According to a survey by the Times Education Supplement, 85% of teachers worldwide feel their students don’t have the critical thinking skills they need when they start university. (https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/school-leavers-lack-critical-thinking-skills-needed-university-exam-board-warns). Are critical thinking skills declining? Is technology producing a decline in critical thinking and analysis while enhancing other skills? These are questions we asked ourselves as youth workers in non formal education and teachers in the formal education system about 5 years ago. Since then, the debate has been ongoing. This year we decided to organize an internal survey in our own NGOs and within our networks of youth workers and teachers. Over 45 youth workers replied: -85% answered that they noticed youngsters we lacking skills in critical thinking including themselves at times -78% answered that it worsened in the last 2 yrs -70% declared having difficulties in separating the wheat from the chaff when it came to the constant flow of information we are coming across on a daily basis -98% declared they experienced conflict within their circle when it came to debating with opposing views on several sensitive topics like war, politics, health decisions, climate change etc We decided to write a project about it as we thought it was a crucial topic and our colleagues around us asked for it. Critical thinking is almost universally considered as one of the primary goals of education (at all levels). It is possibly the only goal of education on which there is general consensus. And yet, there is nothing close to consensus as to what critical thinking is. Within any given discipline, there is a wide variety of opinions as to what characterizes critical thinking. Since critical reasoning entails doing something with information, the more information we possess, the better positioned we are to reason critically. And yet, critical reasoning is more than just processing large volumes of information. It involves interrogating that information for consistency and coherence with other accepted truths. The challenge of defining critical thinking surely stems from the fact that our thinking processes are not subject to direct observation, by either ourselves or others. We can’t even be certain that the processes are the same for each of us. As a highly complex skill or process, critical reasoning is even more impervious to our deliberate scrutiny. The debate about 21st century skills in knowledge economies leads to encouraging the development of core subject knowledge as well as new media literacies, critical and systems thinking. General Objectives were to: 1/Strengthen the capacities of youth workers through skill sharing and enrich their knowledge and understanding about Critical Thinking 2/Equip youth workers with necessary skills, tools, methods to better understand Critical Thinking, troubleshooting, collaborative thinking, problem solving 3/Demonstrate to youth workers the benefits of using different skills, tools, methods to better understand how to engage the youth on a deeper level on Critical Thinking 4/Create a space for youth workers who foster to exchange ideas and share non formal methods on the topic of Critical Thinking. 5/Increase youth workers’ professional value. When a youth workers’ expertise helps the entire team, they become a more valuable part of it. Their presence is worth more to the organization—and that can translate into tangible rewards for youngsters. Specific Objectives were to: 1/Develop methods and skills on the topic of Critical Thinking to transfer to youngsters and colleagues back home. 2/Share peer to peer knowledge gathered from experience specific to youth work on the topic of Critical Thinking broadening the conversation. 3/Train other youth workers and youngsters a valuable set of workshops based on non formal methods on Critical Thinking 4/Develop a guidebook for youth workers about on Critical Thinking containing knowledge, tools, workshops, contacts of trainers and resources. Learning Outcomes: • Be the recipient and learn content using non formal methods to transfer on Critical Thinking in youth work to other youth workers During the 2 phases of our project we all worked together to develop a guidebook on critical thinking for youth and youth workers. The idea was to develop a Guidebook on Critical Thinking workshops, concrete tools, solid notions to disseminate on national, regional and European levels. Together with participants we agreed on the form and structure of our output, and worked on it on both training courses.