This project responds to a quiet but urgent reality within youth work: many committed youth workers become mothers — and during early motherhood, their professional identity often fades into the background. Not because their motivation disappears, but because family responsibilities, limited mobility, social expectations, and economic pressure create barriers to participation in professional development. We want to change that. Through four interconnected training courses forming a coherent learning spiral, this project creates a structured yet nurturing space where youth worker mothers can reconnect with themselves, strengthen their competencies, and consciously re-enter or remain in the youth work field with clarity and confidence. What we want to achieve We aim to strengthen youth work practice by supporting those who support young people. The project enables youth worker mothers to: • Reclaim their professional identity after motherhood • Recognise their lived experience as a resource, not a limitation • Update and expand their competences through experiential, artistic, embodied, and nature-based non-formal methodologies • Develop resilience, self-awareness, and sustainable self-care practices • Build international peer networks that reduce isolation and foster cooperation By investing in their personal and professional renewal, we directly contribute to higher quality, more authentic, and more resilient youth work practice. Objectives from a Youth Work Perspective 1. Strengthening Professional Identity Support youth worker mothers in reconnecting with their role as educators, facilitators, and community leaders, ensuring that valuable experience is not lost to the sector. 2. Enhancing Transferable Youth Work Competences Develop facilitation, reflection, storytelling, experiential learning, intercultural communication, and resilience-building skills directly applicable in daily youth work practice. 3. Promoting Sustainable and Inclusive Youth Work Formats Model short-term, accessible mobility structures that allow participation of youth workers with family responsibilities, contributing to inclusion and diversity in the sector. 4. Integrating Well-being into Quality Youth Work Embed mental health, boundary-setting, and self-care as professional competences, strengthening long-term sustainability of youth workers. 5. Supporting Career Reintegration and Retention Encourage youth worker mothers to return to or remain in the youth sector instead of leaving due to structural barriers, thus preserving experienced professionals within the field. 6. Creating a Replicable Methodological Model Test and document a learning spiral combining storytelling, embodiment, outdoor experiential learning, and systemic reflection that can be adopted by other youth organisations. 7. Raising Recognition of Youth Worker Mothers Contribute to a broader shift in perspective: youth worker mothers are not a marginal group, but a valuable and under-supported part of the youth work ecosystem. At its heart, this project is about wholeness. When youth workers are supported as whole human beings — not only as professionals, not only as mothers — they can return to young people with deeper presence, authenticity, and strength. And that is where youth work truly becomes transformative.