We Can Listen To You (LTyou)

I have worked as educator in the public education system in Sobral-CE -a municipality in the Brazilian Northeast- for 19 years, of which: 4 years as a teacher, 4 as a pedagogical coordinator and 12 years as school principal. Despite being in one of the poorest region of Brazil, the city of Sobral-CE is known for having the best national indicators of basic education.

In 2017, I started to manage Escola Netinha Castelo, a lower secondary school having around 1,000 students (aged 11 to 15). School management with so many students was already a big challenge, but I was faced with a more frightening one: cases of self-mutilation, physical violence inside and outside the school, in addition to the depredation of school facilities, drug dealing and gangs disputes. In order to face this problem, I led the team that started the project "We Can Listen To You" (LTyou – henceforth). 

LTyou was brought up as a mental health promotion program for school-age youth. The project is based on a dialectic proposal, in which empathetic listening is practiced. Among its actions, we can highlight that it is designed to teach school professionals how to recognize signs of emotional distress or crisis and that voluntary staff is trained to apply simple tools to assist teenagers in psychological distress. Furthermore, it establishes strategic intersectoral partnerships – with education, social care and health government institutions - in order to support students’ families and encourage them to take specialized care in issues that demand the multiple government areas. It has been run in public schools with good results on diminishing violent action and its further objective is supporting teens in a post-pandemic school regress.

In 2017, I was a newcomer to the Netinha Castelo school and found a worrying picture of school violence that had several facets: verbal, physical, bullying, drug dealing and vandalism resulting in trivialization of hostility in the school environment. Above all, the most serious problem identified by the school team and gave the highest priority was that of self-mutilating adolescents. LTyou was conceived as a mean to combat these problems.

However, it does not remedy violence directly. It was designed to deal with psychological distress across the school community, which is a channel to mitigate violent behavior. At the first moment, LTyou helps to alleviate teenagers’ emotional problems, especially anxiety and depression. In addition, it could help students’ families informing and encouraging them to take support from the adequate social service. Through this process, violent acts are decreased benefiting school community and also extended school community (relatives and neighbors).

With the COVID-19 pandemic, many Brazilians are stressed out with the long-period locked at home and with the health consequences of the disease itself. In consequence, increased psychological disorders are expected and LTyou is being prepared to help out students to overcome that as well.

LTyou can be described as a school-based program aiming to promote and improve mental health to teenagers. We can describe the main projects actions as:

• Lectures on introductory human psychology are given by psychologists to the school community. 

• Volunteers among the school staff do a qualification course, which is characterized by continuous training to improve their skills on listening to the students.

• Listening sessions: time when the trained professionals are available to individually non-judgmentally listen to students and relatives and to give reassurance, orientation and support.

• Speak Up Workshops: when school staff and students sit together and openly talk about their difficulties regarding school violence.

• Curricular readjustment: some traditional lessons are replaced by new activities that aim to empower the students and promote an empathy culture (e.g. peace manifestos in Arts class, racism discussion in History class).

• Alignment and joint work with Sobral’s network for social attention and health care: that includes i) identifying vulnerable students and families lacking of proper support and encouraging them to seek for professional help or entering one of the pre-available social programs; ii) continuous exchange of information and feedbacks enforced by regular meetings and deadlines.

The project has started in only one school (Netinha Castelo) serving 950 students enrolled in lower secondary school in 2017 and 977 in 2018. In 2019, the project expanded to 3 public schools in the municipal system of Sobral (covering a target audience of at least 2,500 teenagers from 11 to 15 years old). In 2021, it is expected that the project can be taken to 4 other schools of Sobral, at least.

Teenagers from participating schools have been heard about the afflictions experienced in their violent communities, where they often live in economically disadvantaged households suffering from weakened family ties. When they find an active listening to their feelings, their anxieties and tensions are relieved, which consequently reduces the psychological and physical violence reflected in themselves and in their relationships. Families are also accompanied and instructed to engage in social attention and health networks when is the case.

Therefore, these actions promote a culture of peace in the schools, which provides a better environment for learning and for youth development, potentially leading to long-term impacts in socioeconomic attainments. Short-term impacts of violence reduction benefit also the extended school community, such as family members and neighbors.

The project is directly related to the aforementioned dimension, as it seeks to objectively raise the participants' understanding of human psychology, provoking them to take others’ perspectives and also to better comprehend their own emotions. This widen participant’s view about the school community’s environment, replacing resignation and inaction feelings by a belief that solidarity and collaboration can lead to improvements on everyone’s lives. The changes of attitude represented by actively listening to each other and empowering teenagers result in less violent and more empathetic behaviors.

