The material for the video that you have just watched is the result of two cases studies undertaken using the ABA method in Slovenia. These were the NasViz and the CONA Fužine projects.

A 19-month project called NasVIZ was conducted in Slovenia in 2015. The central aim of the project was tackling peer violence in the broadest possible way and addressing these problems from a sociological, cultural and pedagogical standpoint. The project was launched as an idea presented by a head of a primary school counselling service.  It was set up as a comprehensive project, which first conducts an inquiry into individual problems and then produces as many solutions as possible (from including the subject of peer violence in the curriculum to a number of extra-curricular activities). The core team comprised the originators of the projects, who also took on the role of project coordinators. Other key members included teachers from residential institutions. The team organised activities, such as Scouts, improvisation theatre, etc. The NasVIZ project used the assets of the local community and the social capital of its key members. For instance, they cooperated a local group of Scout guides, who participated as tutors. They were teaching youngsters certain scout skills and organised camping trips to discuss and reflect on some key issues with the children. The team also relied on personal acquaintances working in NGOs specialised in violence prevention, who gave presentations on peaceful conflict resolution techniques.

Since the majority of the team members were working both on the project as well as in their regular job, this meant that a substantial share of their spare time was devoted to the project. Some of the team members were assigned to the project, which meant that they had not chosen to devote their spare time to the project. Many participants, who were included in the project, were primary school and residential facility pupils, who typically have minor behavioural, emotional and learning difficulties. Therefore, the work required by the project could be difficult. The project leaders had to manage the project, which involved coordinating project activities, motivating team members, encouraging the cooperation of and between participants and conducting administrative tasks required to meet the project reporting obligations. 

On the other hand, the CONA Fužine project is a continuous project aimed at providing children with a safe and stimulating place to be. It is a type of day centre, where children can meet and perform a variety of activities or just do their homework with the help of the CONA Fužine employees. While employees working on the project are employed in different Slovene social work centres and thus paid out of the Slovenian State budget, the funding for CONA Fužine and its activities is obtained by competing in public tenders. In this regard, the CONA Fužine is faced with the question of sustainability on an annual basis, as it must obtain funding to cover the costs of its existence and activities every year. Furthermore, since the visitors of the CONA are often young people with unresolved problems this requires the employees to have certain skills and a lot of motivation to deal with day-to-day issues that arise from working with such youth. While schools do provide these practitioners with certain know-how and skill sets, the most valuable lessons are learned by performing practical work. The managers of the team(s) and the CONA Fužine centre are, therefore, the ones tasked with dealing with the issues of adequate team management or, in other words, with making sure that they do not burn out or lose their motivation. At the same time, they must complete all administrative obligations, and compete in tenders, etc.

In sum, the research revealed the following findings related to team management and administrative workload: the ABA projects that are funded through public tenders are required to report extensively on the conducted activities, finances, evaluation, timesheet submissions, not to mention the compilation of demanding tender applications, etc. In terms of team management, it was observed that certain managerial and leadership skills were required to run ABA projects, since the ABAs can be innovative but are often based on voluntary work. For instance, if team members [TMs] are volunteers working on a certain ABA project, the main problem is how to distribute individual tasks according to TMs’ capacities. In contrast, if TMs are part volunteers part assigned personnel, who do not see an ABA project as a useful endeavour, but were allocated to the team because their superiors wanted to express support for the ABA project (or their superiors just needed to avoid “to do something” because of their own superiors and decided to allocate the task to those on the lower step of the hierarchical ladder). In such cases, tensions in the ABA team may arise, particularly if the “allocated TMs” do not perform their task and other TMs are thus required to “step in”. While this increases the workload disproportionately, it also effects the motivation of the team. Motivation usually withers away or sways from time to time in any case, and it is the leader’s job to make sure that this happens as little as possible and, when it does, to remedy the situation. It was also observed that the core of the ABA teams was comprised of a relatively small number of people. They come up with ideas for applying the ABA and are therefore often expected to lead and manage the work on the ABA project. This expectation often comes true, which in turn raises two key questions: (1) do these innovative and highly motivated people have the necessary skillset, know-how and time to implement the ideas (the ABA project)? and (2) when ideas are being implemented, do they have the necessary skillset, know-how and time to lead and manage a team implementing them? These two questions point to a potential problem. The majority of the ABA projects affects the social strata of society and the human resources involved in such projects often have a social science, medical, psychological or similar background. They obtained their knowledge at education institutions, which teach social relations, but seem to focus insufficiently on issues related to leadership and the management of people (which is in a way understandable, as the majority of them will not hold the positions of leaders and managers). While it was discovered that those leading and managing the ABA projects do so effectively and use the aforementioned skills in the field of interpersonal relations, psychology and sociology, which they usually obtained during the course of their education, they can also learn the necessary skills by themselves or possess a natural skill (which is often the case). Nevertheless, they do recognise the benefit of obtaining additional knowledge either at higher education institutions or via online courses.