Our project, "From Awareness to Action: Enhancing Emotional Intelligence in Youth Work," focused on the importance of emotional intelligence in youth work. Emotional intelligence was identified as one of the key elements in youth work, allowing youth workers to understand and effectively respond to the emotional needs of young people. It helps in building positive relationships with young people, promoted empathy and active listening, and enabled youth workers to recognize and manage their own emotions and reactions to challenging situations. Additionally, emotional intelligence provides a framework for creating a safe and supportive environment for young people to express their feelings and develop coping mechanisms. Therefore, emotional intelligence was considered essential in providing effective and holistic support to young people, playing a critical role in the overall of each young person and youth worker's life, both in the personal and professional scales, and consequently in the overall quality of social interactions. To describe emotional intelligence, it can be defined as the ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions, both our own and those of other people around us. Emotional intelligence is mostly emphasized as much more than soft skills; it contains essential skills vital in any profession. The emotional intelligence of youth workers dictates how they managed themselves, dealt with people, communicated effectively or ineffectively, and handled feedback and setbacks in the field of youth work. In the context of youth work, developing emotional intelligence is critical not only for the benefit of youth workers but was also key to effectively supporting the youth with whom they worked. This explained the World Economic Forum's identification of emotional intelligence as two of the top 10 essential skills for the 2020 workplaces. The world faces challenges due to rapid changes affecting individuals, groups, and societies on a local, national, and international level. Coping with these changes is considered crucial for young people and adults, requiring the courage and ability to manage the impact of these changes on themselves, their communities, and the world as a whole. To achieve this, they need not only the skills to handle change but also practices that could build their capacity to navigate these changes. These practices encouraged young people and youth workers to develop an open mind through curiosity, an open heart through compassion and gratitude, and an open will through courageous actions, all with the goal of promoting the well-being of everyone. This situation inspired the investigation of how emotional intelligence could be a crucial aspect of both personal growth and social inclusion in contemporary European youth work. The concept of Emotional Intelligence is still widely debated and researched for its potential and various aspects. Despite this, there is a general agreement that emotions had a crucial impact on an individual's overall quality of life, both in their personal and professional life, and therefore on the quality of social interactions. The belief persists that Emotional Intelligence should have a greater presence in youth work, youth policies, and education as a whole. Needs: • Excess of critical judgment currently present in society • Lack of youth projects that focus on EQ, even though its critical importance • Emergence of compassion fatigue in youth workers • The existence of excessive and destructive coping mechanisms in young people • Lack of awareness among young people about the importance of soft skills compared to the hard skills Objectives: • Overcoming the excess judgments on society by strengthening emotional intelligence • Raising awareness about emotional intelligence • Overcoming compassion fatigue • Developing constructive coping mechanisms • Improving recognition, understanding, and management of emotions Therefore, the emotional intelligence of youth workers was considered important for several reasons: • Better relationships with young people: Emotional intelligence enables youth workers to build stronger, more empathetic relationships with young people, leading to greater trust, improved communication, and more effective support. • Improved well-being: By understanding their own emotions and those of others, youth workers could better manage stress, maintain positive relationships, and promote a sense of well-being. • Better team dynamics: When youth workers have high emotional intelligence, they a are now better able to work effectively in teams, collaborate, and resolve conflicts. • Better outcomes for young people: Youth workers with high emotional intelligence are now better equipped to support young people in dealing with emotional challenges, such as bullying, stress, and anxiety, leading to better outcomes.