Inclusive Paths

About This Project

When a young person starts missing school and withdrawing from friends, the consequences can escalate quickly. Inclusive Paths is designed to change that trajectory by using animal-assisted services to support vulnerable adolescents, strengthening wellbeing, rebuilding connection, and helping participants re-engage with learning and everyday life.  

Inclusive Paths brings together research and needs assessment, a best-practice collection, a training curriculum for youth workers, educators, professionals and volunteers, and a digital resource platform to share methods and tools. Inclusive Paths aims to support vulnerable adolescents, typically aged 11 to 16, who are navigating mental health challenges, social isolation, and disrupted school attendance. 

Project Impact

By the end of the project, Inclusive Paths aims to improve outcomes for vulnerable adolescents, typically aged 11 to 16, by embedding animal-assisted services into youth support and educational practice. It targets a 30% reduction in anxiety, depression, and stress symptoms, a 20% increase in regular school attendance, and a 50% improvement in participation in extracurricular activities. 

The project will strengthen the adults around young people by engaging around 100 to 120 professionals and stakeholders, and involving 8 to 12 adolescents in pilot programmes. 

To extend impact beyond the partnership, Inclusive Paths will deliver a replicable toolkit, a training curriculum, and an open digital resource platform, with the ambition to reach at least 50 organisations across Europe and support around 500 resource downloads. 

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Expected Results

Evidence Base and Needs Assessment Report – A clear picture of what young people and practitioners need, backed by research and stakeholder insights. 

Best Practice Toolkit and Guidelines – Step-by-step guidance and practical resources that organisations can use to deliver animal-assisted services safely and consistently. 

Training Curriculum for Practitioners and Youth-Facing Staff – A ready-to-deliver learning programme that builds staff confidence and competence to support adolescents through animal-assisted services. 

Digital Platform and Dissemination Package – An accessible online hub and promotion set that helps youth organisations find, use, and share the project’s tools across Europe. 

Why we are excited about this project

We are excited about Inclusive Paths because it aligns closely with Momentum Educate + Innovate’s mission as an education and innovation company, rooted in lifelong learning and built through more than 20 years of work across Ireland and Europe.  

The project’s focus on strengthening youth support through animal-assisted services matches our commitment to inclusion, social responsibility, and safeguarding, and it gives us a meaningful opportunity to turn evidence into practical resources that youth workers, educators and wider stakeholders can actually use. 

With Momentum Educate + Innovate’s experience delivering EU projects under Erasmus+ and contributing high-impact dissemination and evaluation work, we are motivated to help ensure the project’s learning travels well beyond the partnership through clear training resources, accessible digital tools, and results that are easy for organisations to adopt. 

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