The PJJ

It can be complex for educational staff to address directly with adolescents certain themes such as secularism, discrimination, differences in general, whether related to religion, cultural affiliation, sexual orientation ...

Beyond the simple informal discussion between an educator and a teenager, which is also part of the daily educational work, the question is how to integrate in professional practices the construction of a full-fledged citizenship among minors ? How to create a sufficiently secure space so that the young person can both express what he is but also integrate what is the other, in its difference ?

From this observation of the need for supports that represent for the educational staff a means, a pretext to promote the living-together came the desire to work with Mr Bidault and to be able to apprehend the educational tool which he created to know the game "Feelings". The entrance through the emotions offered by this medium of mediation seemed to us particularly relevant to work the question of living together with minors supported by the PJJ. Is not the 1st level of citizenship first of all to know each other and get to know each other ?

To respond to what Marcel Gauchet calls the 21st century injunction : "Be an individual", an injunction which, diverted from its meaning, leads some on the path of radicalization, must not the adolescent start from what ’he feels ? The ability to understand each other’s emotions is one of the foundations of living together.

As with any object of mediation, success is in what we do with it, from where we bring things. The positioning of the adult was therefore essential to work before professionals can seize the game in their practice.

It was therefore one of the challenges of the trainings that took place for the professionals of the inter-region. Through the presentation of clinical vignettes, Mr Bidault showed how the adult could be in an educational position while disengaging and allowing adolescents to talk about their problems without being imposed.

The second challenge of the training was to adapt the tool to the reality of the field as experienced by professionals. A training session was therefore devoted to the creation by the participants of the situations on which the young people will be able to talk about their emotions. The themes that professionals wanted to include on the cards were : discrimination, violence, addictions, sexuality.

Aurore.Benkhaled@justice.fr