In the first semester of 2017, after assuming the direction of Netinha Castelo school and identifying the worrying situation of school violence, especially the occurrences of self-mutilation, I decided to seek for help from the local Family Health Center (FHC). Since then, a joint effort between the school team, the FHC and multi-professional teams of residents in family health and mental health has been established.

It was necessary, therefore, a theoretical-conceptual and methodological deepening for a better development of strategies to solve the problems. There were organizational meetings and workshops devoted to technical and scientific alignment of the entire team, in which the main purpose was creating protocols and developing skills to deal with the complex facets of violence at school and, in particular, with self-provoked violence.

One idea was prevalent among a lot of discussions and analysis from the meetings: young people were lacking for being really heard. Their feelings and emotions had to be comprehended in face of the social and psychic complex problems posed. In this scenario, LTyou was consolidated as a result of the understanding that teenagers needed space where they could talk and be entirely heard, without prejudices, stigmas or judgments.

Due to my entire research and professional trajectory in public education, I believe that education as a predominant factor in transforming and improving people's lives. I see myself faced with the mission of social rescue of children and young people, and have the dream that public schools will become a unit to reduce social and racial inequalities.

Thus, my passion for the project can be explained by two perspectives: The first is the conviction that the program is able to actively and objectively act to alleviate teenagers’ problems in the school environment, contributing to their present welbeing and learning. The second is the expectation of permanent impact on the students’ lives - a feeling shared by the whole staff of the Netinha Castelo school, who, after experiencing the reduction of violent events and the improvement in the relationship between students and teachers. I believe in the multiplier effect of LTyou and that it will cause long-term impacts on the students’ social and human development.

First of all, results have been observed and felt by the school team through the actions of LTyou that reduced the violence in the school environment. Additionally, the growing anxiety and depression triggered by the lockdown period and by the loss of relatives and friends to covid-19 demand support for the teenagers, which schools should provide in the post-pandemic period. These are the critical factors that lead me to believe this project has a unique potential to impact the lives of the beneficiaries directly and indirectly.

In my turn, I am a manager with excellent communication and alignment with the Sobral’s education system, with teams from the Family Health Centers, from the local Medical Schools, as well, as municipal social assistance. In addition to my experience as a school principal, I have been working in the “Educar para Valer” program, in which I have been sharing my experience and supporting the implementation of good educational management practices in other municipalities’ education systems. This makes me prepared for the scaling challenge of LTyou.

Additionally, I am supported and advised by a technical team specialized in social and education economics  (Laboratory of Studies and Research in Social Economics at the University of São Paulo – LEPES-USP in Portuguese Acronym) - which has a permanent office in the city of Sobral and which already monitors and works with the municipal education department and the human rights department. LEPES team is multidisciplinary, formed by psychologists, educators and economists specialized in public policies.

There were some adversities on implementing the project: aligning the agendas of all sectors involved (health, school, social care); making teachers to  engage and parents to come to school. Solving these issues demanded a lot of negotiation and accommodation of demands. Initially, students did not trust the project either. Convincing them required many conversations, in which I explained the program’s motivation and objectives and let them openly express their points. With much persistency, people were increasingly getting convinced to participate.

Nonetheless, the biggest accomplishment of LTyou was to have been transformed the reality at Netinha Castelo school. In a environment where students come from economically disadvantaged families and unsafe neighborhoods, where violence used to prevail and teachers used to fear gang members within the classroom, making things change was definitely the biggest achievement that I have ever led.  The cases of self-mutilation ceased, bullying and violence were reduced and spaces for dialogue and construction took place.

After results were seen, it is easy to convince people to take part in the project. I feel optimistic in the face of scaling challenges and am looking forward to expanding the program to increase support for the youth.

I was a school principal in 3 schools and pedagogical coordinator in 3 others - exercising leadership roles for about 16 years. At Escola Netinha Castelo, I led a team of 75 employees (including teachers) in 2017 and 69 in 2018. When I assumed the school, I found a totally hostile environment. At that time, I determinated to myself: I will give all my energy to change this situation. I led the creation of LTyou involving my school team, students and also members from other institutions that were not even under education department administration.

This was only possible due to active mobilization of the teams, capacity to convince people and to align different backgrounds and interests. The combination of these skills and efforts in favor of the city made my name known by public managers and I was awarded an honor prize by the education department. In recognition of my work, Sobral’s former mayor was the one who invited me to join the “Educar Pra Valer” program, in which I work as a consultant.

