Measure I.2 – Cross-border initiatives targeting the exchange of people and ideas to enhance the professional and civic society cooperation.
Project Title: ’’Jointly for our families’’ – deployment of Counselling centres for family in Serbia and Montenegro
Project Budget:
| Project Value | EU Contribution | |
| Republic of Serbia | € 97,545.59 | € 80,013.59 |
| Montenegro | € 100,927.65 | € 85,788.5 |
| TOTAL | € 198,473.24 | € 165,802.09 |
Beneficiary of funds in the Republic of Serbia: Center for Social Work of Užice
Beneficiary of funds in Montenegro: Center for Social Work of municipalities of Nikšić, Plužine and Šavnik
Partners: Association Užice Center for Human Rights and Democracy, Serbia
NVO “Psihološki centar ABC” , Montenegro
Area of implementation:
• Montenegro: Nikšić region, Municipality of Nikšić, Plužine and Šavnik
• Serbia: Zlatibor area, City of Užice
The target groups of the project: 328 families as users of counselling services (families with disturbed family relations/with post-divorce problems/LGBT members/with children who have behavioural or mental disorders/with member with disability); 203 individuals (parents who want to improve pedagogic/educational competence /victims of violence or abuse/perpetrators of violence and abusers/children and youth with a variety of intra-psychical problems/challenges); 2000 of children and young people 12 to 18 y.o. attending primary and secondary schools; 2 providers of community based services (Center for Social Work of Uzice and Center for Social Work of Niksic, Pluzine and Savnik, 15 employees); 2 Local authority (Uzice and Niksic Municipality);2 CSOs dealing with vulnerable groups (30 people).
Project duration: 17/10/2016 – 16/04/2018
Project objectives:
The overall objective: To contribute to improvement of social inclusion of vulnerable groups through joint activities in Montenegro and Serbia.
The specific objectives of the project:
1) To launch and improve local community based services for vulnerable groups in region – Counselling centres for family;
2) To bring together and enhance the capacities of the professionals to jointly participate in implementation of community based services for vulnerable groups – regional Counselling centres for family;
3) To promote the efficient use of resources through partnering of different stakeholders involved in the provision of support to vulnerable groups in region.
Activities and results of the project
The local communities in municipalities of Nikšić, Plužine and Šavnik benefited through this project since the new community based service for vulnerable categories of citizens was established called Counselling centre for families. In Užice, through this project, the service of the counselling centre was improved. The service is now available for a wider group of users. In addition, the methodology of work has been improved. The family counselling service has, throughout the project, gained regional character and it is available to citizens from nine municipalities in Zlatibor district (Užice, Požega, Čajetina, Arilje, Kosjerić, Bajina Bašta, Prijepolje, Priboj, Nova Varoš).
Through different forms of individual and family counselling work the Counselling centre in Nikšić has 115 clients. Majority of beneficiaries of the Counselling centre in Niksic are visiting this institutions due to multiple problems they encounter, and those problems mostly include simultaneous difficulties in personal , partner, parental and/or wider family functioning. Persons engaged in the Counselling centre in Nikšić have had 320 sessions during the project life: 144 – individual counselling sessions; 96 partner counselling sessions and 80 family counselling sessions.
In Užice, in the period of 12 months, 180 new families were registered as beneficiaries of the Regional Counselling Centre. The total number of clients of the Regional Counselling Centre in Užice is 319. There were a total of 706 sessions with clients: Individual counselling – therapeutic sessions – 381; Partner counselling – therapeutic sessions -185; Family counselling – therapeutic sessions – 140. Witin the Project training programme “The establishment, organization and coordination of social service Counselling centres for family” has been established and sent to the Accreditation Committee for approval.
Capacity building of the professionals included conducting the training of the trainers for establishing the capacities for further knowledge transfer referring to perpetrators of domestic violence with 31 participants and LGBT persons and their families with 32 participants in Nikšić and Užice.
During the implementation of this project, it is provided support for opening a large number of services at local and regional level and adaptation of Action Plans for improvement of social services in regional Counselling Services for family in Serbia and Montenegro. Through training “Establishing sustainable services of counselling and counselling work” implemented by professionals from Center of social work Uzice, 15 professionals from Montenegro received theoretical knowledge and practical instruction on the establishment of counselling services for the family. At policy level, both applicants continued work on development of measures for prevention of violence, abuse, intolerance and social exclusion.. The camp for volunteers was organised in which 32 young people received the training in non-violent – assertive communication and violence prevention. They are now peer-educators who are disseminating the learned knowledge to their peers. Non-violent – assertive communication and violence prevention have been introduced in several schools in Užice and Nikšić. In Užice, the peer education included 1104 children and youth and in Montenegro number of trained pupils was 1030.
