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About us

Centre Sirius is a centre for psychological counseling, educational training and research. It was founded on 27 July 2006 with the goal of promoting, implementing and advancing psychological and psychosocial assistance and support in order to prevent risky behaviour and improve quality of life for individuals, families, groups and society at large.

The Centre provides counselling and education to children, youth, adults, families and organisations faced with everyday problems and to improve their quality of life. Moreover, the Centre organises expert seminars, lectures, courses and workshops.

The Sirius Centre comprises of a team of experts from the field of psychology who work closely with psychiatrists, social educators, speech therapists, social workers and art educators. Business experts run programs for establishing entrepreneurships.

VISION (Why we exist)

Establishing a credible organisation, which will facilitate development of a humane society in a way that all of its members recognise and develop their working and professional potential, thus actively contributing to the overall good of the community.

MISSION (How we operate – achieve our goal)

By developing psycho-social and educational support and assistance for all members of society with special emphasis on children and youth through organising and running educational training, counselling and research.

VALUES AND PRINCIPLES OF FUNCTIONING

  • Professionalism and Ethics
  • Working with clients has to be performed in a responsible and expert manner in accordance with ethical and professional standards when offering services. We base our work on high ethical and legal standards.
  • Accepting differences
  • Differences should be treasured and seen as a precondition for building a humane and democratic society.
  • Humanity and human rights
  • Through interaction of differences we develop new forms of functioning based on equality of dignity and rights for all members of society.
  • Open collaboration with others.
  • Building a humane society and nurturing values on which it is founded is only possible if we all work towards that goal.

Our services

Our services

PROJECTS

During the implementation of our activities, we cooperate with numerous non-profit organizations, educational institutions and faculties, social welfare and health care institutions and local authorities all over Croatia and Europe.

Since 2010, we have implemented the quality assurance system for non-profit organizations.

We carry out our projects in co-operation and partnership with over 50 national and 20 international Primary and Highs Scools, Student & Children Homes, Social Welfare Centers, Employment Services, Universities and Civil Society organizations. List of our partners.

 

Our most significant projects:

PROGRAM – DEVELOPMENT AND IMPROVEMENT OF FOSTER CARE SERVICES

FROM 2010 –

The main goal of the program is: Promotion and protection of children's rights in foster families

Specific objectives:

  1. Develop and improve community services to support foster families
  2. Providing support to foster parents to adequately deal with specific problems of foster care
  3. Providing support to professional staff of social welfare institutions working in the field of foster care

Funded by: Ministry of Labor, Pension System, Family and Social Policy

 

PROGRAM – CENTRE IN LIPIK

MAR. 2020 – MAR. 2023

The general goal of the program: development and improvement of social services intended for family members at risk and children and youth without adequate parental care.

Specific objectives:

  1. Strengthening the professional capacity of employees of social welfare institutions to work with families at risk and children and young people without adequate parental care
  2. Providing professional support during work to employees of the Center for Community Services
  3. Development of new and innovative services for children and young people from at-risk families and those without adequate parental care

Funded by: Ministry of Labor, Pension System, Family and Social Policy

 

PROGRAM – PSYCHOLOGICAL HELP FOR ONCOLOGICAL PATIENTS

FROM 2016 –

The goal of the program is to improve and preserve the health of people suffering from malignant diseases and their family members by providing the necessary psychosocial help and support.

Specific objectives:

  1. Prevention and early recognition of psychological distress and preservation of mental health and improving the quality of life of patients
  2. Successful adaptation of family members to life changes caused by the underlying, malignant disease of a family member

Funded by: Ministry of Health

 

PROGRAM – HEALTHY GROWING UP

FROM 2007 –

The general goal of the program: suppression and prevention of the occurrence and development of addictive behaviors in children and youth.

Specific objectives:

  1. Improve parenting competencies in order to achieve a positive family atmosphere for upbringing
  2. Development and improvement of social and emotional competence in children and youth
  3. Strengthen the capacity of school teachers' councils to build a school environment that prevents and reduces the occurrence of unacceptable behaviors among students

Funded by: Ministry of Health, Government Office for Combating Drugs, City of Zagreb

 

STOP BULLYING

FROM 2013 –

The overall goal of the project is to prevent the occurrence of unacceptable forms of behavior among children and to mitigate its consequences.

