Enhancing a Universal Guide and NETwork for the Youth Workers of the Future

Project summary

The project EU-NET: “Enhancing a Universal guide and NETwork for the youth workers of the future” aims to create an international network for promoting the excellence in youth work, focused on sharing methods, tools and skills of the employees and youth workers in the sphere of Erasmus+. The partner organizations involved come from Spain, Italy, Germany and Greece. By the definition developed by European Commission, Youth Work seeks to create a safe, supportive and flexible environment for personal development and offers non-formal and informal learning opportunities, personal advice, guidance and support. It’s important that young people have access to quality education, training, guidance, jobs and social security. In the same time youngsters, should be able to express their opinions and to participate fully in their community, social developments and in political life. In order to understand the value and contribute to recognize youth work in overcoming challenges young people are facing, it is important to adopt and embrace the holistic youth work approach, when it comes to work with young people, which is also one of the main aims of EU-NET. For example there is no official definition of youth work in Spain (EC Blue Book - 2013). There are no minimum qualification standards for youth work in Spain and youth work still does not exist as an academic subject in formal education. Therefore, youth workers in Spain are trained via other professions and means of learning. One of the motivations for this project is the fact that youth work hasn’t been recognized by the state either in Spain, Italy or Greece. However, in Germany it is mandatory to study youth work for 4 years before starting to work as a youth worker. That implies that situation in different countries are not the same and it would be possible to learn from each other practice and experiences. The main aim of EU-NET is to enforce, promote and standardize the quality and methods used by youth workers and EVS players in different realities within the European Union. The strategy of EU-NET is to gather and share EU wide comprehensive guides and to build up a benchmark network that will serve to define the role of the Youth Worker in the different countries involved in the project. After gathering the necessary data, it will be analysed in order to come up with the definition framework of a youth worker, the already existing values, current situation and needed improvements to generate a good practice that is well known in NGOs, foundations and public entities working with Erasmus+ and other international projects. The project is being held out by countries with different practices and understandings about youth work, which will add an international dimension to the project and will help create a better understanding about the diversities and similarities of youth workers. Specific objectives of EU-NET are: - Better understanding and recognition of skills and qualifications about youth work in Europe - Clear understanding of youth work practice, starting from the local level, for then enlarging the focus internationally - Increased opportunities for youth workers’ professional development - Increased synergies and links and improvement transition between the different sectors of education - Standardizing the youth work at international level, improving their inputs and sharing good practices - Spreading Erasmus+ mobility & training opportunities - Creating an online platform with different e-tools for youth workers, which will also serve as a place where youth workers and other stakeholders can share their ideas/ problems/ thoughts - fostering a social dialogue (via blog, forum etc) - Publishing an Handbook, interactive videos and booklets for youth workers - Promoting activities of EU-NET in different social media outputs (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) Main Target groups of EU-NET: · Youth workers/trainers and young leaders who are in general working in the youth field, doing seminars, trainings, youth exchanges, workshops as well as managing the European Voluntary Service(EVS) programme. · NGOs, Associations, Foundations, Informal Groups of Youth, Municipalities, Development agencies and Universities working in the aforementioned sectors. ·Old and future EVS volunteers and “wannabe” youth workers among other interested parties; ·Policy Makers, Public & Private Stakeholders. The project is addressed to youth workers and employees involved in NGOs and social promotion Associations that work within national and international mobility and training programs, through non-formal education activities. Furthermore, the indirect beneficiaries of this project will be the participants of the future projects, as they will benefit of an higher quality standard mobility. Further beneficiaries will be identified by each partner at local, regional,national and European level.