Lithuanian Public Libraries

The Fun of Self-Knowledge Behaviour and Emotion Prevention Programme as a social learning promise of the Children & Youth Day Centre of Naujoji Vilnia Library to children and teenagers.

 

Providing free services to people from various social layers Naujoji Vilnia Library has become a safe space for children and teenagers from socially vulnerable families. In September 2000, a group of 30 children and teenagers was gathered in the Library that formed the Children & Youth Day Centre. 40 children and teenagers were registered as of December 2002.

 

The model of extracurricular activities applied in the Day Centre is constantly changing with regards to the interests and needs of children and teenagers. Homework is made every day; the volunteer social worker consults the visitors of the centre twice a week; psychological consulting and practical bibliotherapy sessions take place once a week.

 

With the development of services of the Day Centre, the Fun of Self-Knowledge innovative programme was offered to children and teenagers with behavioural and emotional problems intended for self-knowledge and self-assessment through collective creative psychological work of artistic nature. With implementation of this programme the group of students of the Fine Arts Department of Vilnius College will be formed to make cartoons of participants and assess them together with the visitors of the Day Centre, their friends and psychologist. Simultaneously, the group of artistic–psychological portraits, i.e. the ’cartoon models’ will be formed out of the visitors of the Day Centre.

 

The ‘cartoon model’ group will be formed with regards to the age of the Day Centre visitors and following the questionnaire drafted by the psychologist. After the group of creators of cartoons who will implement the project is formed, the jury for assessment of artistic-psychological portraits (cartoons) will be formed with participation of teachers of the Fine Arts Department of Vilnius College, the art therapy specialist, the psychologist, and the social worker.

 

During the life time of the project, twice a month the members of the carton creation group will create the artistic-psychological portraits of the visitors of the Day Centre. 8 artistic-psychological portraits of children and teenagers are planned to be created each month. The cartoons will be discussed in groups twice a month emphasizing the psychological features of the cartoons and revealing the psychological portrait of cartoon ‘models’.

 

Discussions between the cartoon authors, the ‘models’ and their friends will be mediated by the psychologist; the participants will express their opinions about the psychological features of the ‘models’ and compare these opinions with the portrait of each ‘model’. The authors and ‘models’ of the most successful and the best presented portraits will be awarded.