The project is innovative in the Brazilian context because of two reasons: i) the perspective in which it treats violence, dealing with it as a result of social and psychological processes that are remediable; ii) the way it organizes joint efforts between different state administrative sectors.

Usually, violent behavior and indiscipline in school are treated with punishment. Students are isolated during intervals or recreational times, suspended of school days and, in more severe and recidivist cases, they can be compulsorily transferred to another school. The rationale behind these actions is to disincentivize teenagers who misbehave, assuming they value school, the company of their colleagues or, at least, their parents’ opinion. This expectancy does not consider the fact that violent teenagers tend to be exactly the ones who have problematic relationships (social or familiar), undervaluing the sanctions imposed. LTyou changes this approach by focusing on the channels that culminate on violent behavior and by approximating instead of departing.

Secondly, Brazilian administrative departments of social care - comprising education, health, human rights and social attention – usually do not integrate their actions. LTyou was built and is run in a joint effort across the state sectors, which feed a supportive network that primarily acts within school but moves beyond it to solve intersectional problems that would refer to the different departments if they had to be classified.

The purpose of the project is to promote mental health for school-age teenagers and it comes to assist problems involving elevated rates of self-harming in the city of Sobral-CE. In addition to this demand, from the pandemic context many psychological issues are foreseen. The expected short-term outcome is that the students can develop the capacity of understanding their own emotions. The expected intermediate-term outcome is to provide that their needs and context can be understood, by active listening of the students and their scholar community; all of this being guided by the school management and partnerships between the health system and social assistance. Thus, teachers that are interested in participating in this project will receive training so they can work intentionally in health promotion and interdisciplinary approaches which collaborate to relationships and self-acceptance improvement. In this way, activities as welcoming moments and yarning circles are promoted in order to guarantee the listening is continuing and contemplate every part. Weekly, psychological and social assistance care take place in the school. If necessary, the young ones are directed to systemized care. The results may affect directly the students involved in it, moreover the scholar community (teachers, parents and school collaborators) may be indirectly affected too. The expected long-term outcomes and the objective of this project are the decrease of violence and self-harm rates, besides the positive transformation of the scholar climate.

The Project currently serves 2,500 young people studying in 4 different schools. The objective is to serve 6,250 students across 10 schools in one year. In five years, we hope to serve 30,000 teenagers throughout Brazilian municipalities. 

Currently, LTyou works as a public program focusing on some schools of the public education system of Sobral, Ceará, Brazil. The budget coming from the Sobral Municipality is limited and is expected to decrease in the post-pandemic scenario in which economic activity and tax revenue were very much affected. There is a risk that the project will not be expanded anymore, exactly in the moment of most need for the teenagers. Another risk is politics. 2020 is the year of political elections in Brazilian municipalities. As the country’s history shows, many good policies are interrupted when governments change. 

Another important barrier to achieve our goals is the application of the program in other municipalities. Other attempts to replicate successful programs are being implemented and we know that the main challenge is to identify the practices that are really effective and apply them elsewhere.

Currently, LTyou works as a public program focusing on some schools of the public education system of Sobral, Ceará, Brazil. The budget coming from the Sobral Municipality is limited and is expected to decrease in the post-pandemic scenario in which economic activity and tax revenue were very much affected. There is a risk that the project will not be expanded anymore, exactly in the moment of most need for the teenagers. Another risk is politics. 2020 is the year of political elections in Brazilian municipalities. As the country’s history shows, many good policies are interrupted when governments change. 

Another important barrier to achieve our goals is the application of the program in other municipalities. Other attempts to replicate successful programs are being implemented and we know that the main challenge is to identify the practices that are really effective and apply them elsewhere.

In order to overcome these barriers, we will insert LTyou in an NGO structure. By being run within an NGO, LTyou will be less dependent on fiscal and political cycles. Furthermore, our articulation is taking care of keeping the project working in any electoral result. 

Besides, one of the main barriers to the application of the program in other municipalities is the transfer of knowledge. I believe that my long professional experience in school and my initiative to develop a program to deal with the difficult issues that I came across allow me to identify the fundamental elements that need to be taken to other municipalities. We know that the school context in other regions will have its specificities and knowing how to identify the fundamental elements is essential for technology transfer.

To take and apply the program in other locations we have been in contact with tenured professionals who have leading positions in Sobral municipality. Also, we are partnering with “LEPES-USP” and “Associação Bem Comum”, organizations that have large experience and long-term social projects in Sobral and other Brazilian municipalities and will support expansion.

Currently, we partner with “LEPES-USP” and “Associção Bem Comum”.

