The Wonderful Wizards of Youth Work - Call for trainers

The Wonderful Wizards of Youth Work

In previous years, YEU has put significant amounts of energy, efforts and experience on adapting current non-formal education and youth work practices or developing new ones with the goal to follow the needs of young people we and our member organisations are working with. 

The main reason behind is that the context, narratives and environment in which we work are in a constant state of change affecting behaviours, attitudes and life-styles. Technology has developed at the speed of light and we haven’t managed to change our practices together with it or to catch up. Methodologies that were effective 10-15 years ago, are not as effective now. Since 2014 (YEU Year of Innovations) when we decided to focus on changes in methodologies and practices, and we believed that people will come along and improve their competences just by being challenged to work on new methodologies. Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened to the extent needed to be able to follow the changes in our contexts and environments and we have seen lower responses of youth work providers than expected. 

By youth work providers we mean: youth workers (paid or volunteers), trainers and organisers in the field of grass-roots activism and learning mobility environments on local, national and international level. This workplan will be dedicated to supporting development of quality youth work and non-formal education standards in YEU and member or partner organisations. It will impact the whole YEU Universe: 36 member organisations and approximately 10 more partner organisations. Participants of the Workplan activities will support not only development of YEU as international organisation but also development of organisations they are coming from. 

Following the Recommendations of the Committee of Ministers to Member States on youth Work and Council of Europe’s Youth Work Portfolio, in the workplan “The Wonderful Wizards of Youth Work” we want to focus on the following: 

Quality youth work and its implementation: understanding what quality means to youth work providers in and around YEU is essential in order to achieve “ultimate educational experiences aiming at learner’s personal and socio-educational and professional development”. 

Building competences of youth work providers on quality youth work and its implementation: making a change in young people’s lives requires development of human resources, broadening their perspective, building competences and appetite to never stop learning and exploring. To be able to change others, one needs to be able to change themselves. 

Defining quality and standards/guidelines for implementation: By looking into current practices of youth work on different levels, within YEU and our organisations, we will create framework for quality youth work in order to improve the services offered to young people. 

The aim of “The Wonderful Wizards of Youth Work” is to improve the quality of youth work and non-formal education provided by YEU and our member organisations by rethinking and redefining our principles, practices and building the competences of our youth work providers, all in line with youth work recommendations and portfolio. 

Objectives of the workplan:

 To rethink what is quality youth work and non-formal education for YEU and its youth work providers

To map the strengths and weaknesses, impact and capacities of youth work and non-formal education in YEU and member/partner organisations and create a common ground for understanding our good practices and models

To define a set of core competencies for practicing youth work in YEU universe (member organisations, pool of trainers and organisers, work on international level) and serving better young people and their needs

To build capacities of youth work providers in order to be reactive to the needs of young people and adapt their practices and methods in line with quality youth work and non-formal education principles

To disseminate quality youth work principles and practices by raising awareness about the Youth Work recommendations of Council of Europe and advocating for their implementation on local/national levels

Target groups: 

Main target groups of the workplan are youth work providers working on local, national and international level coming from YEU member or partner organisations, but not necessarily. We will be open for participation of any youth work provider willing to contribute to rethinking what is quality youth work and non-formal education when working locally and/or internationally. 

at least 50 youth workers, trainers and facilitators will be directly involved in rethinking and reshaping youth work practices in YEU (through different activities) and member/partner organisations. 

At least 25 youth workers trainers, organisers and facilitators to have their competences built

Similar local and international youth organisations - to provide feedback on YEU models

Institutions and organisations with Youth Work portfolio such as Council of Europe (including Advisory Council on Youth), European Commission, European Training Strategy, EU-CoE Youth Partnership - to present YEU models and advocate for quality youth work and non-formal education implementation across Europe

Results: 

YEU and its youth work providers (youth workers, trainers, organisers and facilitators) have a clear understanding and common ground of values, principles followed, types/models of youth practiced and core competences needed to be built further 

YEU has defined and developed its quality frameworks for youth work and non-formal education (NFE Quality Assurance-QA Framework is revisited and a new Quality Youth Work Framework is created with set of quality standards and guidelines) which will form a YEU Quality Label. 

