Providing Perspectives – Preventing Violence Professional Open Youth Work as effective and valuable basis for preventing racism, extremisms and preventing violence Based on the principle of openness, the design, range and organisation of services ensure as much low-threshold access as possible. Experimental spaces and supportive relationships based on an understanding of the world in which these adolescents live are provided free from any pressure to consume, are immediately accessible, and are offered without special pre-conditions or obligations. This creates a good basis for youth workers to reach out to young people that might not be approachable for others anymore. This and the non-formal methods used within youth work create an environment for projects/activities aiming at the prevention of extremisms/radicalisation and/or violence. This project aims to demonstrate that professional open youth work has a good basis for playing a crucial role in supporting young people in their integration in the community and in their search for an identity - thus preventing radicalisation of all kinds. The project will bring together good practice from various countries and analyse the needs and wishes of youth workers and youth work providers to create tools and training meassures for upscaling existing methods and providing new input where those do not exist yet: Therefore we will bring together the experience of the chosen examples, research and analyse: - What are the elements/principles/working standards of professional open youth work that make projects in this context sucessful? - What is the difference to other fields in applied working methods, approaches underlying principles etc.? - What are the core elements that open youth work provides that are consistent if working with right-wing, ultranationalist or religious extremism. - What are success factors in this context and what of this is transferable between the projects and to other European realities. We will engage grass roots youth workers in a research and collect their needs and wishes for training but also their experience and ideas. Putting these research results, the practice analysis of partners and the training experience within the partnership together we will create: Project Results - Research Report on experiences, needs and ideas of youth workers in the field - A new curriculum of a basic training for youth workers based on experiences of the best practice, needs of partners and on the research and analysis done within this project - Recommendations on the implementation of projects tackling racism/extremisms and violence within professional open youth work for practitioners. - Recommendations of the specifc benefit of implementing such projects within the framework of professional open youth work for policy makers and stake holders. On the long term this project will help professional open youth work to demonstrate its benefits and value in the context of preventing extremisms/radicalisation and/or violence, further shapen the profile of professional open youth work towards stakeholders and policy makers, create material to be used for development and debate within the field of professional open youth work and a concrete training module for youth workers, which will help to ensure and enhance the quality of the services for young people in this respect.
Unfortunately the project had to stop prematurely on September 30 2019. Due to an internal conflict at Stichting JONG Rotterdam, Marc Boes was not able any more to participate in the Project as the representative of Stichting JONG. The other representative became ill for a long period of time and had to withdraw. Several attempts to continue the project with different roles of responsibility by the other partners failed due to inter organizational obstacles.