LEPES-USP has been supporting us to improve the program design by evaluating our processes and results. They have been conducting interviews with the program’s leaders and key participants to formulate a comprehensive theory of change and thus analyse the effectiveness of our actions. In addition, they have been conducting a longitudinal survey with Sobral’s lower secondary school students in which they apply psychometric instruments to quantify socioemotional skills and raise information on violence involvement. Through the survey’s data, they will evaluate the benefits of LTyou. At last, they collaborate with us by sharing their experience of working in other municipalities and raising funds.

The “Associação Bem Comum” (ABC)  is the organization in charge of the “Educar para Valer” program for which I work as a consultant. They have large experience in partnering with governments and implementing education policies. ABC’s managers have been encouraging me to expand LTyou over Sobral and beyond. They have been helping me out to contact politicians and public managers that might be interested in LTyou and supporting me in opening and running my own organization. 

Our business model will be that of a private non-profit organization. The organization will aim the development and conduction of projects that seek solutions to social issues of public interest.

Solutions to issues of public interest have the characteristic of producing positive externalities for the whole of society, but as such, they lack financial resources. Among the immeasurable positive externalities that this program generates for society, we can mention that of contributing to the training of young people better prepared to face recurrent issues in a country still in development, such as violence and crime.

As a challenge for any NGO, the organization will seek resources through partnerships with the public initiative and other private initiatives that are interested in applying the program in other Brazilian municipalities. Unfortunately, the worrying reality found in schools in Sobral is no exception in the Brazilian school context. Even in municipalities in the wealthiest regions of Brazil, such as the South and Southeast, the scenario of self-mutilation, physical violence inside and outside the school, in addition to the depredation of school facilities, drug dealing and gangs’ disputes have been increasingly frequent.

The objective is to not depend on public funding anymore and, with this objective, we are seeking for funding, including the Ellevate Prize. If successful, we will have the necessary budget to the program’s sustainability and expansion.

Currently, civil servants hold the duties they had before LTyou and the responsibilities that they assumed at the program in addition. For the program expansion, hiring professionals is demanded. We plan to hire psychologists, case-workers, supervisors and coordinators that can dedicate themselves to the program. Additionally, we plan to provide schools with  a budget devoted to covering LTyou expenses.

Moreover, we have to structure ourselves as a non-profit operative organization, which requires renting a space, paying administrative and taxation costs.

Finally, we need money to finance the process evaluation of the program, which will help us to improve our design in a first phase of the expansion, and the impact evaluation, which will identify the effects of the program  and support further growth of our organization.

We have estimated our costs considering  an expansion plan for 10 schools in 1 year, 50 schools in 3 year and 75 schools in 5 years.  Sobral’s schools would be all covered after the first three years and next we would go to other cities. Our estimated annual cost is US$341,000 for the first year and a progressively rise, amounting to $2,415,000 in the fifth year. The total estimated costs are $5,705,300 to cover the whole expansion desired in a 5-year interval.

Despite the very uncertain moment in which we are living due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our estimated cost for 2020 is to continue the project in the four schools that it has been implemented. The school calendar in Brazil has been seriously affected by the pandemic and there is a possibility that classes starting in August and until December will be offered in a fluid way, in which students take turns in small groups to go to school a few days a week while their peers do activities at home.

The cost per school for the month is $ 1,400 with a psychologist and $ 625 with a budget that covers printing materials, making meetings, training and others. A superintendent is paid  $ 2,500 a month and is responsible to assist the four schools group in the program, attending daily demands. The general coordinator of LTyou receives $ 6,000/month and the deputy coordinator $ 5,000. The office rent, materials and general expenses cost $ 2,000/month. The monthly cost of the program is currently $ 17,525, which amounts to $ 87,625 within the five remaining months of the schools’ calendar.

As I had previously mentioned, we are seeking to financial sustainability to guarantee our actions and expansion irrespective of economical and political cycles. This is the main reason why we - as LTyou team - are applying to The Elevate Prize and other opportunities.

Specifically, applying to The Elevate has advantages over other opportunities because our project is aligned with its purpose of igniting a chain reaction of goodness across the world. We are seeking to take a experience that showed its potential to change lives to other vulnerable realities.

Moreover, we are in a period of expansion in which we can not depend on state structure anymore. The Elevate offers of professional development and networking suit perfectly the moment in which our social project is now. We need support to grow, consolidate ourselves as a social organization in administrative, managerial and marketing dimensions. The opportunity to be mentored by people who have been where we are today and advised by people who have an extensive view of social initiatives across the world would be an unique opportunity to leverage our project to levels that we could never dream of at our very beginning.