Supporting Evidence-based Education of Youth Workers Erasmus Project

Project Title

Supporting Evidence-based Education of Youth Workers

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

At the level of outcomes, the project had the following results: detailed evidence-based insight into the current state of youth work (YW) and identification of trends in Croatia and Slovenia; laid foundation for further professionalization of YW; better institutional recognition of youth work and youth workers; more quality education and training opportunities for youth workers; and active network of youth organizations which serve as community-based learning hubs for YW. The project had seven intellectual outputs altogether. The first one included research on the existing educational opportunities for YWs in partner countries, screening of youth work curricula in Europe; field research of the needs in youth work training and education in partner countries, specifically questionnaire for young people in Croatia and interviews with youth workers and young people that participate in youth work practices. This output was a key step that provided the partnership with an insight into the current state of YW in partner counties and made possible to develop other outputs of the project in an evidence-based way. The second output resulted in the development of occupation and qualification standards in Croatia and an occupation standard in Slovenia, all of which are the first of their kind in both countries. The partnership developed a curriculum for a life-long learning programme for YWs in the third output and a curriculum for a tertiary level YW programme in the fourth. The tertiary level programme is the first curriculum for formal education of YWs in Croatia. The results of the fifth output were guidelines for mentoring organizations and mentors that are planned to be used for the practical learning, a part of the tertiary programme for YWs. Two MOOCs were made by the partnership: Youth and Social Entrepreneurship and Digital (Learning) in Youth Work. The last output of the project was a handbook for community-based participatory action research that provides step-by-step instructions for youth workers to improve engagement in their communities. Such an educational material is the first of its kind in Croatia, as there is no literature in Croatian language yet that focuses on such research strategy. The outputs of the project are all working in synergy to better quality, recognition and visibility of YW.
Activities on the project were Training course for teachers/lectures/researchers – blended learning (C2) and community based learning (C1). Objectives were to increase quality of the youth LLP training course through the introduction of the blended-learning approach and community-based learning practices. The participants were teachers/lectures/researchers who were engaged in the delivery of the youth work LLP training modules. Training course for mentors – mentoring competences, how to set up a mentoring programme (C3), that brought together YWs – representatives of organizations that expressed their interest in becoming mentoring organizations for youth work students. Main goal of this training was to prepare and empower organisation representatives for the role of community engagement mentors. The participants learned how to set up a mentoring programme and acquired necessary mentoring competences. Training course for mentors – monitoring and evaluation (C4), brought together the same participants from C3 activity. The objective was to increase the quality of the youth work through successful integration of practice-based learning in the community. They learned how to successfully monitor and evaluate students’ learning outcomes. LLP youth work test modules (C5 – C17) gathered participants who applied to a module testing LLP programme. These activities gathered youth workers. The goal of this training event was twofold: to equip participants with core competences required for quality provision of youth work and to evaluate the quality of the innovative youth work LLP curriculum. Along with regular course activities, participants took part in an extensive evaluation intervention during the module that informed the overall evaluation of the curriculum. There were several activities and undertakings of the project with participants other than project partners. There was 11 on-line LLP test course training activities and two additional live activities. MEs included Policy lab; conference ‘Youth Work in Flux’; and conference on raising quality of YW. Participants in the MEs included researchers, YWa, policy makers, people from the CSOs and NAs.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 362001 Eur

Project Coordinator

INSTITUT ZA DRUSTVENA ISTRAZIVANJA U ZAGREBU & Country: HR

Project Partners

• SVEUCILISTE U RIJECI
• UNIVERZA V LJUBLJANI