Skill IT for Youth – Integrating Digital and Future Skills into Youth Work Erasmus Project

Project Title

Skill IT for Youth – Integrating Digital and Future Skills into 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 2017

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

The Skill IT for Youth project was a European initiative aiming to increase the quality of youth work through the digitalisation of youth organisations and the professionalisation of youth workers, resulting in increased opportunities for young people.
The partners’ goal was to equip youth workers with the relevant skills to enhance young people’s futures in the 21st Century, in line with the Erasmus+ goals for Strategic Partnerships and with the Digital Agenda for Europe, which stresses the need for more highly qualified young people for the digital economy, growing at seven times the rate of the rest of the economy (Digital Agenda for Europe, 2014).
Skill IT responded to the identified pressing need to enable youth workers to support young people in developing their ICT, digital & social media skills in order to enhance their employability, civic participation and wellbeing (Expert group on ‘Risks, opportunities and implications of digitalisation for youth, youth work and youth policy’ 2016; Screenagers Report 2016; Digital Scoreboard 2017).
We also aimed to address objectives taken from: the European Youth Strategy 2010-2018 – Investing and Empowering Youth (social inclusion, health and well-being, development of youth work, enhanced cross sectoral policy cooperation, participation, active citizenship), Europe 2020 (unemployment, social exclusion and mobility), the Youth Policy Agenda 2020 (human rights, employability, living together in diverse societies, social and economic inclusion of young people).
We believe that Digital-based Youth Work can:
• add value to the face-to-face interactions youth workers have with young people;
• enhance activities to include technology, making interactions a better fit for the new generation
• bring digital content into the work
• help to create online services for young people that cannot be reached otherwise. This has was shown to be all the more essential during the COVID-19 emergency

The professionalisation of youth workers and the digitalisation of organisations help to:
• foster the inclusion and employability of young people with a focus on those at risk
• ease transition into adulthood in particular the integration into the labour market
• reach out to marginalized youth
As well as an up to date innovative piece of Research on Digital Youth Work, Skill IT offers practical tools designed for the Youth Sector to ease digitalisation at every level of the organisation
• The Digital Learning Planning for Organisations provides a self-assessment tool and guidance to embed digital technology into youth NGOs in a truly youth-centred fashion, and an online course to take them through this process using Design Thinking
• The Competence Framework for Digital Youth Work Practice is an innovative and sector-specific way for youth workers to assess their competence level, receive feedback and grow their ability to facilitate young people’s digital learning
• The Training Toolkit for Youth Workers & Educators to Deliver Digital Skills to Young People supports staff and volunteers with detailed hands-on scenarios to facilitate digitally-based activities
Finally, our Policy Briefs aim to take Digital Youth Work to the next level with a number of concrete recommendations grounded in the research and in wide consultations.
The project directly reached or engaged the following stakeholders (more through Dissemination):
• For the Research (IO1) we consulted 118 Young People, 101 Youth Workers, 11 employers and 24 Senior Youth Services Managers.
• For the IO2 Competence Framework and SA tool we engaged youth workers to review the protype: 197 of them were given a demo and asked for feedback; 14 tested it online and gave more detailed feedback. 1 expert also reviewed
• Similarly for the IO3 Organisational Digital planning guide and SA tool, we demoed them to 122 professionals; 15 tested online and gave more detailed feedback. 2 experts reviewed.
In both the functionality was enhanced accordingly, making them really relevant for the sector. So far we recorded 239 PDF reports downloaded, generated by the SA tools. 100 people took the online quiz.
• 21 youth workers tested the Training Toolkit (IO4) during the C2. They were presented to another 121 professionals. There are 28 scenarios and 5 Adobe Sparks provided to show them in action. So far we recorded 384 views of Adobe Sparks
• 127 professionals were asked for inputs into Policy Briefs at the MEs via World Café and another 96 consulted via online poll. 5 Policy Briefs were written (1 translated also) and circulated with 5 videos to support Dissemination. So far we recorded 80 views of the videos
• 329 young people attended post C2 local workshops
• Multiplier Events: 41 people attended the first MEs and 69 the second

The tools are already having wide impact: several youth NGOs are using them to review and plan the digitalisation of the organisation and the development of their staff’s Digital Youth Work competencies.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 212311,75 Eur

Project Coordinator

NATIONAL YOUTH FEDERATION COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE & Country: IE

Project Partners

• FUNDATIA DANIS PENTRU DEZVOLTARE MANAGERIALA
• Kerry Diocesan Youth Service
• Camara Ireland Limited
• NORSENSUS MEDIAFORUM
• Fundacja Samodzielni Robinsonowie