Icehearts Europe aims to scale up the Finnish Icehearts program in five other European countries, namely Italy, Spain, Denmark, Slovenia, and Estonia. The original Finnish model uses a combination of mentoring with team sports as a tool to provide consistent, long-term, holistic support for vulnerable children. As different sites throughout Europe can vary significantly in their cultural frameworks, socioeconomic conditions, welfare systems, ethnic and language cleavages, specific attention to implementation is needed. The intercountry variation implies that if a program is successful in a certain location, it does not automatically imply that it will be successful somewhere else. Or better, it does not mean that it can be replicated in its original form. To make sure that a country specific best – practice can be successfully scaled-up in other European sites, we have to understand which are the contextual differences between the original site – Finland – and the other implementation. To facilitate this process, Icehearts Europe project gathered and assessed information about the opportunities and barriers in each pilot country to implement the Icehearts model. A Situation Analysis and Needs Assessment (SANA) was conducted in the five pilot countries. The aim of the analysis was to understand the local needs, the factors that put youth at risk, as well as what resources are available, and what interventions are currently being implemented. The situation analysis showed that the sites differ in sizes from large metropolis to small towns and the children and their families have different vulnerabilities but also some common challenges, such as poverty, unemployment or immigrant background. The needs assessment showed that the pilot countries foresaw some challenges in the implementation, for example, resources, recruitment of mentors or access to schools. Some pilots reported to focus more on sports, some pilots more on social inclusion of participating children. In the symposium, a summary of the main findings for the five countries will be provided, stressing what the gap is between the existing situation and what is needed for a successful implementation.

Tonello, S., Jarke, H., Kekkonen, M., Appelqvist – Schmidlechner, K. (2023). Icehearts Europe SANA Report.