The specific objectives of the project are:

  1. Improve children's social skills, raise awareness of the problem of violence, encourage empathy and tolerance, and offer effective ways to deal with violence and non-violent ways of resolving conflict
  2. Introduce parents to the problem of violence among children, offer them effective ways to prevent and cope with violence and teach them non-violent methods of raising children
  3. Provide individual counseling support to children who have experienced violence, either as victims or as bullies, and their parents
  4. Increase the capacity of partner schools and teachers' councils in preventing unacceptable forms of behavior among children

Funded by: Central State Office for Demography and Youth & Ministry of Science and Education

 

HAPPY PARENT FOR A HAPPY CHILD

FROM 2008 –

The main goal of the project is to increase the quality of life of singleparent families.

Long-term goals of the project:

  1. Teach parents in an accessible and interesting way how to recognize, face and more effectively address the challenges and problems specific to their life status
  2. Enable users to express their own problems and exchange experiences with other parents from large families in a supportive and collaborative atmosphere
  3. Promote the importance of providing educational support to students from single-parent families
  4. Provide assistance in understanding and learning school materials
  5. Educate children about effective learning methods.

Funded by: Central State Office for Demography and Youth & City of Zagreb

 

FROM YOUTH TO WORK

AUG. 2017 – JUL. 2019

The goal of the FROM YOUTH TO WORK project is to improve work with young people in the areas of vocational guidance, encouraging the employability of young people, the job search process and supporting the transition from the education system to the labor market.

Funded by: ERASMUS+

 

VR NOT BULLIES

SEP. 2018 – JUN. 2020

The goal of the VR NOT BULLIES project is to educate young people with the help of VR technology about the consequences of peer violence on victims, and about specific ways in which they can stop it in their own environment. Virtual reality (VR) is a technology by which the user is immersed directly in the experience, instead of watching it indirectly or talking about it.

Funded by: ERASMUS+

 

BETTER ACT THAN REACT

SEP. 2020 – JUN. 2022

The aim of this project is to introduce the skills of psychological flexibility in youth work practices with the aim of strengthening the professional capacities of people working with vulnerable groups of young people. As a result, they will be able to cope better with stress, protect themselves from burnout and pass on these skills to the young people they work with through developed mobile application that will contain exercises based on the principles of ACT therapy (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy).

Funded by: ERASMUS+

 

YOUTH MOVING

NOV. 2021 – NOV. 2023

Project aims to enhance care leavers participation in democratic life in Europe, through their empowerment as active citizens, especially addressing how to connect with, express their views to and be heard by stakeholders in the alternative care field. It's expected to benefit around 300 young people.

Funded by: ERASMUS+

 

 

SCHOOL VOLUNTEERS

JUN. 2017 – NOV. 2018

The aim of this project is to develop and improve the capacity of civil society organizations and schools involved in the project through partnership, for the implementation of sustainable volunteer programs.

Element 1. Development and improvement of the organization's capacity for volunteering

Element 2. Motivating students to get involved in the school volunteering program

Element 3. Implementation of school volunteering programs

Funded by: European Social Fund & Office for NGO's of the Government of the Croatia

 

HEALTHCARE IN COMMUNITY

MAR. 2018 – MAR. 2020

General objective of Health Care in Community projects to increase the number of students with acquired practical knowledge and skills for solving specific social problems and community development.

Specific objectives of the project:

  1. To develop a program of Socially useful learning at The University of Applied Health Sciences in Zagreb
  2. To strengthen the capacity of NGOs to implement Socially useful learning
  3. To establish and implement a sustainable program of Socially useful learning in cooperation with a higher education institution and NGOs

Funded by: European Social Fund & Office for NGO's of the Government of the Croatia

 

 

FOR A STRONGER FAMILY

NOV. 2017 – MAY. 2021

Sirius is the implementing partner for the part of the Program related to ensuring quality care for foster children.

The goal of this part of the Program is to overcome the challenges within the foster care system for children in the Republic of Croatia, especially those related to quality assurance in foster families, with special attention to the most vulnerable groups.

Activities we carried out:

  1. Development of a standardized program of initial and continuous education of foster parents
  2. Development of instruments for the initial assessment of foster parents and for monitoring the quality of care in foster families
  3. Training of social care professionals
  4. Piloting and testing education programs and instruments
  5. Informing foster care parents and professionals through campaign

Funded by: Unicef & Ministry of Labor, Pension System, Family and Social Policy