A bridge is not built from strength alone. It exists through a dynamic relationship between foundations, materials, tension, movement, and balance. It is a structure that allows two different shores to remain connected while honouring the distance between them. The Bridge: The Art of Crossing is a 6-day Erasmus+ training course that takes this image as a living metaphor for connection, relationality, and support, and turns it into an embodied practice of relating to ourselves, to others, to communities, and to the more-than-human world.

Inspired by somatics, ecopsychology and systemic approaches, this training explores the bridge as an archetype of acceptance, of saying yes rather than withdrawing, separating, and saying no. When we cross a bridge to an unknown land, we open up to otherness. A bridge cannot be forced; it must be made with love, or its structure will not withstand the inevitable weather of life.

🌉 About This Training

The training invites participants to explore their own relational patterns and ways of creating connection. Through movement, sensory awareness, nature-based practices, systemic work, creative processes, and group experiences, we will investigate the invisible architecture of relating.

Together, we will explore the symbolic wisdom of the bridge and what it teaches us about connection, transition, and meeting across differences. The bridge reminds us that crossing is not only about reaching another shore; it is about how we travel through the space in-between. It teaches us to stay present while moving through uncertainty, to trust support without losing our own ground, and to remain open to growth that happens through encounter.

The art of crossing is the ability to move between inner and outer worlds, between self and other, between what is familiar and what is not yet known. It invites us to cultivate balance, listening, flexibility, and relational presence, so that bridges can become living pathways of connection, belonging, and mutual transformation, both in personal life and in work with young people and communities.

🌱 Strong Foundations and Flexibility

A bridge needs strong foundations. In the same way, our capacity to connect with others is rooted in our relationship with ourselves. We will explore the embodied resources that support us in meeting others: grounding, boundaries, listening, vulnerability, curiosity, and the ability to stay present with uncertainty.

A bridge also needs flexibility. It must respond to movement, weather, and changing conditions. Relationality requires the same adaptability, the ability to listen, to adjust, and to remain open to what emerges in the encounter.

Through this training, we will explore how our own embodied presence influences the relationships we create. How do we approach young people? From where do we meet them? Are we building bridges that allow them to cross towards themselves and others, or are we unconsciously asking them to cross towards us? The bridge is not built from one side only; it is created through encounter.

🕸️ Fascia: Stability Through Relationship

A bridge does not stand because every part is rigid and independent. It stands because every element is in relationship with the others. It emerges through a dynamic relationship of support, tension, responsiveness, and balance.

In this way, the bridge reflects the wisdom of the fascial system, a living, connective tissue network that continuously senses, adapts, and reorganises in relationship with the whole body. Fascia reminds us that stability does not come from rigidity, but from the capacity to move, adjust, and distribute forces through connection.

From a somatic psychology perspective, our inner bridges are also built through relationship, through the ways we experience support, safety, boundaries, and contact. Our bodies are constantly negotiating between holding and letting go, protection and openness, autonomy and connection. Like a bridge, our nervous system learns resilience not by avoiding tension, but by developing the capacity to stay present within it.

🤝 How This Connects to Youth Work and Facilitation

As youth workers, we are constantly building bridges. Every interaction with young people is a crossing between different realities, experiences, histories, and worlds. We meet young people at their own shores, their questions, struggles, dreams, and potentials, and we are invited to create spaces where connection becomes possible.

Building a bridge requires humility. We can never fully know the landscape on the other side. Young people today are growing up with different experiences, technologies, social realities, and cultural influences than the ones that shaped us. The role of a youth worker is therefore not to build a bridge that leads young people towards our own shore, but to create a pathway of meeting. It requires curiosity, listening, and the willingness to approach each young person's reality without assumptions.

📍 Staying in Slovenia and drawn to hands-on work with young people? This longer placement sits right in that world: ESC Volunteering in 🇸🇮 Slovenia ⚡ Spark Change at a Youth Centre with Children, Mental Health Support and Multimedia 🎨 → https://youthworkshub.org/20048

🧠 How This Connects to Mental Health

From a somatic psychology perspective, mental health is not only located in our thoughts and emotions, but in the ongoing relationship between our body, nervous system, environment, and relationships. Our capacity for wellbeing emerges from the ability to stay connected to our sensations, emotions, needs, boundaries, and to the people and environments we are part of.

In somatic psychology, healing is not understood as removing difficult experiences, but as creating new possibilities for relationship with them. Through embodied awareness, we learn to listen to the wisdom of the body, recognise patterns of protection, and develop greater capacity to stay present with our experiences. Like a bridge that needs both stability and flexibility, our nervous system needs both grounding and adaptability in order to navigate change.

🧭 Methodology

The training works through somatics, ecopsychology, systemic approaches, and dance improvisation.

🌀 Somatic practices focus on increasing awareness of bodily sensations, movements, and patterns, seeing the body as a source of information and insight. By noticing how we feel, move, and respond in the moment, participants explore their physical, emotional, and relational states, supporting presence, self-regulation, and resilience.

🔗 Systemic work explores the individual as part of larger relational systems shaped by family, social, cultural, and collective contexts. Through constellation-inspired exercises and embodied exploration, participants bring hidden dynamics, connections, and perspectives into awareness, opening new ways of relating, responding, and creating connection.

🌙 Imagination and imaginal work engage the symbolic and creative dimensions of experience, exploring images, metaphors, dreams, and inner landscapes as sources of meaning and transformation.

