“Team Up for NEETS – Innovation for Youth Employability” fosters synergies between innovative approaches to non-formal education, sport-based youth work and employment training for NEET young people. The project establishes trans-European cooperation amongst key-organisations from eastern, western, northern and southern parts of the EU. Together, they will build the capacity to act as European knowledge hubs and set high quality standards in the field of attractive youth work and NEET employability initiatives. In order to establish the necessary basis for dissemination, “Team Up” will create a user-friendly European toolkit as a modular solution to transfer impact-measured, successful practices to wider audiences. In addition, the development of a shared Monitoring and Performance Measurement Framework will track social impact and help assess the collective and individual organisations’ progress against key indicators. The systemic approach to disseminating successful innovative practices of quality youth work at organisational, local, regional, national and European level facilitates cross border cooperation amongst coaches, trainers and social workers. These actors, in turn, will help to engage over 60.000 of the 'hardest-to-reach' young Europeans in structured youth and non-formal education programmes, with the goal of getting them back into employment or training. streetfootballworld works with a consortium of project partners from the UK, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Portugal and Spain to unite leaders in the field of education and employability through sport. Drawing on their many years of successful work at local and regional levels, each of these partners brings great expertise into the project to ensure sustainability, ownership and real societal transformation from within European communities. We are driven by the belief that all parts of society need to join forces to tackle social, cultural, economic and educational challenges of NEET young people, and we work closely with various corporate partners, sport federations, employment agencies, local authorities and schools. The “European Toolkit on Youth Employability through Football” aims to inspire, mobilize and expand the promotion of innovative practices to tackle the European youth unemployment crisis. Over the course of two years, the toolkit will be researched, developed and tested to ensure it serves as a valuable guide for trainers and youth workers throughout Europe, opening spaces for youth with fewer opportunities to compete in the labour market as trained professionals with sustainable life-skills. Furthermore, the toolkit allows youth organisations, schools and vocational training centres to increase the attractiveness of and commitment to their programmes. Finally, the toolkit will establish a strategic evaluation vision amongst all key stakeholders and implement a set of recording tools that enable organisations to provide a consistent and comparable dashboard of social impact indicators that their projects deliver. In many areas of promoting high quality youth work, the most profound learning and training activities can only be achieved on-site, by actually relating to the physical environment in which an organisation operates. We have thus selected a set of distinct case studies that are in a position to share their knowledge via facilitated peer-to-peer learning, teaching and training activities, and to support the practical creation of the toolkit. To further leverage the results of the project, streetfootballworld and the project consortium offer concrete training opportunities in the toolkit’s inclusive methodologies for interested youth organisations, enhancing their capacity in employability programmes and thus increasing life-saving opportunities for disadvantaged youth across Europe. Visibility will be bolstered through Multiplier Events, using streetfootballworld’s expertise in European mega-events (for instance, the UEFA Euro 2016 in France or a public conference) to launch the “Team Up!” intellectual output to a wider European audience in Brussels. In sum, the event and conference will attract an estimated 100,000 spectators and reach a wider audience of more than 4,000,000 Europeans through media and online coverage.
Youth unemployment in the EU peaked at 23.9%in 2013, after several years of financial downturn following the economic crisis of 2008. Young people were severely hit by this global financial crisis because job vacancy numbers plummeted, competition for jobs became fierce, and those at the bottom of the ladder (e.g. young people with no work experience and few or no qualifications) were excluded from the labour market. Since 2013 figures have improved – but youth unemployment remains a very important issue. Tackling youth unemployment is on the agenda of governments, policymakers, NGOs and the community sector – and a wide variety of strategies, initiatives and activities are being used. To address these challenges, streetfootballworld has joined forces with community organisations in the EU to launch "Team Up! Increasing youth employability through football-based programmes" – a pan-European project, supported by ERAMUS+ in the framework of Strategic Partnerships for Youth. The project targets youth workers, teachers and NGOs working with young Europeans who are NEET and equips them with the skills they need to offer and build new paths towards a sustainable livelihood. Through a combination of non-formal education, sport-based youth work and employability training, the programme offers an innovative approach to Europe’s most pressing social challenge. Project partners For the development and implementation of Team Up! streetfootballworld strategically selected a consortium of eight project partners from the UK, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, leaders in the field of education and employability through sport. Each of these streetfootballworld members brings real expertise from many years of successful work on their local and regional level into the project to ensure sustainability, ownership and real societal transformation from within European communities – with a greater, more effective and faster impact. Team Up! project partners included: Sport dans la Ville (France), Albion in the Community (UK), Sport 4 Life UK (UK), Sport Against Racism Ireland (Ireland), Oltalom Sports Association (Hungary), CAIS (Portugal), RheinFlanke (Germany) and Red Deporte (Spain). The primary focus of Team Up! has been the development of a shared toolkit of best practices to increase youth employability through football-based programmes, aiming at expanding and further developing innovative solutions to tackling youth unemployment and improving non-formal education through cross-border cooperation; establishing a basis for on-going learning, impact measurement and development of the field; sharing and transfering information on best practice and methodologies for wider dissemination; and fostering synergies between innovative approaches in non-formal education, sport-based social work and employment training for NEET young people. The objectives pursued over the course of the funding period were: 1) Establishing project partner organisations as European knowledge hubs to set quality standards in the field of youth employability through sport; 2) Creating an accessible common European toolkit as a modular solution to transfer impact-measured, successful practices; 3) Developing a shared Monitoring and Performance Measurement Framework to track social impact and help assess the collective and individual organisations progress against key youth work indicators; 4) Increasing awareness and dissemination of innovative non-formal education practices and create visibility through the Multiplier events; 5) Facilitating Euopean-wide continuatiuon of the measures after the funding period. The most tangible result achieved through the project has been the creation of the European toolkit of best practices to increase youth employability through sport-based non-formal education. Furthermore, the project has supported the eight partner organisations, reaching up to 129,353 young NEETs and engaging 43,248 in their path to employment, education or further training all over Europe. In addition, the project has established a common cross-sectoral European understanding and proven to be a milestone in the field of football-based employability programmes, enabling an effective platform for innovation in the field and using the outcomes of the project to engage stakeholders from a variety of fields - including sports, the public sector, the corporate world, youth organisations and academia, in the creation of a hollistic approach for the fields of youth work, non-formal education, and sports-based employability.