25 youth work providers have their core competencies on quality youth work and non-formal education built on

New generation of youth work providers have their capacities and competencies built 

10 testing actions implemented (trying out the frameworks in practice and giving feedback)

YEU is an active contributor to policy debates on youth work, its recognition and validation of competences as well as professionalization on all levels based on youth work providers, organisations and young people’s input collected during the workplan implementation 

Publication with YEU quality youth work and non-formal education models, practices and tested actions included, for further dissemination and usage by similar organisations, particularly member organisations

Activities: 

Activity 1: Follow the Quality Youth Work Road

April 11-18th 2019 (Bonn, Germany)

Activity 1 will be focused on rethinking quality of NFE and youth work we are providing. It will be a gathering of youth work providers cooperating with YEU through our member and/or partner organisations,trainers, organisers and facilitators. The activity will have 6 working days and it will be a meeting to brainstorm on what is youth work for us, what and how we want to do as well as how to build our human resources in order to serve better the local communities and young people. Being held in Bonn, Germany, part of the Activity will be dedicated to visiting Salto Youth Training and Cooperation Resource Centre and learning about current trends in international youth work, non-formal education recognition and validation processes as well as Competence Model for Youth Workers to Work Internationally in the framework of the European Training Strategy (ETS) in the field of youth which will be the basis of Activity 2. 

Part of the meeting will be held in Open Agenda format. The results of the Activity 1 will be a document summarising conclusions of the Activity serving as the common ground of values, principles followed, types/models of youth work practiced and core competencies needed to be built further and basis for quality frameworks for youth work and non-formal education (NFE Quality Assurance Framework is revisited and a new Quality Youth Work Framework is created with set of quality standards and guidelines). 

Activity 2: Adventures in Emerald City - Training of youth work providers

June 2019 (Novi Sad, Serbia – under the umbrella of European Youth Capital 2019) 

Activity 2 will be the capacity building activity for 25 young youth work providers with an aim to build their capacities and core competencies with the focus on development of four dimensions: attitudes, knowledge, skills and behaviours. As YEU values equally the work of youth work trainers and organisers Activity 2 will be built on ensuring that trainers, organisers and facilitatorswork as a team during learning mobilities and/or local youth work activities. The programme will be built on providing training for 8 competences as defined in the ETS Strategy. Additionally, youth work providers will have their capacities built on the basics of youth work and non-formal education, their principles and values. The Activity will have 7 working days and will be held in Novi Sad, Serbia in order to understand the models of youth work in a local context and working with disadvantaged groups. 

YEU is an inclusive organization with specific policies related to gender perspective and we aim at having our events as safe places for everybody to be who they are and freely express their identities. Part of the programme of Activity 2 will be dedicated to gender perspective and how to have in international youth activities by using resources presented by EYF (https://www.coe.int/en/web/european-youth-foundation/gender-perspectives).

As a follow up of Activity 2, participants will have a task to implement the gained knowledge in local actions by using the draft frameworks on quality youth work and QA framework on NFE with the aim to both test their newly acquired skills and provide feedback regarding the frameworks/standards. 

Activity 3: Somewhere over the rainbow - there is no place like home

September 2019, (Mollina, Spain) 

Activity 3 will be held as part of University on Youth and Development (UYD) in Molina, Spain with the idea to finalise the frameworks with models and standards together with publication and create recommendation on how to connect youth work in practice and youth policy development on international level. 

Being held during UYD, we will use the opportunity to present our models of youth work, frameworks and standard (YEU Quality Label) to other youth organisations and raise awareness on importance of following quality standards when serving young people and their needs at all levels. 

Activity 3 will gather 25 more experienced youth work providers and members of our Expert team on quality youth work and NFE.

YEU is looking for: 

-      1 senior trainer 

-      1 junior trainer 

We are aiming at hiring the trainers for the whole duration of the programme. 

Trainers` profile (Priority will be given to those that most closely meet these criteria and to members of the YEU PET): 

o Have knowledge and experience on topics covered by the training (for trainers);

o Are willing to collaborate and work for the benefit of the project with respect of deadlines set by YEU

o Senior trainer needs to be able and ready to mentor junior trainer

o Are proficient users of English language

Responsibilities of the Trainers:

o To have regular online meetings with other trainers and the project coordinator in order to plan the trainings;

oTo develop the latest version of the daily programme latest 2 weeks before the trainings;

oTo develop the relevant session outlines latest 2 weeks before the trainings;

oTo be present at the trainings and implement their tasks in a collective way;

oTo have daily evaluation with the project coordinator during the training;

oTo prepare a final report which needs to be submitted to the project coordinator latest 3 weeks after the training

oSenior trainers need to provide support to junior trainer and work on them on development of their skills during the preparation and in the training providing them with relevant learning experience.

oTo develop and finalize the publication

o To closely follow up the developments within the processes be responsible for the outcomes of the programme.

Financial matters:

Fee for senior trainer is 120 per day, gross amount. Fee for junior trainer is 60 EUR per day, gross amount. 

If selected, all the details including YEU Golden rules, YEU Code of Conduct, junior support, deadlines, tasks and conditions will be stated in the contract between trainers and YEU. Travel costs within travel costs limits and visa costs (if any) are covered by YEU 100%. If you are interested, please apply here no later than November 18th 2018.