Let me introduce myself
My name is Maša Toplak and I come from a litlle green country nestled between Austria, Italy, Croatia and Hungary called Slovenia. I am a master student of Social Education at University of Ljubljana in Slovenia and I am writing my master thesis about youth work. I came to the Netherlands as an Erasmus + practice exchange student for 6 months and my new home is now in Delft. As an intern at Social Work Netherlands I am doing a reaserch at home and work at home.
Social pedagogy is a study of depriviligades societies and their positions in the mainstream population. It exams and gives attention to a holistic approach and is very relationship centered. Study of Social pedagogy in Slovenia is mainly focused on underprivileged children and youth and gives a lot of attention to different forms of youth work. That's why practice at Home Op Straat Leiden (TOS Leiden) is so exciting to me, because I have the chance to see how people work in the Netherlands. TOS is a non-profit organization that started in 1996 in Rotterdam and later on in Leiden in the year 2000. Their main objective is a positive climate on the streets and playgrounds. They organize activities for the youth and artists. They are present in the afternoon and help the environment is clean and safe for the children and residents. They also go to schools during lunch breaks to interact with children and include them in safe and intresting games. With love and attention, positive role models and visible recurring presence TOS makes a connection between home, school and free time. You can intervene, motivate, stimulate and support children, but TOS is also a link between the community and other organizations. As an intern I have to go to school and in the afternoon. They also go to schools during lunch breaks to interact with children and include them in safe and intresting games. With love and attention, positive role models and visible recurring presence TOS makes a connection between home, school and free time. You can intervene, motivate, stimulate and support children, but TOS is also a link between the community and other organizations. As an intern I have to go to school and in the afternoon. They also go to schools during lunch breaks to interact with children and include them in safe and intresting games. With love and attention, positive role models and visible recurring presence TOS makes a connection between home, school and free time. You can intervene, motivate, stimulate and support children, but TOS is also a link between the community and other organizations. As an intern I have to go to school and in the afternoon. You can intervene, motivate, stimulate and support children, but TOS is also a link between the community and other organizations. As an intern I have to go to school and in the afternoon. You can intervene, motivate, stimulate and support children, but TOS is also a link between the community and other organizations. As an intern I have to go to school and in the afternoon.
TOS Leiden also gives me the oppurtunity to see the practical work side of the reaserch I will be doing with Social Werk Nederland. Although little is known about gender-specific work within youth work, attention for working with girls is necessary. This is because there is often less attention for girls within the often male dominating social domain. Adolescent girls are less present in the public space as boys or children. That is why meidenwerk provides the space, interventions, games made specially for the girls and girls alone. As girls work method is present in the Netherlands it will be intresting to see if it is developed in some other countries and what are the differences between the interventions. My reaserch will therefor be focused on meidenwerk or girls working method.
In these 6 months in the Netherlands, I hope I will learn a lot of interesting facts about girls, why it is important and how we can achieve good results. method. I think it is good to compare different practices so that we can learn from the mistakes or good practices and make major improvements to youth work in general.