What is a trainer?

Trainers support people who wish to develop professionally and personally, both individually and in groups. Training is an experiential and interactive way of learning, where the trainer brings together a group of participants to discover new knowledge together.

What do EFPSA Trainers do?

An EFPSA Trainers’ main responsibility is preparing active EFPSA members for the mandate and supporting them during it, assuring the well-functioning of EFPSA in general and providing a learning environment for active Psychology Students. EFPSA Trainers aim to give high quality, evidence-based trainings and strive to develop their participants also outside the training room. EFPSA trainers deliver trainings to national and local organisations, as well as to outside organisations. For example, in EFPSA we do team-building for teams, in local universities we train on soft skills and in external organizations we participate in events and contribute with our background in psychology.

Important values for EFPSA trainers are Quality, transparency, personal and professional development, change, respect, trust, learning as part of development and mobility of people willing to invest their time and energy into non formal education. There is also respect for the EFPSA values of integrity, organisational proficiency, European integration, diversity and the EFPSA Spirit.

What makes EFPSA Trainers different?

EFPSA Trainers are known in the training world for our background in psychology, our quality trainings and professionalism, as well as our motivation to contribute to the youth population. All EFPSA Trainers are psychology students and, thus, we deliver training sessions with a wide knowledge of how individuals and groups function.

Trainers’ Community

Becoming an EFPSA Trainers also means joining the ever growing EFPSA Community made of trainers with a psychology background from EFPSA’s Member Organisations. Being part of the EFPSA Community. This leads to:

• Becoming an official EFPSA Trainer andand therefore being legitimate to deliver on behalf of EFPSA at its internal events as well as external events of other NGOs’ such as BEST, EMSA, Zero Generation.
• Gaining access to all EFPSA Trainers mailing list and receiving information about trainers’ calls
• Opportunity to actively contribute to the development and professional image of the training system in EFPSA (webpage, blog etc.)
• Opportunity to apply for Training Office and start an adventurous year!
• Opportunity to become a mentor for new Trainer Candidates
• Possibility to order the personalised EFPSA Trainer hoodie and other trainer merchandise
• Joining the network of people with similar values, beliefs and interests to you

The first step to joining the Trainers’ Community is through joining the Pool through either becoming a Train the Trainers Summer School Graduate or applying as an external trainers. Both these have different requirements that need to be fulfilled before joining the Community. For further information please contact our Trainers’ Community Responsible through trainerscommunity@efpsa.org. 

The Training Office

The Training Office is a relatively new part of the EFPSA internal structure. It was founded during the mandate 2010/2011 by Daniel Lukas Rau and Dominika Szymanska based on their prior training experience and collaboration with other NGOs. The need for training in EFPSA became stringent as the organization grew and developed more. The increasing number of member countries, active members, services and products made it harder and harder for people to work together towards a common goal. Trainers aimed at supporting the growing organization by providing training sessions of EFPSA’s mission and vision. In addition, trainers helped teams and individuals be more motivated and efficient in their work for the organization. Nowadays, EFPSA trainers regularly work together with active EFPSA members by ensuring the sustainable development of the organisation.

Mission and Vision:

Development and change are the key elements that define EFPSA as a whole. The mission of the Training Office is to support the personal and professional development of EFPSA active members and the organisation as a whole and psychology students in its member countries. This is done in order to maintain stability in this growing and developing environment of volunteering psychology students.

Vision 1: EFPSA Trainings are recognised and valued inside and outside EFPSA

Mission

• Training Office is seen as a service that every EFPSA team goes to for support
• The trainers in the Trainers Pool are the main EFPSA ’’ambassadors” for external relations, meaning that together with the TO, they create and seek the interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration through the provision of service to different NGOs, institutions and companies
• Enhance the quality of EFPSA Trainings by making them more evidence based and reliable
• Enhancing the professional trainers’ image
• Unite with other European Trainers

Vision 2: Non-formal education becoming part of lifelong learning to create a more skilled and self aware society in Europe

Mission

• Trainings being a bridge between psychology professionals and psychology students
• Meet the training needs of psychology students all over Europe by using non-formal education as a mean for learning and developing on a personal and professional level.
• Encouraging Trainers to share the values of non-formal education in their countries through campaigns, open trainings, National TtTs and Training Offices
• Collaborating with NGOs to raise awareness about NFE, therefore enhancing bottom-up and top-down change

