The INSPIRATION ELEVATOR project combines the efforts of 4 partners, representing three main regions of Europe – Nordic (Norway), Central (Austria) and South Eastern (Bulgaria and Croatia). The starting point of our joint effort is supporting youth workers in introducing, organizing and implementing design thinking processes in their daily interventions with youth in risk, which will enhance youth employability and employment prospects. In most cases, employment support interventions targeting youth at risk have temporary effect (Piqué, M. Angels, 2015). Young persons experience training and support activities to enhance their employability, which in the best-case scenario result in their short-term employment. Following this employment period, they are forced to seek again support from above mentioned services hoping to get sustainable realization in both personal and professional life. Despite the positive effects from national measures, the reality of young persons in risk staying long out of job and education calls for reconsideration of the philosophy and methodology of existing youth work services. As youth trainers, what we notice in our work and the work of our colleagues in youth work community is that most of our efforts are focused on provision of basic skills. In other words, we try to provide young persons with “instruments” to operate successfully in life. While skills development is a crucial factor for success, it would need to be accompanied with building the right set of attitudes, so to be able to apply these skills in the best and sustained manner. Stepping on this premise we have realized one of the limitations of current youth in risk training programmes in our countries, i.e. they don’t fully address the psychological consequences of being at risk such as low self-esteem and decreased drive for achievement and initiative and the need to build strong growth mindsets of learners. The COVID-19 unprecedented crisis on all levels would place youth in risk in our countries and across Europe in even more unfavorable situation, which would require strong resilient aptitude to handle all unpredictable challenges to come. We are determined to develop outputs that will contribute to building this resilience. Our aim is to create conditions for improved employability chances of young people in risk in our countries. Our objectives are: - design and develop methodological manual for youth workers and coach app on how to embed design thinking as a horizontal activity in their daily training and support work with youth in risk to re-/enter the labour market; - piloting the developed outputs with 24 youth workers (8 per partner country) and 48 youth at risk; - expand outputs exploitation to 48 youth workers (16 per partner country) and 96 youth at risk; - disseminate project activities and results to 850 youth workers and other relevant stakeholders. The immediate target group are youth workers. The end users of our efforts are youth at risk. In each partner countries there will be an emphasis on specific youth sub-groups, e.g. Refugees and Migrants (Norway); Roma (Croatia); Economically Disadvantaged (Austria and Bulgaria). ++Tangible results (outputs)++ 1. IO1 – Methodological manual for introducing design thinking in youth work, electronic document available in all partner languages and English. 2. IO2 – Coach app for youth workers to develop their design thinking mindset and encourage application in their daily work. 3. 72 youth workers integrate IO1 and IO2 in their daily work (piloting: 24 and exploitation:48). 4. 144 youth at risk are engaged in new youth work activities, led by youth workers using IO1 and IO2 (piloting: 48 and exploitation:96). 5. 850 youth workers and other stakeholders reached through dissemination activities (1 multiplier event, 24 online publications, 16 thematic presentations at external events, ongoing information provision). ++Intangible results (outcomes)++ 1. Improved professional competences of youth workers in partner organisations and beyond to embed design thinking principles and processes in their daily work with youth in risk. 2. Increased professional development motivation of youth workers. 3. Improved motivation for learning and development of youth at risk. 4. Improved employability skills of youth at risk. 5. Improved awareness of the benefits of design thinking of the wider youth work community and other relevant stakeholders. The overall impact of our efforts will be to foster social inclusion of youth in risk and raise the quality of professional learning opportunities for youth workers in partner countries and beyond.
Our objectives we achieved during the project: Our main aim was to create conditions for improved employability chances of young people in risk in our countries. This has been achieved through improving the level of preparedness of youth workers, interacting with youth in risk. Our aim has been achieved through implementing a set of objectives, as follows: designed and developed methodological manual for youth workers and coach app on how to embed design thinking as a horizontal activity in their daily training and support work with youth in risk to re-/enter the labour market;
We applied for this project because we try to provide young persons with “instruments” to operate successfully in life. While skills development is a crucial factor for success, it would need to be accompanied with building the right set of attitudes, so to be able to apply these skills in the best and sustained manner. We realized one of the limitations of current youth in risk training programmes in our countries, i.e. they don’t fully address the psychological consequences of being at risk such as low self-esteem and decreased drive for achievement and initiative and the need to build strong growth mindsets of learners. With IE project, we proposed ways for youth trainers to overcome this obstacle towards effective youth work intervention. The focus of our efforts was to create methodological and support mechanism for youth workers, which enabled them to empower young people + nurture their self-assurance, so to increase their chance for sustainable employability. The COVID crisis on all levels placed youth in risk in our countries and across Europe in even more unfavorable situation, which requires strong resilient aptitude to handle all unpredictable challenges.