"If we are to come to terms with the digital skills gap in Europe, education and training need to become a joint responsibility between employers, employees, educators and policy makers. We need to test ideas, develop projects, work and think together on the best ways to give people the skills they need for new jobs." Andrus Ansip, Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Based on the recent evidence of the European Commission, ICT for Work (2017). The digitalization is a process which transforms the way people act and interact on a large scale. As a consequence, also, the way people work is changing and the skills they need at work needs to be updated. This concerns all economic sectors, even the not traditionally related ones to digitization e.g. farming, health care, vocational training and construction. To support this transition and to close the current gap the project promotes the priority of promoting quality youth work. The project`s aims are to strengthen the profile of Youth Workers and to develop strategies and methodologies of youth work in this field to have an impact on this problem. The quality of youth work will be upgraded through the development of the Complete Tool Kit accompanied with a set of new teaching and learning material to support the acquisition, monitoring, assessment and validation of high-tech digital skills of young people. In doing so YW will be provided with a professional development course for digital up skilling. Through the project, quality standards will be introduced as the DIGITAL@YOUTH WORK program to be implemented will be based on the design of a digital framework within built benchmark and indicators based on which the progress of YP will be monitored and assessed. A validation system is also proposed to make digital skills even more accessible. The whole project promotes the development of deep tech digital skills as purported by the recent reports of the EU (2018 Digital Action Plan, 2017 New SKills Agenda, 2018 Renewed Key Competences) in an attempt to bridge the digital gap with the labour market and support YP to meet the needs of employment. It should be visible, transparent and recognized to has an impact of the development of the relevant and high-quality skills and competences. Because of the project`s strong connection to the labour market real needed qualities will be enhanced. Digitalization is the integration of digital technologies onto everyday life by the digitization of everything that can be digitized. On that account the project is implemented in a e-learning tool as a new open way of learning. A powerful, dynamic and interactive platform will be developed openly for the acquisition and validation of digital skills. The consortium comprises of 6 organizations representing mainly Youth Organizations, but also the IT field, that have a genuine interest and urge to promote digital acquisition and supporting young people to be fully equipped to deal with the digital challenges of the labour market. Formal education has recently been questioned about its leading role in preparing students to handle the digital needs of the jobs of tomorrow. While acknowledging the benefits and importance of non-formal learning, the consortium builds on potential and prospects of youth work in order to promote through the creation of synergies with the labour marker targeted digital skills to enhance their employability. The target group is young people between 16-22 years old with a specific focus on girls and young people with fewer opportunities to ensure equal access and participation in this type of activities in the field of IT. The secondary target group is youth workers whose profiles will be strengthened to upgrade YOUTH WORK Practices and methodologies.
"If we are to come to terms with the digital skills gap in Europe, education and training need to become a joint responsibility between employers, employees, educators and policy makers. We need to test ideas, develop projects, work and think together on the best ways to give people the skills they need for new jobs." Andrus Ansip, Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Based on the recent evidence of the European Commission, ICT for Work (2017). The main aim of the project was to strengthen the profile of Youth Workers and to develop strategies and methodologies of youth work in this field to have an impact on this problem. We managed to create a learning/teaching programme which we also tested with young people and youth workers, and we believe that this programme, together with the learning online platform, can support and improve digital skills of youth workers and young people. With these project results the quality of youth work can be upgraded through the development of the Tool Kit (VECTORS) accompanied with a set of new teaching and learning material to support the acquisition, monitoring, assessment and validation of high-tech digital skills of young people. The project has promoted the issue of digital competences in young people and how youth work can support the High tech IT skills and competences acquisitions through the non-formal education. The project has resulted in the acknowledgment of digital competences in non-formal method in youth work by disseminating and promoting the achievement of the Intellectual Outputs, as well as in supporting young people in filling in the skills gaps and mismatches. The project introduced a transparent, multi-regulated and multi-assessed process, based on an interactive and dynamic platform that was developed, for young people with fewer opportunities in order to up-grade, up-skill or re-skill their digital skills called "Upgrading Digital Youth Work" platform: http://digital-youthwork.4learning.eu/ to meet the needs of the labour market and bridge the gap related to skills mismatches between E&T and job market. The platform has all the best features of the user friendly and intuitive technologies, online community and resources. We have achieved 4 Intellectual Outputs in this project: IO1- DIGITAL@YOUTHWORK: Introducing Quality Standards Through The Digital Competence Framework Targeted To The Digitalised Economy. IO2 - DIGITAL@YOUTHWORK: Building The Complete Digital Teaching And Knowledge Pack For Young People And Youth Workers. We created a DIGITAL@YOUTHWORK ACADEMY and TOOL BANK IO3 - Building the online eco-system for the assessment and validation of deep tech skills using the open badges. In this IO we designed the eco-system for the implementation and use of the Open Badges, created an ECO-GUIDE for the use and development of the Open Badges, as a form of digital certification of the learning outcomes, developed and tested an Interactive Portal and Assessment Tool, which is integrated to the learning platform digital-youthwork.4learning.eu IO4 - THE DIGITAL@YOUTHWORK GUIDE KIT: establishing synergies with the labour market for the creation of the targeted deep tech clubs. In this IO we created a TOOL-KIT which we called VECTORS, which includes all the developed products of the project, as well as how to use them in different fields. We also created a Campaign and Petition which was important for the promotion of the project results, promotion of developed products, and make sure each partner was able to reach out to their local networks for promotion of products. Sustainability in project Follow-up after the finalisation of D@YW, the development of follow-up project is being realised with the submission of the new KA2 project called ‘’ACTORS OF COMMUNITY CHANGE’’, the project aimed to design a COMPLETE TOOL KIT and EDUCATIONAL PACK for developing and implementing and monitoring various INCLUSIVE strategies for promoting civic competences and advance ASSESSMENT TOOL for the formative and on-going type of reflective assessment of their habits, behaviour, attitudes and values. The expansion of new consortium working on this follow-up project also envisioned by their experiences and commitments in delivering project results with high quality. The use of the opportunities provided by the Erasmus+ programme for learning, teaching and training will offer the opportunities to a great number of participants to attend the blended learning programmes, as well as the short term joint Staff training and the Mobility of Young People.