This Handbook was created as part of the three-year program entitled Contact - Centers for Youth Empowerment from alternative care, with the financial support of the Ministry of Demography, Family, Youth and Social Policy, and in partnership of the association "Igra" for the provision of rehabilitation-educational and psycho-social-pedagogical assistance, the association MoSt and HCK - GDCK Čakovec.

In the context of this Manual and the work model, when we talk about young people at risk of homelessness, we mean about young people in alternative care, and later in the Manual it is explained in more detail how alternative care is defined in Croatia. Although this manual is the product of intensive three-year work and program implementation in two organizations, the MoSt association in Split and GDCK Čakovec, it is in fact the product of the 17-year work with this user group. We believe that it is necessary to develop a uniform system of providing non-institutional social services in order to ensure their continuity and availability to every young person in Croatia who finds him/herself in need. We wanted to gather both theory and our experience in one place in order to get the most complete picture possible. With this goal in mind, we prepared this manual with the desire to encourage you to dare to provide a possibly new service, idea, user scope, all in order to help the most vulnerable in our society to realize their full potential and become active participants in the society.