SP – Focus on youth: Service design and co-creation Erasmus Project

Project Title

SP – Focus on youth: Service design and co-creation

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development)

Project Summary

In this project we will bring together partners with different national history and approaches to youth work. The main objective of the project is develop and try out new approaches on youth work, mainly youth centered service-design, co-creation and participation. While co-creation, facilitation and participation all share elements from non-formal methodology, the link to youth centered service design is less obvious.
Service design is the activity of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service in order to improve its quality and the interaction between the service provider and its users. Service design may function as a way to inform changes to an existing service or create a new service entirely.
We would like to look into the theory of service design to improve understanding of how youth move between different youth service providers and to identify different crucial breaking points where youth are left in vulnerable situations with limited or lacking support of the well-fare system. We want to investigate how professional youth work and non-formal education can support services and youth in developing solutions for strengthening these breaking points.
We would like to map youth between 15-25 using exciting and available data and using service design methodology to create a better and more holistic understanding of the path for youth from age 15 to 25.
We would like to train youth workers, facilitators, decision makers and other service providers in service design, non-formal approach to youth, participation theory and cross-sectorial cooperation to create spaces for co-creation between youth and those who provide youth services for youth.

Objectives of the project:
1. To explore the unique features of youth centered service design, co-creation and participation.
2. To develop competencies in theory and methodology of service design, co-creation and participation, adapting it to youth work.
3. Develop understanding of quality youth work integral with European youth work values.
4. To create youth work support system for quality international youth work in the project countries.
5. Contribute to the systemic recognition of youth worker competencies gained in non-formal way in partner countries.
6. To prepare multipliers to promote in youth worker training programs and create guidelines and proposals for future youth worker training programs and approaches.

Activities and outcomes:
We would like to have three trainings in the field that will function both as competencies development, but also a co-creation arena for us to develop and adapt new methodology to the youth field. The first two trainings will focus on developing understanding of the subject, the last one how to share and create impact of the findings.

We have also planned two national events in each partner country, for sharing knowledge, but also getting feedback on theory and methodology. The first one is for sharing theory and methodology from as result from the first two trainings, the last one for presentation of finished intellectual output.

The intellectual output of the project will be the development of Guidelines for youth centered service design. This will gather theory developed, and methodology proposals.

Expected results:
1. Strategic development in the youth work provider organizations in order to ensure efficient youth work development.
2. The project increases capacities to address youth policies and youth work issues effective
European exchange and cooperation between different systems of youth work. In this way, youth workers involved in the capacity building training courses will have a better understanding of what youth work is.
3. A set of educational materials, training methodologies will be developed.
4. Project partners will strengthen their roles as youth work development agencies in their represented countries.
6. Participants will develop cooperation network and future Erasmus + project will be developed.
7. Youth workers will understand the wider context and complexity of their work (changing realities, young people coming from other cultures and contexts).

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 141012,05 Eur

Project Coordinator

Medvirkningsagentene & Country: NO

Project Partners

• DYPALL NETWORK: ASSOCIACAO PARA O DESENVOLVIMENTO DA PARTICIPACAO CIDADA
• POLITIKOS TYRIMU IR ANALIZES INSTITUTAS
• FUNDACJA NA RZECZ WSPIERANIA INNOWACJI SPOLECZNYCH IDEA LAB
• Institut za mladinsko politiko, Ajdovscina