There is in Europe an often stated lack of comparable statistics on both youth work practice in it self (what, when, how and to what extent) and the actual outcomes in terms of which and how many young people it reaches and what informal and non-formal learning they actually acquire. “RISE for common documentation of youth work and non-formal learning” addresses and tries to contribute to the solution of this situation. In order to develop and strengthen youth work it is necessary to build a system through which we get the ability to compare what we have been doing with the results obtained – this is over all aim of our project. Our two, equally important, objectives are: • To develop a common system for documentation of youth work. • To develop a common system for documentation of non-formal learning. Two systems that taken together will make it possible to reach our aim and give a substantial contribution to the development of youth work quality. Through developing an Open Badges Backpack that will be part of the open badges ecosystem the project will also provide a European wide, easy accessible way to recognize young persons informal and non-formal learning in Youth Work. Our three partners, with which we have cooperated in three previous projects, are all official authorities in different ways responsible for youth work and the well being of young people. KEKS, in turn, is a non-profit NGO handling development issues for a network of 40 local municipality departments for youth work. The main activities of the project is to develop two web pages / systems, one for the documentation of youth work and one for the documentation of non-formal learning, and all the necessary support systems needed to implement them and make them user friendly, including Wiki user manuals and other material needed for a sustainable introduction in an running of the systems. The main method to obtain this result will be working in work groups that meet in regular workshops producing the material necessary (content and structure) to enable the actual construction of the web pages and the Wikis. Hired experts will in turn do the actual building of the sites. The foreseen result of the project is two web platforms that put together will make it possible to compare how different youth work practices correspond with or lead to different outcomes in terms of non-formal learning. The impact of this will be new and concrete knowledge for people engaged in youth work on all levels on how different youth work practices affect outcomes and, as a result of this, a gradual development of youth work quality. It will also lead to a huge database on youth work practice available for future researchers active in the field. Furthermore it will create a common ground for the exchange of best practises on a European level. The potential longer terms benefits of this is of course that it could hopefully strengthen the position of youth work in relation to other sectors and make it even more obvious that it is essential for Europe and European youth that more effort and money has to be invested in non-formal education and learning, i.e. in the youth work sector!
There is in Europe an often stated lack of comparable statistics on both youth work practice in it self (what, when, how and to what extent) and the actual outcomes in terms of which and how many young people it reaches and what informal and non-formal learning they actually acquire. Our project, “RISE for common documentation of youth work and non-formal learning” addressed and tried to contribute to the solution of this situation. In order to develop and strengthen youth work it is necessary to build a system through which we get the ability to compare what we have been doing with the results obtained – this is the overall aim of our project. In the grant proposal we have presented our two objectives: • To develop a common system for documentation of youth work. • To develop a common system for documentation of non-formal learning. The first objective, to develop a common system for documentation of youth work, was approved while the second one was not. Therefore, the project have focused solely on developing the on-line documentation system - The Logbook. The strategic partnership project "RISE for common systems for documentation of youth work and non-formal learning" was implemented between 1st of January 2015 and 31st of Decembers 2016 by four partner organizations: KEKS (Sweden), CDYSB (Ireland), DJST Hunedoara (Romania) and EANU (Estonia). Two of the partner organisations are official authorities at local and regional level and in different ways responsible for youth work and the well being of young people. KEKS and EANU are umbrella NGO handling youth work development questions for networks of local municipality departments for youth work in Sweden and Estonia. The main activities of the project were to analyse the needs and realities of documentation of youth work in the partner countries and develop an on-line documentation system of youth work and all the necessary support systems needed to implement them and make them user friendly, including user manuals and other material needed for a sustainable introduction in an running of the systems. The different actors involved in the project were as following: - PMG (Project Management Group) in charge of the project management, development of rutines and templates for project management and monitoring, evaluation, organizing multiplier events, reporting etc.; - SDG (System Development Group) working with the structuring, developing and delivering the intellectual outputs approved in the project; - reference group involved in the mapping of needs and realities of documentation of youth work in the partner countries. The reference group was composed by youth workers, municipality and NGO staff. - test users involved in testing the preliminary on-line documentation system with the purpose of giving feedback for the further development and adjustment of the documentation system - The Logbook; - external contracted experts, contracted through a call for tender, that have programmed and developed the on-line documentation system; - participants to the multiplier events organized as part of the project. The activities implemented in the project were the next: - six Transnational Project Meeting in which the PMG have met for managing, monitoring, evaluating and reporting the project; - six Learning, Teaching and Training activities in which the SDG have meet for exchanging knowledge and experience about documentation of youth work as well as in order to work with the development of the on-line system for documentation of youth work; - mapping of the local realities and needs for documentation of youth work in the partner countries; - development and testing of the preliminary online system and the user manual; - call for tender and contracting of the IT company that have programmed and delivered the on-line system for documentation of youth work - The Logbook; - seventeen multiplier events organized in the four partner countries: six in Sweden, five in Romania, three in Estonia and three in Ireland. The events have reached 475 persons; - project management activities (development of rutines and templates, communication, visibility, dissemination, setting of qualitative and quantitative indicators, monitoring, evaluation and reporting). The result of the project is The Logbook that will make it possible to compare how different youth work practices affect outcomes. It will also lead to a huge database available for future researchers active in the field and it will create a common ground for the exchange of best practises on a European level. The potential longer terms benefits of this is of course that it could hopefully strengthen the position of youth work in relation to other sectors and make it even more obvious that it is essential for Europe and European youth that more effort and money has to be invested in non-formal education and learning, i.e. in the youth work sector!