Hello and welcome to the third module of the online training course for social workers during and after the pandemic. In this module, we will talk more about specific projects that have taken place during COVID-19 or that have kept on working during COVID-19. So these specific projects will act as a guide to the future and give some challenges that they faced and some tips for the future. In order to have a clear idea on how we could organize social work and social work practices. The first lesson will focus on a general welfare initiative and the speaker we invited for this is Maryam Tawfiq Marwan. She is a project worker at the Center for General Welfare in East Flanders Belgium and today she will talk more about their project called Mindspring. >> Hi, my name is Maryam Tawfiq Marwan. I'm a project manager, Mindspring and CAW Oost-Vlaanderen. CAW is center for general well being in East Flanders. So Mindspring is a psychological educational group sessions that we offer to refugees, migrants and asylum seekers in their own mother tongue. It is given by the trainer and the co supervisor and they are both trainer is actually someone from a refugee background. And also the co supervisor is someone from the social sector from the educational sector or from the medical sector. And both of them actually follow a training to be a trainer and a cosupervisor. And there's also the translator. So the translator translates actually for the cosupervisor and because the groups or the group is in their mother tongue. So Mindspring is actually focused on how the participants can empower the employment of the participants. And also to seek resilience and also to cope with challenges in the future, in their new future actually. How Mindspring starts, actually, there's an info session whereby the participants participates that you listen to this Mindspring. And then we have six sessions of two hours and in some cases also kind of comeback session so we can see how the participants are coping with what they've been through. But also are they using mindspring? How are they using mindspring? It's kind of evaluation for us, that is Mindspring. So of course, out of fear of contamination, the participants were very afraid to come to the sessions in the very beginning of the pandemic. And we actually have to make the groups much smaller because we usually have 15 participants but then we had to shrink the groups to maybe seven and so on. But then with time people got more and more afraid. So we had sometimes only four showing up and the rest were calling us to say that they are very afraid. So what we actually decided to do, we were thinking, yeah we have to find another way, maybe use the digital world which was a bit unknown to us. So with time of course there was also the lockdown. When the lockdown came, there were no groups anymore, no one could go anywhere, we all stayed at home. So we decided with the team that we should keep on offering Mindspring, but maybe in other ways. And as I said before, we agreed to use the digital world. But first we had to train ourselves because we didn't know anything about the digital world, we usually just give physical groups. So that's when we started using Microsoft Teams, all other online platforms. And we trained ourselves first how to use it, and then also the trainers, the cosupervisors and the ones that were going to give groups. Then we started calling the participants with the phone first to ask them, is it possible for you to participate in Mindspring but digitally? And that's because we knew that the participants were very afraid at home, mostly they're isolated, living alone. And so we had to do something that's why then we started and then what we did is we, as we said, we started the groups digitally, but then we saw there were many challenges. Some people didn't have a computer at home, they didn't know what's Microsoft Teams, some people can't even read and write. So we had also to find other solutions, we thought most people do have a smartphone. So for the people who didn't have a computer at home, we used their smartphones through Microsoft Teams, but first we had to prepare, we had to call them, it did cost a lot of time and energy. And so a day before the sessions, we would call everyone, we will practice how to give the group online. And once everyone had like Microsoft Teams on their computers, on their phones and they had internet we were able to start. Of course we had to, we went through some challenges like the GDPR. How are they going to sign it digitally which is something also difficult. Also the online tools, we had to search for some online tools to do some exercises that we usually do physically, like the relaxation exercises. And also how are we going to work with the translator, that's also something else. So we had to go call them through WhatsApp and they had to mute their sound and so on, so it's all a puzzle, but we figured it out. And also the group process was different. Everyone was looking at the camera, some didn't want to open their cameras because of privacy at home. Some had their kids around them jumping on the screen and we had also to be standby for any technical problems. So usually the group's just starting and we leave and but now we had to see that one of our colleagues would be there for standby if anything goes wrong digitally. And that of course as I said again costed a lot of time and energy of the team but eventually it worked out and we were very happy about that. And the participants mostly said that they were very happy that there was Mindspring. It was online, of course, the physical is better, but it's better than nothing. They were very happy to just be able to talk to someone in those difficult times. We also offered assistance by telephone to those participants who are going through a hard time in the pandemic. And they were also short sessions of Mindspring. So we just call them, our colleagues will call them and then offer the short sessions of Mindspring, but also we just listen to what they're going through. And then if possible we can also send them to one of our colleagues for some extra help to a psychologist or so on by telephone of course. So I will definitely use the digital world, I keep on using that. We actually still use the digital platforms. For example, after we finished a group, there is also this kind of evaluation with applicant. But now those evaluations we do them digitally through Microsoft Teams or other digital platforms. And this is much easier actually otherwise time consuming to stay at that one place to finish everything, but now through the Microsoft Teams everything is easier. Also sometimes when we have an intake meeting we do it now just digitally so no one has to travel so far away before a session to prepare. We just all go on the screen and talk to each other and get prepared. Also, I would actually definitely be prepared for any case scenarios like this, like the COVID pandemic. You have to know that a lot of people, especially migrants, asylum seekers, they are already isolated, they're lonely and with the pandemic it was even worse. They couldn't even talk to anyone at all, only through their phones. So use that, use the digital world, keep on using it, and as we did in Mindspring, we actually brought Mindspring to them. So try to also use the online tools, use what's already there, but also through the pandemic, a lot of new platforms existed or was made to meet those needs. So use that and I hope we don't have to go through something like this ever again. [LAUGH] [MUSIC]