Vision 3: EFPSA Training System supporting the success of EFPSA and its members

Mission

• Support EFPSA’s development by developing quality trainers to prepare active members for the mandate and support them throughout, as well as assuring the well-functioning of EFPSA in general and providing a learning environment for active psychology students.
• Sustainable and professional growth of the EFPSA Training System and community of trainers so as to meet the needs of EFPSA and its psychology student members, to create better skilled psychologists
• Support Trainers on their journey and create opportunities for professional and self developmental growth
• Intergenerational collaboration through support between experienced trainers and new candidates
• Encouraging the creativity, fun and flow of EFPSA Trainers in their trainings
• Create a more active Trainers’ Community through connectedness and a clearer structure

Structure:

• Training Office Coordinator:  To maintain and develop the training system in EFPSA
• External Training Responsible: Creating and facilitating cooperation with other organisations in the training field and raising awareness about trainings on national level
• Internal Training Responsible: Facilitating support, cooperation and communication between the trainers in EFPSA’s Trainers’ Community and the EFPSA Working Community
• Trainers’ Community Responsible: Facilitating cooperation and communication between the trainers in EFPSA’s Trainers’ Community and developing EFPSA’s Training System
• Training Office Team Member: Helping the Responsibles with the tasks

The EFPSA Trainers Pool is an external training body, which is supervised by the Training Office. It consists of official EFPSA Trainers, who deliver trainings during internal EFPSA events on the request of the TO, in Member Organisations and during external events organised in cooperation with student NGO training entities.

Training Events

The Training Office organises different Training Events, with the help of the Organising Committees:

• Train the Trainers Summer School (TtT)
• Train Advanced Trainers (TAT)
• Trainers’ Meeting (TRAM)

training for students

Serving psychology students is one of the core goals of EFPSA. EFPSA Trainers and Trainer Candidates (i.e., TtT graduates) contribute to that goal by delivering training sessions in their National and Local Organizations. Our trainers also travel to other countries to deliver in local and national events.

When a National or a Local Organisation discovers a need (to gain knowledge, skills or attitudes), it can request a training session on a certain topic to reach these goals. The request can go directly to the local trainer or to the Training Office. A trainer can also suggest a topic to the organisation, which mostly happens when the Trainer Candidates are collecting training hours to enter the Trainers Pool. In addition, every fall, EFPSA organises an event called EFPSA Day – a day to promote EFPSA all over Europe. On EFPSA Day, many EFPSA Trainers and Trainer Candidates deliver training sessions for local psychology students at their universities.

A few examples of common training session topics among our trainers: team-building, motivation, time management, public speaking and communication.

External collaboration

What  does “external work” of EFPSA trainers mean? Our external work usually revolves around events where we can deliver with trainers from other NGOs. These events can be either organized by EFPSA or by other such organizations. One of the biggest external events that brings together the most EFPSA trainers is Leadership Summer School, where some of our trainers have coordinated teams of 16 trainers. Also, Youth Trainers Academy, Parkinson Disease Summer School and BEST events are on our precious list of events where EFPSA trainers have delivered. Next to these, another opportunity for EFPSA trainers to meet external trainers is provided by TRAMs. TRAC and TRAM are self-organised events aimed towards trainer’s second education. The topics are all related to training and building skills that trainers need. Anyone who is a trainer can join! They are hosted in local people’s houses. The organizers have to find a space where trainings can be delivered (can be somebody’s home) and to propose a topic and create the agenda. The participants deliver the sessions to each other.

Since the beginning of the Training Office in EFPSA, the TO has had multiple collaborations with other NGOs and their respective Training Offices and delivered in external events of external NGOs like BEST, AIESEC, EMSA, AEGEE, ZeroGeneration and others.

EFPSA trainers are well-known in the European training field and wanted for their professionalism, ethics, their background in psychology and for their wish to contribute to the youth population. Moreover, Training Office has a written collaboration with TiGro Management, the training system of BEST and is in the process of building other written agreements.

Trainers’ Pool

EFPSA Trainers Pool is a selection of trainers whose quality has been evaluated and approved by the Training Office. Only these trainers are qualified to deliver for EFPSA within and outside of the organization under the title of EFPSA Trainer.

The first step in Joining the EFPSA Trainers Pool is to participate at the EFPSA Train the Trainers (TtT) event or an equivalent trainers education (the evaluation of which is subject of the Training Office). After successful graduation from the TtT, you will be asked to deliver 5 hours of training and a documentation containing session outlines, training reports, motivation letter and training portfolio (in English) to the Training Office. You will also have a minimum ammount of meetings to do with your Mentor, and, lastly, you will have an interview.

You will receive feedback on your application and be informed whether or not you have been accepted into the Trainers Pool. Through this you can then deliver in the name of EFPSA, access training calls and be active within our Training Community.