The role of youth work and non-formal and informal learning to counteracting the effects of youth unemployment and NEETs has been emphasized in numerous EU policy documents. In addition there is evidence that youth work can help in unlocking the potential of young people and develop their life management and social skills thus aiding their integration into the labour market.In this context, the STEER project’s aim is to design, develop, deliver and test a comprehensive training programme for youth workers in order to facilitate the transition from education to employment among young people experiencing unemployment and NEETs. More specifically STEER will involve the following actions and results:• The design and development of a youth workers’ training programme that will include modules such as: transition planning, psychological mentoring, developing life management and social skills, developing soft and transferable skills and provision of career guidance and counselling among others.• Developing an innovative open source e-training platform and e-portal as well as digital learning content and guides• Delivering a series of train the trainers seminars through blended learning, in each participant country, to at least 180 youth workers.• Testing the effectiveness of the STEER training programme in pilot actions that will involve the trained youth workers providing transition support to at least 900 NEETs and young unemployed within a four months span.STEER’s innovative training framework will lead to Youthpass certification and professionalise youth workers in a domain in which mostly PES and private HR companies are active. Consequently it will create and strengthen potential synergies with such actors and boost the overall impact of youth work in decreasing youth unemployment and reintegrating NEETs in the society.STEER will follow a waterfall methodology which makes planning and designing clear and therefore progress is more easily measured. Needs analysis and current situation investigation will be followed by the design and development of the training modules, assessment and Youthpass certification. At the same time, the STEER e-training platform and e-portal will be designed and integrated. Overall, STEER will have the following impact:• Develop a comprehensive training programme for youth workers to support the transition from education to employment of NEETs and young unemployed.• Expand the concept and usability of transition planning within the framework of youth work, in partner countries where it is less widely used.• Promote the employability of NEETs and young unemployed, notably through activities that foster the development of competences and skills through non formal learning• Contribute to the employment-related public or private actors (like public employment services and other youth guarantee implementing actors) in regaining the trust of youth.
The primary objective of the STEER (Supporting the Transition from Education to Employment for Youth at Risk) project was to design, develop, deliver, and test a comprehensive training programme for youth workers in transition planning. Trained youth workers using the knowledge acquired through the STEER project, utilized their training to support the transition from education to employment for NEETs (a young person who is no longer in the education system and who is not working or being trained for work) and young unemployed. Thus STEER project promoted the Erasmus+ horizontal priority for “Inclusive education, training and youth” as it aimed to enhance “the access, participation and performance of disadvantaged learners and facilitating their transitions: between different levels and types of education and training; from education/training to the world of work”. More specifically STEER involved: • Designing and developing a training programme for youth workers, which included modules such as: skills for the future labour market, transition planning, psychological mentoring, developing life management and social skills, developing soft and transferable skills, and provision of career guidance and counselling. • Delivering a series of blended learning train-the-trainer seminars in each partner country, to a total of more than 180 youth workers. • Testing the effectiveness of the STEER training programme in pilot actions that involved the trained youth workers providing transition support to at least 900 NEETs and young unemployed within a four month period. The STEER training programme involved the development of an innovative e-training platform and e-portal (O5) and digital learning content (O3/O4) and guides (O4). The STEER e-training platform was based on open-source, Web 2.0 technologies, in order to ensure its sustainability, and it also adhered to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, so that its open teaching material would be accessible to both disabled learners and training professionals. The STEER dissemination and sustainability activities mainstreamed and spread the use of the e-training platform and the training programme to all relevant stakeholders at local, national, and European level. As a result, STEER was in accordance to and promoted the Erasmus+ horizontal priority for “Open and innovative education, training and youth work, embedded in the digital era”. In particular, STEER contributed "to mainstream and spread the utilization of open and innovative education, training and youth pedagogies.” It also “supported synergies between education, research and innovation activities, digitisated quality learning content and promoted the use of ICT as a driver for systemic change which increased the quality and relevance of education, training and youth policies at all levels.” Finally, STEER advanced the Erasmus+ Youth field-specific priority of “Promoting high-quality youth work” by: - Facilitating the transition of NEETs and young unemployed to employability. - Supporting youth workers in developing skills and methods that help them provide assistance to young people facing social and financial obstacles. - Professionalising youth workers and furthering the validation of youth-work and non-formal learning by awarding the Youthpass certificate to each youth worker that successfully completed the STEER training seminars, pilot actions, and assessment. The STEER Consortium was constituted on the basis of: a) the priorities addressed, b) the partners’ expertise and experience, and c) the effectiveness of transnationality. Thus, the partnership was made up of 6 partners from 6 countries encountering different situations regarding youth work, youth unemployment, and NEETs in their respective national contexts. At the same time, all partners had previous experience in the project-related areas, such as youth work, training NEETs, initiatives strengthening youth employability, Youthpass framework, developing technologies and ICT tools for learning, mainstreaming, evaluation, and dissemination. The implementation of the STEER project was an important step towards building a pattern of professionalising youth work in comprehensive education to employment transition planning of NEETs and young unemployed, especially in the countries and regions with the highest corresponding rates. STEER project established synergies and bridges between local and national youth organisations, PES, Youth Guarantee actors, HR companies, and employers who benefited the most out of this dynamic and multiplied its effect at the local, regional, national, European levels. The long-term impact of the STEER project would be the contribution in decreasing youth unemployment and NEETs rates at all levels EU wide, thus coming closer to the EU2020 targets. The STEER project’s overall structure as well as its activities and outputs were targeted and will continue to be targeted to that end.