Our community-based programs served nearly 320 children and 187 families throughout Portugal and delivered 225 hours of training for more than 350 professionals coming from Governmental Organizations and other institutions.

• The first Pressley Ridge Office in Europe is now open and providing services to children and youth helping them develop their personal, social and emotional skills to achieve success in their lives. The City Hall of Amadora provided the space to build the Casal da Mira office.
• A 3 year grant from the EDP Foundation will allow Pressley Ridge Portugal to start a new community-based program named Roldana in Amadora and Porto. From 2011 until 2014 Pressley Ridge will respond to the needs of youth with emotional and/or behavioral problems and promote independence through family preservation and therapeutic groups (for mothers).
• Pressley Ridge was awarded the contract to be the operating NGO (non-governmental organization) in Casal da Mira until 2014 for the Local Contract for Social Development, a European Union funding locally managed by the Aga Khan Foundation. This contract is focused on a community-based project involving all the local NGOs and inhabitants to work together in empowering people to achieve better life quality standards.
• Pressley Ridge’s primary responsibility will be the family intervention field which includes: supporting and promoting the emergence/consolidation of local responses to support family life through family preservation and different activities for families.
• After delivering a Response Ability Pathways or RAP Program at a school located in the south of Portugal, Pressley Ridge initiated a school-based program – COM_PASSO – for developing social and emotional skills with 10 troubled students while delivering supervision services to their teachers at the same time.
• Pressley Ridge is the executing agency of a social entrepreneurship program – Marie’s Project. Funded by the EDP Foundation, this social business is an innovative and financially self-sustainable model. Its goal is to generate employment for women who live in poorer communities with housekeeping experience, while helping them reach their independence.
• Pressley Ridge continues to consolidate its community-based services in the municipality of Amadora by delivering social skills programs for at-risk kids and youth. The goal of these programs is to provide a healthy choice to risky behaviors such as drug addiction, bullying and hopelessness about the future:
  • PAR@KI is a program designed to intervene with 28 at-risk Roma kids, with ages between 11 and 16 years old, living in Zambujal Neighborhood
  • M.A.P. is the successor Feet to Walk Program and it has served 36 vulnerable children and youth, with ages between 10 and 16 years old, living in Damaia Neighborhood.
• Since March 2010 Pressley Ridge has served 189 children in a social skills school-based program in Alcácer do Sal Primary Schools – M.E.T.A. – focused on promoting social adjustment and preventing school dropout, bullying and hopelessness about the future. It promotes skills and behaviors that are critical for emotional stability, psychological well-being and mental health prevention.

More Information

To learn more about Pressley Ridge Portugal, click here.