Supporting Long-term Outcomes With Youth Work Erasmus Project

Project Title

Supporting Long-term Outcomes With Youth Work

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Reaching the policy level/dialogue with decision makers; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

Youth work is being increasingly formalised and politicised. As it gets called on to solve deeper structural challenges societies face, the focus of youth work policy and practice shifts away from the needs of young people themselves, particularly of young people with fewer opportunities. The priorities and topics in youth work seem to change fast, along with sets of elaborate indicators and outcomes that youth work should produce, with little time given to reflect on transformative nature of youth work, approaches used and lessons learned from them.One of the consequences of this is that youth work becomes dependent on interventionist measures demanded by policy makers, and the funds it receives are directly affected by the (in)ability to deliver. This contributes to an ever growing disconnection between the purpose and mission of youth work and the expectations of outcomes, affecting the retainment of professionals in the field and the quality of youth work services that young people receive. This is especially concerning where it leads to shrinking spaces for social inclusion work.

This project aims to promote long-term and inclusive ‘slow’ youth work policy and practice in partner countries and across Europe by initiating a deeper discussion on and delivering responses to the prevalent outcomes-oriented youth work approaches.
The objectives of the project are to (1) to identify the implications and impact of outcomes-oriented youth work on experiences of youth work of young people and youth work professionals; (2) to develop and promote the idea and practice of ‘slow’ youth work focused around holistic, youth-centred, Deep Value-based, long-term thinking about youth work in diverse contexts; (3) to support youth work professionals in developing a language for expressing the value of youth work beyond the quantifiable indicators; (4) to contribute to better evidence-based policy making in the youth field and to promote better youth work practice by disseminating project’s results to interested and affected parties; (5) to advance the capacity in youth interest advocacy of all involved organisations through forging new partnerships and alliances.

The project will bring together ContextEd from Latvia, Union for Youth Work from North Macedonia, Beyond 96 Youth Club from Ireland, and five associate partner organisations representing youth work professionals, youth interest advocates, and youth work researchers from the respective countries. The main outputs of this collaboration will be a Research Report on the impacts of outcomes-oriented youth work policy and practice (IO1), a Compendium and Guidelines for designing ‘slow’ youth work practice (IO2), and a Policy Pack for youth work interest advocacy strategy and messaging related to promotion of ‘slow’ youth work (IO3). The research and production work of all three IOs will be as participatory as possible to ensure learning about youth work policy and practice for everyone involved in the project.

Much attention will be devoted to the dissemination activities of the project. The partners will organise an international multiplier event in Latvia for over 50 participants, as well as an international and two national level webinars. To reach the decision makers, policy briefs will be prepared and shared. The most labour-intensive part of the dissemination efforts will be the active sharing of the projects outcomes to potential interested parties in project countries and beyond. Establishing dialogue and requesting feedback will allow the project’s results and ideas to reach wider audiences and to forge new partnerships that would continue after the project and would be based around the produced outputs, to disseminate them further. Communications strategy will support wide and deep dissemination of the results and a lively and meaningful discussion around the purpose, mission, and practice of inclusive youth work.

In short, it is expected that the project’s results will contribute to better decisions in youth work policy and practice to avoid short term initiatives and to focus on the needs of young people.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 57468 Eur

Project Coordinator

ContextEd & Country: LV

Project Partners

• Beyond 96 Youth Club
• SOJUZ ZA MLADINSKA RABOTA SKOPJE