IRTS together with his partners states that numerous social workers are disoriented and insufficiently skilled to deal with the increasing phenomenon of violent radicalization among the vulnerable groups that they support day to day. The IRTS is willing to invest in order to provide innovative answers to this challenge.

IRTS Hauts de France has been recently leading the design and launch of a new free training course dedicated to social workers entitled "secularism and religious facts". This initiative is part of wider multi partner platform (What the Fake ) dedicated to foster critical thinking toward medias, fakes and prevention of violent radicalization. 

In line with its international strategy, IRTS aims today at enhancing this dynamic through the development of a dedicated European cooperation that could help developing innovative tools and approaches and upscaling existing practices.

More specifically, this project should focus on following challenges
A.    How can we improve the capacities and competences of social workers in supporting vulnerable groups (adults, young) in managing coexistence between freedom of conscience, religion and respect for European democratic framework?
B.    How can we increase among youngsters their capacity in having a critical thinking toward plot theories, dangers and risks of recruitment into criminal networks, most especially on Internet and social medias? 
C.    How can we foster the establishment of reflection areas dedicated to debating and discussing on those issues, especially regarding the challenges that cross the Islamic field – through the association between Muslims and non-Muslims citizens – in order to promote legitimacy  consultation spaces that foster compatibility of religion with democratic frame

The specific objectives of such a strategic partnership could be:
1.    Sharing best practices in terms of training of social workers on issues of secularism and religious management, considering the diversity of national frameworks
2.    Developing common understanding of issues related to the management of religion in the practice of social workers
3.    Designing, experimenting and evaluating innovative training and support materials especially through blended learning and e-learning opportunities (MOOC)
4.    Designing and experimenting original devices/programmes dedicated to fostering debate and dialogue that could be delivered through meetings, study visits and seminars, ensuring wide dissemination of these actions