🌍 Ecopsychology explores the relationship between humans and the natural world, emphasising that our wellbeing is interconnected with the health of the environment. Participants engage with nature as a reflective and relational mirror, exploring transitions, boundaries, and inner states while growing ecological awareness, interconnection, and responsibility.

🎯 Objectives

Personal exploration and sensory awareness

🌱 Develop awareness of bodily sensations, emotions, movement patterns, and internal states as sources of information and insight

🌉 Explore personal ways of building inner bridges between thoughts, emotions, sensations, and experiences, developing greater capacity for presence, self-regulation, and resilience

🔍 Investigate personal patterns of connection, protection, and adaptation, exploring how the body responds when crossing inner and outer transitions

Interpersonal and group connection

🤝 Explore relational dynamics through somatic practices, movement, voice, and systemic exercises, developing awareness of contact, boundaries, trust, and mutual support

🌐 Understand connection as a process of building bridges between different realities, perspectives, and experiences, while cultivating curiosity, empathy, and openness

🫂 Develop skills for creating inclusive and supportive spaces where diverse experiences can meet, especially in youth work and group facilitation

Professional and facilitation practices

🧩 Explore how somatics, ecopsychology, systemic approaches, and creative practices can be integrated into youth work, education, and community-based activities

🌉 Experiment with becoming a bridge-builder as a facilitator, creating spaces where dialogue, belonging, resilience, and collective learning can emerge

👥 Who Should Join

The course welcomes participants from diverse professional backgrounds who are curious about integrating somatics, movement, and ecopsychology into youth work and facilitation, creating spaces where transitions, uncertainty, and diversity can be navigated safely and creatively.

🎂 Open to youth workers aged 18 and over

🗣️ A communicative level of English is needed to take part fully in the programme

🌍 Curious about relational, embodied and nature-based approaches to connection

🤝 Ready to bring the methodology into wider practice through a follow-up outcome afterwards

📌 Commitment to Outcomes

As part of the Erasmus+ training, participants are expected not only to engage in the 6-day learning process but also to create and share an outcome afterwards, bringing the methodology into wider practice and visibility. This outcome can take the form that best suits each participant's context and skills, for example:

🛠️ Designing and facilitating a workshop in their local community or organisation

✍️ Writing and publishing a reflective article, blog post, or report that shares insights from the training

🎬 Producing a short video or creative piece that communicates key learnings

💡 Developing other innovative artistic, educational, or digital formats to disseminate the experience

By committing to this follow-up, participants ensure the training becomes a shared resource for their communities and professional practice, creating ripple effects in youth work, cultural practice, and local communities.

⚠️ Important to Know Before Applying

This training is not a psychotherapy training and does not qualify participants to provide psychological treatment. Instead, it offers an experiential, non-formal education process rooted in ecopsychology, somatics, and movement, focused on experience-based learning that supports both facilitation skills and personal awareness in non-clinical settings.

🧘 The training is open to all experience levels, but being open and interested in investigating this approach is essential

💪 Prepare for an intensive experience with at least 6 hours of physical activities every day

🤲 The work centres around somatic movement, somatics, and contact improvisation principles, so participants must be comfortable with giving and receiving touch as a means of learning

📆 Dates and Location

The training course runs from 2 November 2026 (arrival) to 9 November 2026 (departure) in Slovenia.

🌍 Eligible Countries

🇮🇹 Italy, 🇷🇴 Romania, 🇸🇮 Slovenia, 🇫🇷 France, 🇪🇸 Spain, 🇭🇺 Hungary, 🇸🇰 Slovakia

Participants are expected to be nominated or supported by their sending partner organisation in each country, so the learning experience stays connected to their professional context and local communities.

💶 Funding and Travel

This training course is funded through the Erasmus+ Programme. Travel costs are reimbursed up to a specific maximum amount, based on the distance from each partner's location to the venue:

✈️ Slovenia: €28 (€56 for green travel)

✈️ Italy: €211 (€285 for green travel)

✈️ Spain, Romania, Slovakia, France, Germany, Hungary: €309 (€417 for green travel)

Accommodation, meals, and the training programme are covered as part of the Erasmus+ grant.

🌍 If you like the idea of an Erasmus+ course that pushes you to build something concrete, this one leans into sustainability and hands-on skills: Erasmus+ Training Course in 🇵🇹 Portugal 🏡 Bioconstruction and Sustainable Building for Rural Regeneration 🌍 → https://youthworkshub.org/20693

📩 How to Apply

Read the info page carefully and complete the online application form in full. Your application helps the team learn more about your background, motivation, and expectations, and is required to be considered for participation. Selection results will be published on 12 September 2026, and all applicants (selected, waiting list, or not selected) will be informed by email.

⏰ Deadline

1 September 2026 (12:00).

🔗 Links

📄 Infopack: https://www.moave.si/thebridge

📝 Application form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdbswlN1NpDF1kwS7HWMQ-0c6-bqp0W6MCX1BIO0Ls_kVp6Mg/viewform

⚠️ Important Notice

Youth Works Hub is not the organiser, partner, or representative of the listed projects. This listing is shared for information only, based on details from the source. Deadlines, eligible countries, dates, and other details may change or be withdrawn at any time, and all funding, reimbursements, and allowances are set by the project coordinator or National Agency. Applications go directly to the coordinator or hosting organisation through the official link. Listings may include third-party links (ESC Portal, infopacks, forms) that Youth Works Hub does not control. Always verify the details on the official project page before applying.