News

Newsletter 4

You can find the latest news about the Mirror, mirror project in our final newsletter:

MIRROR MIRROR Multiplier Conference

MIRROR, MIRROR – Multiplier conference in Randers, Denmark

The conference was held on 29^th of October 2015 at Tradium in Randers, Denmark and had 30 participants from 12 countries. Project's final event was organized to share project’s results and attract key experts and researchers from countries not involved in the MIRROR project.

The conference started with the overview of the project given by Ms. Olga Fagerland, the representative of Møllehagen, the project coordinator. Following the Managing Director at Tradium, Mr. Tage Andersen, held an introductory speech about the importance of the issues the project addresses for their school and today’s society in general. The key words from his speech are “We want our student to be happy”.

The lecture on “Why appearance matters: The impact of appearance dissatisfaction on psychological and physical health” was given by Prof. Nichola Rumsey from the University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE) and was the starting point for the group discussions. The discussions highlighted the importance and relevance of the project in today’s world.

Dr. Martin Persson from UWE gave a lecture on “Recognizing appearance distress and offering support” which the participants found very useful, practical and very relevant for the challenges they face working as a VET teacher, manager, guidance etc.

The representative from Pej Azores, Mr. Steven Barbosa, presented the final version of the training materials together with evidence and didactic guidelines for vocational trainers and other key stakeholders. Ms. Marianne Højriis Jeppesen, the psychologist at Tradium, was talking about “Appearance and Education” and had practical focus on how we see appearance issues in education and how we approach these issues, how psychologists work within educational counselling and how they can implement the MIRROR project in counselling.

Ms. Claire Hamlet from UWE presented the information about school based interventions and why schools, colleges and universities are good places to deliver these interventions.

We are happy that we have received very positive feedback and would like to thank all who have shared their ideas with us for their engagement. It was a great opportunity for us to disseminate our project into Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Iceland, Latvia and the Netherlands.

Presentations at the MIRROR Multiplier Conference are available for free download here:

“Why appearance matters: The impact of appearance dissatisfaction on psychological and physical health” was given by Prof. Nichola Rumsey, University of the West of England, Bristol

“Recognizing appearance distress and offering support” by Dr. Martin Persson, University of the West of England, Bristol

“School based interventions – one step forward” by Ms. Claire Hamlet, University of the West of England, Bristol

“Appearance and Education” by Ms. Marianne Højriis Jeppesen, Tradium

“Overview of the MIRROR project” by Ms. Olga Fagerland, Møllehagen school center

Final partner meeting

On 28^th of October 2015 the MIRROR final partner meeting took place in Randers, Denmark to finalise all models and strategies how sustainability of the project can be achieved. Partners discussed feedback received from VET educators, trainers, HR staff, school management, counsellors and other stakeholders who have been contacted in Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal and the United Kingdom since the final products have been finalised and published on the MIRROR website. Partnership has shared their dissemination activities, exploitation and implementation ideas on how to support sustainability in the target countries and gain stakeholders’ support.

MIRROR MIRROR in "The Guardian"

The MIRROR MIRROR project has been mentioned in the article “Appearance bullying – and the damage it does to children’s education” in "The Guardian".

MIRROR MIRROR Final conference

Project's final event will be organised to share project’s results and attract key experts and researchers from countries not involved in the MIRROR project. You can find the program for the final conference here: