation  - Understanding what generates stress  - Practical work: investigating and identifying the sources of my stress
Tuesday	-  Positive stress and distress: basic concepts and concrete examples  -  Simulation exercise: typical stressful situation at school  -  Practical work: sharing of best practices and peer-review  -  Understanding how different people respond to stress differently  -  Practical work: understanding my individual pattern of stress response  -  Cultural activities in Bologna and traditional Italian aperitif
Wednesday	-  Creating resistance to stress  -  The role of self-esteem and personal attitudes in preventing distress  -  Practical work: strengthening my internal potential  -  Guided visit in Florence or Venice (optional)
Thursday	- Managing stress: strategies and tools  -  Practical work: applying stress management at school  -  How to stay calm at school when facing undisciplined students, aggressive parents and arrogant colleagues  - How to support students to manage stressful situations  -  Role-play simulation: applying stress management techniques to real-case examples
Friday	-  Relieving the tensions  -  Practical work: implementing a relaxation and visualization session  -  Practical work: practicing breathing and self-awareness techniques  -  Dinner in traditional Italian restaurant
Saturday	-  Space for discussion of future cooperation and planning follow up activities and/or action plans for the classroom  -  Course roundup and final evaluation  -  Validation of learning outcomes and certification ceremony  -  Additional training session tailored to specific needs (optional)  -  Cultural activities or additional guided visit in another major Italian city (optional)  -  Participants departure

methodology

We tailor the working methods based upon participants’ needs, attitudes and professional profiles in order to ensure high productivity, effectiveness and transferability into practice.
Our methodology is highly practical and participative with hands-on approach that comprises real-job examples, case studies and simulations. We embrace collaboratively working methods that foster mutual learning and cooperation among participants. Our focus is on learning outside the classroom in an interactive and international environment. The pedagogical methods that we use are based upon experiential training, group and peer activities, learning-by-doing and best practices’ exchange. Participants will be working in groups thus having the chance to learn by each other as well as having feedback by fellow teachers, trainers and educators.
Morning Wrap-up and brief daily evaluations are foreseen to ensure quality of education and to adapt the learning programme to participants' needs better tailoring the education.
Free time has been planned to give to the participants time to understand the concepts, develop further the group activities, ask trainers for further clarifications, etc. Networking and cooperation among participants will be supported and stimulated at each stage.
We organize optional social, networking and cultural activities in order to give participants the opportunity to know Italy as well as to exchange best-practice and establish professional cooperation and links.
The training and staff team is multinational thus giving a full European dimension to the course.

sessions planned

You can find below the sessions planned. If none of these dates suits you please mind that we may organize an additional session ad-hoc for your school if there are at least 6 participants interested so feel welcome to contact us at office@ifom.info to let us know about your needs. When adding an ad-hoc session we may be able to organize it in your language.​
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​Bologna, Italy
18/02/2018 - 24/02/2018
21/10/2018 - 27/10/2018
24/02/2019 - 02/03/2019

Palermo, Italy
29/07/2018 - 04/08/2018
28/07/2019 - 03/08/2019

Tenerife, Spain
17/03/2019 - 23/03/2019

costs and erasmus+ funding

Teachers, trainers, headmasters and any other staff of education organizations are eligible to receive an Erasmus+ grant covering all the costs to attend our training courses including travel, board and lodging, cultural activities and all fees. Our training courses are tailored to be fully funded by Erasmus+ and we offer different options to ensure that the Erasmus+ grant will be sufficient. Read more about Erasmus+ funding, shall you have any problem with your grant please let us know and we will see how to accommodate your needs.
 
The most common option that we offer costs EUR 1220 and includes course fee, certification and support fee, accommodation in single room, all coffee breaks, 3 meals per day, walking tour in the venue’s city and local transport during the training course. Based on your preferences and budget you can request different services, a less inclusive/cheaper package or you can choose to organize the board and lodging by yourself and opt to just attend the training course. Read more about how we take care of your subsistence.

CertificatioN and validation of learning outcomes

At the end of the course, each participant will be awarded a certificate of attendance including a description of training content and as well as its starting and end date, together - if requested -  with the Europass Mobility Certificate.
We support the participants in every step of certification an d validation of learning outcomes with specific focus on European instruments and Erasmus plus requirements such as staff mobility/learning agreement, quality commitment and Europass mobility certificate.
We experienced that schools and education organizations may require additional documents to certify the competences learned or the presence in the training course. Upon request we can provide additional certification and reporting documents as well as we provide photos of the training course and a sum-up video that can be used for visibility and dissemination purposes.

Language of the course

The course is held in English. For groups with at least 8 participants, we can organize an ad-hoc session in a different language. 
Please write an email to staff@ifom.info to get more information about it.