Strategic partnership Youth Work HD will give an answer to the needs of youth workers that aren't covered at the moment in the countries involved in project, but also in most European countries. Partners of this consortium are working on solving many open European questions - from digital literacy, youth unemployment and digital innovation to standardization of youth work. We have recognized general skills and knowledges that could help to set standards among different types of youth workers in Europe. The quality and success of youth work is highly dependent on its capability to meet and constructively relate not only to the needs of young people, but also to the knowledge and expectations of society in general, other actors in the youth field, and both professional and volunteer youth workers. We have recognized a set of ICT tools and skills that we find important in our daily work with young people (online safety, social networks for reaching out to young people, tools for online cooperation, online counselling, open educational resources etc.). Recognizing the potential of digital technology (based on knowledge and expertise that our organisations have) we decided to develop online platform that will serve for professional development of youth workers and assure them with basic knowledge and skills they need.We believe this will set a common ground for youth workers in 21st century that would set a standard in terms of cooperation between organisations in the field of youth work and open it up to cross-sectoral cooperation. In order to develop online platform we will conduct research on youth work (O1) on three levels: (1) desk research of the online tools and educational materials available to youth workers and of their quality, (2) online survey about general skills and knowledge needed by youth workers and (3) focus groups/structured interviews with smaller groups of youth workers covering the topics which will have popped up in online survey in more detail. Learning materials will be developed in line with research results gathered. At least 4 online courses will be developed (Cooperation, Policy impact, Reaching out to youth, ICT tools). After final agreement on the content of educational material online platform Youth Work HD will be developed and first cycle of online education among 50 youth workers will be carried out.The direct target group of this project are youth workers. At least 500 youth workers will participate in the research on their educational needs. After the development of the online platform Youth work HD, 50 youth workers will participate in online education. Decision makers and public will be reached through disseminational activities. Additionally, the consortium will invest time in lobbying for the implementation of policies in the field of professionalization of youth work.Sustainability of platform will be ensured by development of detailed instructions about how to produce new educational resources by respecting the educational methodology developed through this project. This will allow organisations not included in this project to use the platform. The platform will be disseminated on the European level through different networks in which the partners are included.
Strategic partnership Youth Work HD, financed by the European Commission through Erasmus+ program, was implemented with an aim of giving an answer to the needs of youth workers that aren't covered at the moment in the countries involved in project (Croatia, Italy, Latvia and Lithuania), but also in most European countries. Four partners involved in this project have been working on standardization of youth work, CTC Rijeka (Croatia), EGInA Srl (Italy), LIKTA (Latvia) and LIA (Lithuania). They have gathered to develop and transfer learning methodology intended for youth workers into an online environment, in order to make it accessible to larger group of youth workers and transferable to other European countries. They have recognized general skills and knowledge that could help to set standards among different types of youth workers in Europe. The acquisition of needed skills and knowledge for youth workers was achieved through developed online courses that deal with topics defined through Research on youth work in Croatia, Italy, Latvia and Lithuania - reaching out to young people, usage of ICT tools in youth work, policy impact in the field of youth, cooperation with relevant stakeholders. The anticipated objectives were: (1) to administrate quality analysis of educational needs of youth workers, (2) to develop high-quality platform for non-formal education of youth workers, (3) to promote better support to youth workers on national level and all were met by the implementation of main activities organised around three Intellectual outputs: (1) a research on the educational needs of youth workers, (2) the development of curricula, educational materials and online courses, and (3) the development of an online platform YW HD that integrates those courses. The impact of the project results manifests in raising youth workers’ competences that resulted in increased quality of their work with youth, raising awareness on the needs of youth workers on local/regional/national/EU levels among public, stakeholders from the youth field, and decision makers relevant for inducing professionalization of youth work. Long-term benefits of YW HD project manifest in continuous utilization of the online platform, further education of youth workers, as well as further development and usage of the online platform by other organizations.