Our project involves 4 partners from NL, RO, BL, PL, and will last for 24 months, focusing on talent development approach in working with young people. In the last years, we have seen a shift in youth work from a problem solving and ‘emergency’ help approach towards a more positive approach, focusing on prevention & talent development when it comes to working with high risk youths. In 2008 DMO described 6 talent areas for youth work in the Netherlands to focus on; Sport/Body& Health, Arts&Music, Technology and ICT, Science and Nature, Communication & Language, Social Skills. Focusing on individual talents, creating success moments, builds up self- confidence, a positive self-image and creates future perspective. Our target group: youths aged 12-18 growing up in disadvantaged and vulnerable positions. In our regular youth work in all 4 organizations we noticed the lack of self-knowledge and self-regulation, and we see youths struggle with the questions ‘’Who am I?’’ What can I do?’’ What do I Want’? Our target group gets little support with addressing these issues from family or school, and there are little accessible opportunities for youths to try out and discover talents in different talent areas. Youths in Poland, Belgium and Romania face these same problems. What we see with youth workers from all 4 organizations and countries is a lack of knowledge of how talent development works exactly. However, each partner org has different expertise, methods and outlook on talent development, which interconnected will lead to our desired results. We will capitalize the expertise each member has, in order to reach our objectives: -Develop non formal methods and tools for youth workers to identify individual talent in a group; -Develop non formal methods and tools to stimulate self-discovery, self-knowledge and self-regulation ;-Develop a well-balanced program with projects and activities that covers all talent areas and skills needed for the 21st century; -Develop methods to connect projects and activities to secondary education and the labor market ;-Develop tools to make individual talents and competences visible to youths and document them, that are suitable for high risk youths and teenagers .This project should be carried out trans-nationally because this way we can share our diverse experiences in talent development. 80 youth workers will take part in the 4 TCs, planned to unfold, and 80 young people will take part in a web of local activities aimed at testing, piloting and designing new methods on talent development. Also close to 1200 will take in different follow-up and dissemination activities, and 5000 more will find out about our project via social media&internet. We will use a non-formal methodology and involve youngsters, youth workers, organizations from outside of the partnership its self, for validating and getting feedback on the results we are aiming for. Two intellectual outputs, a Guide on Talent Development and an innovative phone app for visualizing youths’ talent will be developed with all the partners’ contribution. Youth workers will be educated on how talent development works exactly, what are the different stages and what factors are needed to discover, develop and excel talent, gain knowledge of the effects of talent development on high risk, disadvantaged and vulnerable youths and by combining our expertise and experience in working with this specific target group we can identify successful methods and activities, etc. Youths will be introduced to a broader choice of talent areas and activities and they will be able to discover their specific talents and competences better and will have a better self-knowledge of who they are, what they can do and what they want, etc. Trough participating in our project and activities, youths will have a clearer view of what profession or education to pursue and see opportunities for jobs and schools; youths will also have a better view of their individual learning process and the competences that need to be developed further, and will be able to set personal goals. The main impact of the project will be that youth workers and organizations alike, will integrate talent development in their current practice, build projects and activities for identifying talents and for supporting young people to improve themselves. We will reach out and impact other organizations as well, though a well planned set of dissemination activities that will use our results to make changes in the way they work with their youths. At local, regional, national and EU level, as in many countries talent development is very little known, our project will raise awareness on the concept, and make other stakeholders and NGOs to start using methodologies and approaches for helping young people to identify and put to value their talents.
-Educate youth workers on how talent development works exactly, what are the factors needed to discover and develop talent; -Develop new skills and create hands-on methods and tools on how to identify individual talent in a group. -Youth workers gain knowledge of the effects of talent development on vulnerable youths and identify successful methods; -Develop methods and tools to stimulate self-knowledge and self regulation; -Youthworkers gain more in- depth knowledge of skills needed in the 21st century; -Expand youth work programs to cover more talent areas and 21st century skills; -Youth workers learn how to work with a human centered design; -Develop tools to make individual talents and competences visible to and document them, suitable for vulnerable teenagers. -Create practical methods of connecting activities to the labour market. By participating in our projects youths will ultimately: -have a clearer view of what profession or education to pursue; of their individual talents and what competences need to be developed further. -be able to describe and communicate their talents and competences better; -be better equipped for the 21st century.
We all noticed a lack of self-knowledge, when it comes to youths recognizing their own talent. Many of the youths we work with, often have a negative self-image, and they are not able to define and describe their talents and competences. In our areas, there are little accessible opportunities for youths to discover talents in different areas, outside of school. Youth workers lack the knowledge of how talent development works exactly, and what the benefits are of a talent oriented approach for vulnerable youths. What are the factors needed to evolve from discovering and developing-to putting talents to work? There is a lack of know-how on how to identify individual talents in a group, and how to coach youths towards self-knowledge and self-regulation. Youth workers also struggle to organise a well balanced program that cover all talent areas, because of lack of knowledge of these areas and how to adapt them into projects and activities. We are also not focusing enough on 21st century skills. Skills such as creative, critical and design thinking, should be incorporated in our program more. We are missing tools to register and make talents visible to youths, especially teenagers and connect them to the labour market.