Armenia | Armenia Community Action and Linkages for Legal Socialization | 8 Apr 2014

Throughout March 25 -26 and then March 28 - 29, 2014, within the Armenia CALLS program, PH International organized 2 training events for a group of 40 Armenian police officers and 40 high school educators from different regions of Armenia. The goal of the training was to emphasize the role of the School Resource officer in high schools, increase cooperation between the juvenile officers and educators for organizing cooperative events for juveniles and to promote the rule of law in the schools.

The first day of each of the 2-day training events was led by Armine Gmyur-Karapetyan, a well known psychologist in Armenia, who spoke to the trainees about the social-psychological problems faced by adolescents and about the ways of addressing them. She covered many themes including factors causing juvenile delinquency, problems related to the period of puberty, formation of social networks, identity issues, body image, sexual needs, etc. The 2nd day of the each training focused on the main principles of juvenile justice, on the theories of social discipline window and the compass of shame. Additionally, the police officers and educators were exposed to theories of self-awareness and how these could be utilized while working with challenging juveniles. The trainers presented interesting models of communication and collaborative methods which can enable the participants to work more effectively with juveniles in and out of class setting. PH staff then provided model-examples of collaborative activities and encouraged the teachers and police officers to organize joint events in their schools by the end of May.

Both training events proved successful: they offered the participants a unique opportunity to establish new cross-regional connections, share their concerns, jointly brainstorm about their solutions, hear the trainers' approaches to the mentioned concerns, discuss new ideas and set plans for future cooperation.