Interdisciplinary competence development for youth workers in residential youth care and crisis intervention centers Erasmus Project

Project Title

Interdisciplinary competence development for youth workers in residential youth care and crisis intervention centers

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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

The importance of youth work for both our society in general as well as inclusion in particular has been clearly expressed by all European member states. There is no doubt that professional youth work, even more so in times of crisis, is needed to provide conditions for development, participation and inclusion of young people. However, several aspects make professional youth work a true challenge. While youth work is necessarily based on a cross-sectoral approach, the different support systems in place are overlapping in terms of different forms of youth work. This becomes even more challenging when youth work is about inclusion of young people with mental disorders and disabilities. Youth workers in residential youth care and in crisis intervention centres, who provide support in situations where living at home is no longer possible or an option for the young people, are confronted with complex situations: youth welfare and support systems for people with mental disabilities overlap; drug and alcohol abuse play a role; delinquency and truancy become topics to deal with; job search, job loss and unemployment become relevant. Therefore, it is not only the social-paedagogical competences, including skills with regard to youth culture, youth problems, learning and social embedding of young people, communication etc., that is required from professional youth workers; youth workers also, and sometimes much more so, need to know about the interfaces with medical services (psychiatric support and disease patterns), drug abuse support services, services for people with intellectual and multiple disabilities, services for asylum seekers etc. in order to tackle complex situations for the benefit of their young clients.

Focussing on an interdisciplinary approach and reflecting the challenges of youth work in residential youth care and crisis intervention, the INCREASE project provides an innovative contribution to the training offers for youth workers. The main aim and objective of the INCREASE project was the development of an interdisciplinary training programme to allow and enable youth workers to tackle the complex situations in daily work under the aspect of a cross-over perspective. The INCREASE project produced three distinct intellectual outputs: (1) As part of the INCREASE Exploration Study, the project partners asked 259 members of the target group, of cooperating external institutions and experts about their concrete content-related needs and requirements with regard to the training programme to be developed. (2) The INCREASE Training Programme and its curriculum for youth workers is divided into five modules, is scheduled for an intervention of 81 learning hours and follows the ECVET approach in order to allow for accreditation and recognition of learning outcomes. The testing of the training programme (pilot training with 40 youth workers) was also part of the developement of the curriculum. In addition, the partnership created guidelines on the inclusion of volunteers into residential youth care and on their use of the curriculum. (3) The experiences of the partnership during the project implementation period were collected and channelled into the INCREASE Youth Policy Recommendation Paper. This paper focusses on the national and European situation of residental youth care and on lifelong learning of youth workers. The paper provides concrete support and recommendations to policy makers for an improvement of an inclusive youth policy in Europe.

In September 2017, the INCREASE Conference was held in Graz, Austria. About 130 youth workers and stakeholders attended the event. Following a researcher’s keynote speach, which also stressed the importance to interact with other disciplines in complex situations and the importance of lifelong learning, the project partners presented the intellectual outputs. Additional discourses on a variety of project-related topics offered the possibility to exchange perspectives with experts.

The project partnership consisted of 7 organisations from AT, DE, IT, GR, UK and RO. All partners have experiences and expertise with the topic and the target group of the project. The different stakeholders and interest groups were well-reflected by the partnership; its geographical balance also added to the European value in the ouputs.

The short-term impact was measured during the pilot implementation and the conference. The feedback was mostly excellent, participants as well as project partners were highly convinced about the relevance of the project’s outputs. Partners are already planning further trainings for youth workers in residential youth care; dissemination of the recommendations to policy makers will be continued. Therefore, also a medium- and long-term effect of the project can be expected.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 234151,39 Eur

Project Coordinator

JUGEND AM WERK STEIERMARK GMBH & Country: AT

Project Partners

• Directia Generala de Asistenta Sociala si Protectia Copilului Harghita
• ARSIS KOINONIKI ORGANOSI YPOSTIRIXIS NEON
• VOLUNTEERING MATTERS
• FORMAZIONE CO&SO NETWORK – CONSORZIO DI COOPERATIVE SOCIALI SOCIETA COOPERATIVA SOCIALE
• E.N.T.E.R. GMBH
• UNIVERSITAET ULM