Violence towards LGBTIQ youth is a worrisome problem throughout all European countries, as evidenced both by international statistical reports (FRA, 2020) and scientific research (Woodford, Han, Craig, Lim, & Matney, 2014). The United Nations set international SDGs 4 and 5 to achieve quality education and gender equality, which are very connected in terms of the role of educational institutions.

Preventive and community approaches are the most successful in stopping violence and bullying. Research has made clear that isolated educational actions do not have a long-term impact, but rather changing the community culture towards zero tolerance does. Moreover, focusing attention and action towards aggressors is fruitless, and efforts should be paid on engaging all bystanders (Duque & Teixido, 2016). Last, only using a language of ethics to point right from wrong is counterproductive but including a language of desire that empties of attractiveness violence and inactive bystanders, and gives social value to people who are egalitarian and stand up next to the victims, is very useful (Melgar-Alcantud, 2021). Nonetheless, more evidence is needed in this regard connected to the specific situation of the LGBTI collective.

The Rights, Equality and Citizenship (REC) Programme that funds the two-year Up4Diversity project is focused on the implementation of actions that promote such values. Up4Diversity aims at providing professionals who work with youth in formal and non-formal institutions with the scientific knowledge and skills to stop and prevent violence against LGBTIQ+ youth both in-person and online.

Several goals were established within the European Consortium:

1. To analyse training initiatives to prevent violence against LGBTIQ people in Europe, especially with an upstander and/or social media approach.
2. To create a European network of professionals for the exchange of effective training practises.
3. To develop a set of training materials to promote an upstander approach to respond to violence towards LGBTIQ+.
4. To equip teachers, youth professionals and young people with the skills to become active upstanders in the prevention of violence.
5. To achieve social and political impact.

During year 1 of the project developed several literature reviews of Web of Science and Scopus high-impact evidence on violence against LGBTIQ people and successful interventions with a digital and upstander approach. Growing on the learning acquired, the materials and the training were designed, which consisted of 6 different modules: it takes one step further from only raising awareness on the violence that LGBTI suffer, and offers strategies that have proven successful. Essentially, it covers LGBTIQ+ conceptualisations and European and legal framework; data on LGBTI violence and bullying in-person and digitally; a detailed explanation of the bystander intervention approach; scientific knowledge on the basis of violence and the possibility of preventive socialisation of gender-based violence that includes the whole educational community. All contents include thorough and rigorous references and dialogue-based activities for professionals to deepen on the concepts. Each partner offered their expertise in a team effort to come up with comprehensive and user-friendly learning materials.

 Considering the digital side of violence and bullying, an App prototype was designed that aims at offering youth and professionals, both victims and upstanders, a solidarity network of support, upstander and reporting resources. Apart from this, a network of education professionals was created, as will be explained in the conclusions' section.

In year 2, we have designed and are starting to implement different national training workshops throughout the 5 partner countries. Training will focus on bystander intervention and the dialogic model of conflict prevention and resolution, science-based approaches with demonstrated impact in reducing violence and improving upstander behaviours (Dessel, Goodman & Woodford, 2017; Villarejo et al, 2019).

The Consortium is made of three universities (from Spain, Cyprus and Belgium), a digital youth care center (Denmark), and an LGBTIQ Association (Cyprus). A Communicative approach has been followed (Flecha & Soler, 2014) from the design and beginning of the project. This methodology was selected because it has been validated by the European Commission and has proven successful in other research aimed at preventing gender-based violence (Valls et al., 2016). Since achieving social impact was a main goal for the project (Reale et al., 2017), an impact plan was designed at month 1 with thorough short and long-term indicators of success, and which included a series of data collection instruments to measure them. Next, we explain how this communicative approach has been implemented and we will then describe these techniques. First, an Advisory Committee formed by end-users (LGBTIQ and youth collectives, and teachers and professors) was created at month 3, aimed at validating, through three different meetings, the products and outcomes designed, namely the pedagogical materials and the instruments for data collection. The egalitarian dialogue that takes place in such meetings allows stakeholders to confirm if the research knowledge is relevant, inclusive and grounded in educational transferability, which increases the possibilities of having social impact. Second, the research instruments that we have designed consist of pre and post questionnaires and interviews; both have been validated by the Consortium and the Advisory Committee. On one hand, pre and post questionnaires have been prepared to assess the impact of both the mid-term and the final conference (months 12 and 23), as well as for the national training workshops (months 18-21). They were designed using Google Forms: all but sociodemographic information is voluntary; they are quick to respond (5 minutes) as they only contain a couple of short-answer open questions. Introductory information explains the objectives and the ethical considerations to serve as informed consent. Questions focus on comparing the level of awareness, knowledge and predisposition towards implementing upstander behaviors and strategies. On the other hand, the interviews will be carried out with participants who have engaged in most of the project training actions to deepen on aspects such as how to improve transferability of scientific knowledge to education professionals or reflection on strategies they can implement in their educational institutions.

Up4Diversity is an ongoing project. So far, it has carried out the creation of a network and a mid-term conference with 70 participants and international speakers on LGBTIQ issues (FRA, 2020) and bystander intervention. The Network of education professionals has met three times online to learn and discuss together Bystander Intervention and engage skeptics to stand up, with approximately forty attendants in each Masterclass and from high schools, universities, leisure, youth and LGBTIQ organizations. Preliminary results from the questionnaires responded after the mid-term conference showed an improvement in awareness of violence suffered by LGBTIQ+ youth, as well as in the familiarity with what being an upstander means; moreover, participants felt more prepared and willing to intervene and implement actions than before the conference, and showed more upstander strategies to implement in their educational institution. Including the Network meetings, the Advisory Committee, the two Conferences and the National Training Workshops, the project aims to reach over 300 hundred professionals and adults who work with youth. Results from the training questionnaires and the interviews will be analyzed and included in the ECER presentation. The feedback provided by the participants of the training on the pedagogical materials and the Upstander App prototype elaborated will help create an improved version that will be open-access and available for the European Commission. Youth, education professionals and society need training that is based on scientific evidence of social impact. When such knowledge is given to them the confidence and movement towards action is increased. Community and preventive approaches help to end all violence, including this one aimed against LGBTIQ people (Duque & Teixido, 2016). In the end, the project goal is to create inclusive educational environments where everyone can equally achieve academic and personal excellence while being who they are.

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