Open youth work in German-speaking countries has become very professional over the past decade. In addition to a leisure and adventure pedagogy orientation, the field has increasingly developed in the direction of social pedagogy and social work with young people. With the increasing professionalization of the field of action and the higher qualification of the professionals, the topic of counselling in open youth work has gained greatly in importance. The demand and need for advice on the part of the young beneficiaries of the Open Youth Work (OJA) is increasing and expertise is expected from system partners and public funding bodies. Nevertheless, there are hardly any professional concepts on the types and requirements for counselling or empirical findings on counselling practices in open and low-threshold settings. There is neither a clear definition, demarcation of terms, role clarity nor quality criteria. The project connects to the quality debates within the framework of the EU youth strategy and fulfils important demands for innovation and quality-assured youth work. The EU Youth Strategy calls for quality-assured youth work in its focus area “empowerment”. Open youth work should deal with its competencies, framework conditions and qualifications and has to professionalize itself in terms of the right of young people to quality youth work. The European Youth Work Agenda, which is to be adopted at the end of 2020, aims to develop a European framework for improving the quality and innovation of youth work. The planned strategic partnership between bOJA, the nationwide network of open youth work in Austria, the AGJF - Arbeitsgemeinschaft Jugendfreizeitstätten, Baden-Württemberg eV and the FH Campus Wien aims to further professionalize open youth work by researching an increasingly important field of activity in order to identify perspectives for further development based on its outcome. The project comprises three phases: In the first, the current consulting practices in OJA are systematically analysed in the form of practical case studies. Quality factors and features of these practices are identified, discussed publicly with specialists and are described in detail for the first time. In phase two, OJA practitioners in Austria and Germany implement innovative counselling practices based on the findings from phase one under professional supervision and scientific evaluation. Phase three is dedicated to the strategic discussion and positioning of the counselling practices within the OJA and the field of social work. Quality criteria are defined and widely discussed, interfaces to other fields of action are discussed and advisory skills are defined in exchange with training providers. The project is scheduled for a period of 2.5 years.
The project aimed to further professionalize Open Youth Work by researching und forther developing the important issue of counselling in Open Youth Work. Essentially, the focus was on 4 target areas: I. Research into counselling practices in Professional Open Youth Work II. Creating innovation in counselling methods in Professional Open Youth Work III. Creating a (new) understanding of counselling in Professional Open Youth Work and thus a (new) positioning within Social Work IV. Further development of the profile of youthworkers At the field of action level, the project results should lead to improved quality of advisory services within Open Youth Work as well as further professionalization of the field of action. At the level of the practitioners, it was about promoting professional self-confidence and individual self-efficacy expectations. The oganizations of Professional Open Youth Work involved in the project were given the opportunity to reflect on and further develop their everyday counselling practices.
Open Youth Work in German-speaking countries has become significantly more professional in the last decade. From a more leisure and experiential educational orientation, the field has mostly developed towards social pedagogy and social work with young people. This is not least because of the increased demands and needs of the young target group and society in general. With the increasing professionalization of the field of activity and the better qualification of specialists, the topic of counsellings in Professional Open Youth Work has gained great importance. The demand and need for counselling from young users of Open Youth Work is increasing and system partners and funding bodies are expected to have technical and professional know-how. The corona crisis also increased the need for professional, low-threshold interventions. Although counselling in Professional Open Youth Work is provided every day and is in great demand, there has been little research on it. There were hardly any professional concepts regarding forms and requirements for counseling and counseling theories in open settings. There were no definitions or quality standards.