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Pressley Ridge Hungary
- Pressley Ridge Magyarország Foundation
Pressley Ridge has had a presence in Hungary since 2003. Our work in Hungary has contributed to the improvement of services and programs for troubled and troubling children, youth, and their families. We provide training and consultation to various government and non-government agencies and facilitate program development.
Initially, our work focused on disseminating information about Pressley Ridge and conducting a market analysis to determine the services needed in the region. The office in Budapest opened in the summer of 2005. This office is the hub of Pressley Ridge’s Central and Eastern European Operations.
On June 15, 2006 the Court of Budapest registered Pressley Ridge as a legal Hungarian entity: the Pressley Ridge Magyarország Foundation.
Click here to read a summary of our 2006 activities
-Current Activities
Pressley Ridge is currently focusing on four areas in Hungary: educational services, experiential education, empowerment, and training and consultation.
Educational Services
Our foundation has partnered with three agencies to implement and pilot the Pressley Ridge model in educational settings. We are working with the Ferencváros District Government and Kornis Klara Children’s Home and Vocational School in Budapest, and Bona Kovacs Karoly Primary School and Children’s Home in Salgótarján
Experiential Education
An exciting area of development for Pressley Ridge Magyarország Foundation is our growing role in regional experiential education programming. This active format of learning and counseling is relatively new to the Central European region, but Pressley Ridge brings to Hungary a long history of educational and therapeutic experiential programming with children
Highlights:
- In Ferencváros, the model has been implmented sucessfully for three years with middle-school students
- Bona Kovacs Karoly Primary School and the Children’s Home are in their second year of implementation. Bona Kovacs uses the model in grades five through eight, and the Children’s Home uses the model with all students.
- Kornis Klara Vocational School initially implemented a behavior management system with first-year high school students and is now using the model with all groups.
After piloting the model in the three agencies, we are now in the process of developing a full model description that is adapted to the Hungarian educational system. The full model description will be completed in the summer of 2008.
Experiential Education
An exciting area of development for the Pressley Ridge Magyarország Foundation is our growing role as leaders in experiential education programming. This active format of learning and counseling is relatively new to the Central European region, but Pressley Ridge brings to Hungary a long history of educational and therapeutic experiential programming with children.
Highlights
- In 2006 and 2007, we designed and piloted an experiential learning curriculum at the Kornis Klara Vocational School. This year-long program uses adventure and problem-solving activities with late adolescents to target individual and group development goals.
- We are in the final stages of writing a book about experiential education. Our book, Experiential Facilitation: A Handbook, will be published in the summer of 2008 in Hungary and Portugal. This book is part of our experiential training program, and a much needed resource for other schools in the region that are interested in using experiential education with children and youth.
- We have held experiential professional development and team-building experiences with a number of schools and non-profit organizations in the region.
Empowerment
Pressley Ridge is strongly committed to working regionally to find ways to reduce the social exclusion of the Roma population in Eastern Europe. In conjunction with The Open Society Institute’s Roma Cultural Participation Project, we developed the Roma Mentorship Project and trained Roma mentors to work with Roma youth. After evaluating the year-long cooperation of the mentors and school groups, we are now introducing the program in three South Eastern European countries.
The Roma Leadership Project is a community-based, experiential youth development initiative for high-risk Roma youth in Hungary. In designing and implementing this program, Pressley Ridge has partnered with the National Indian Youth Leadership Project to replicate key components of their Project Venture programs. Originally designed for American Indian youth, the program has been successfully replicated in over 70 urban and rural settings with Hispanic/Latino, Native Alaskan, and Native Hawaiian populations.
Training and Consultation
Pressley Ridge Magyarország Foundation offers training and consultation to organizations that want to improve their services, interventions, and practices in working with troubled and troubling children and youth and their families.
We specialize in techniques and interventions for at-risk populations in educational, residential, and community-based settings. In addition, we offer training and consultation in experiential education, working in multicultural settings, and management, as well as team-building services.
Partners
- Bona Kovacs Karoly Primary School and Children’s Home, Salgótarján.
- Ferencvaros District Government, Budapest.
- Ferencvaros Primary and Vocational School, Budapest.
- Kornis Klara Children’s Home and Vocational School, Budapest.
- National Indian Youth Leadership Project, Gallup, New Mexico.
- Roma Cultural Participation Project, Arts and Culture Network Program, Open Society Institute, Budapest.
Contact
1133 Budapest
Thurzó u. 9/b. II. em. 3.
Tel/fax: 1 785 4242
E-mail: kfabian@pressleyridge.org
Staff
Andrea Gruber
Director of Central and East European Operations
Matthew Liddle
Program Coordinator
Katalin Fabian
Administrative Assistant