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Empowering Youth towards Social Independence

2021-1-PL01-KA153-YOU-0000183852021Mobility of youth workersfinalized
Countries: PL|EL|BG|DE|LT · Grant: €14,688
Youth employabilityEqual access and transition to labour marketQuality and innovation of youth work

Objectives

The project idea was developed around the observation that a part of today’s youth is lacking social skills that are necessary for their personal improvement, social independence and employability. Social skills deficiency held back these youth from seeking personal development into higher levels and also better chances in employability. In addition, there was a need to train youth in the field and as such, we supported the notion that social skills were a learned skill they had been taught, and it was more than just having good manners. Social skills were one of the most important set of skills youth developed and they served as predictors of future success. Social skills had also been linked to job success, independence, and emotional well-being among all. Those with adaptive social skills demonstrated superior ability to observe, problem solve and respond in social situations and work-related situations. It was well observed that Youth with well-developed social skills gained confidence in their abilities to approach situations and complete tasks more successfully. Social skills were also linked to employability opportunities, meaning that people who possessed a good level of social skills such as critical thinking, empathy, communication skills, etc had more chances to obtain a job in general and to gain access to higher working positions in the future. The general aim of our project helped participants to understand that Social skills had been taught and they were a vital element of today’s youth in order to obtain better employability, better stand in the community, and better chances of success in many fields of their life. The reasoning behind our motivation to design and implement the INDEYOUTH project was the need to equip our youth with advanced social skills and to qualify youth workers with adequate competencies, so they managed to train youth in this field. It was well understandable that whatever the level of education and competences, lack of social skills brought obstacles to further development of a person and we needed to prepare and equip our youth with all available means to success in their life. There are many reasons why a person may have a social skills deficit. It could occur because of a lack of knowledge, such as the inability to acquire new skills, or because of a competency deficit. Sometimes, the person may know how to perform the social skill, but they may struggle to perform because of limited practice or inadequate feedback. There may also be internal or external factors that interfere with the person performing the social skill, such as anxiety or chaotic surroundings. In our project, we identified the following social skills that were directly linked with employability and we worked with our participants: 1) Basic Communication Skills: these included the skills to use body language, eye contact, hand gestures, and tone of voice to color the message they tried to convey, clarity and concision in communication and confidence, 2) Empathy and EQ: was the capability of people to recognize their own emotions and those of others, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately. 3) Interpersonal Skills: interpersonal skills included the abilities of sharing, joining activities, dealing with other people, planning and organizing, initiative implementation, etc 4) Problem-Solving Skills: Active listening, Decision making, situation analysis, conflict resolution skills, etc 5) Accountability: Accountability was also essential because recognizing mistakes were an excellent way to indicate a conciliatory and cooperative attitude.

Project partners (5)