The KA2 strategic youth partnership "Independent People" is designed to identify effective non-formal approaches to developing and evidencing soft skills in the field of youth work, through the exchange of good practices between 3 partner organisations. In the course of our organisational activities and a preliminary literature review, we have observed that disadvantaged young people often lack critical "soft skills", such as self-confidence, resilience, motivation, and self-management. It is evident from our programmes that a significant number of the young people we work with require preliminary non-formal support to acquire and develop basic soft skills, before they are able to (re) engage in formal learning, participate fully in society, and progress into and within the world of work. The central notion of Independent People is that soft skills are vital competences that young people need to possess and by capacity-building youth workers to deliver high quality support via non-formal learning approaches, we can help young people to acquire these skills more effectively. By bringing together 3 highly experienced organisations (vzw aPart from Belgium, Karlstads Kommun from Sweden, and Humber Learning Consortium from the UK), all working with disadvantaged youth, we aim to approach non-formal soft skills development methodologies from a practitioner standpoint - whilst simultaneously involving and co-producing project results with target groups of young people on our respective programmes. Independent People has 4 objectives, over 18 months: 1) To identify a common set of 'soft skills' that foster increased social inclusion of target groups of young people 2) To identify effective and successful non-formal approaches to developing a young person's soft skills 3) To develop a user-friendly way of evidencing soft skills development 4) To develop youth work practitioners' confidence in delivering non-formal soft skills development opportunities These objectives are closely linked to delivery of the following results: 1) A common soft skills framework, providing the basis for: 2) A soft skills passport (in English, Swedish, and Dutch) 3) A web-based guide for youth workers on how to deliver soft skills / use the passport (in English, Swedish, Dutch) The project will achieve its objectives and results through a combination of: 1) Coordinated local activities involving youth workers and young people 2) Virtual practitioner collaboration to share approaches and learning across the partnership 3) 3 x 4-day teaching and learning activities in each partner country with a total of 48 youth work practitioner mobilities (plus host staff and young people) 4) Coordinated local activities and virtual collaboration to develop and test a soft skills passport and web-based practitioner guide (practitioners and young people) 5) 2 x 2.5 day transnational partnership meetings (at the beginning and end of the project) The soft skills passport and web-based practitioner guide will be thoroughly disseminated and made freely accessible on the strategic partnership's website and the Erasmus+ Results Platform. Our aspiration is to make an impact at: 1) individual level; by increasing participating youth workers' confidence and expertise in delivering soft skills 2) organisational level; by increasing each partners' capacity and competence to work transnationally, upskilling the workforce, and creating resources to help improve outcomes for young people (i.e. passport, web-guide) 3) partnership level; by developing appetite and capacity to undertake future joint work, e.g. spin-off KA1 youth mobilities and staff mobility projects 4) sectoral level; by creating 2 open access results (the soft skills passport and practitioner web-guide) that can be adopted and adapted by other youth work organisations
Through the Independent People project, we wanted to provide youth workers with a framework of vital / common soft skills to guide and inform their development activities with young people, equip them with a way of evidencing the development of these skills (a soft skills passport), and create an accessible activity bank (website) of practical soft skills methodologies that could be taken "off the shelf" and used by someone working in a role with young people. In creating these results, we wanted to develop youth work practitioners' confidence in delivering non-formal soft skills development opportunities, and in doing so, foster increased social inclusion of target groups of young people.
The 3 partner organisations, Karlstads Kommun (Sweden), vzwaPart (Belgium), and Humber Learning Consortium (UK) all work with disadvantaged young people who frequently have low levels of critical soft skills, such as motivation, communication, resilience, and problem-solving. We found that our youth work practitioners often use a wide variety of innovative ways in which to develop a young person's soft skills, but their methods and practice could benefit from greater intent/purpose, structure, and transferability. The core ideas behind Independent People were that soft skills are vital competences that young people need to possess in all aspects of their lives, and by capacity-building youth workers to deliver high quality support via non-formal learning approaches, we can help young people to acquire these skills more effectively.