Reseach shows how much is happening in the countries.

Written by Nik Paddison

Can each one of you introduce yourselves?

My name is Åsa Gunvén and I am a coordinator at a regional umbrella organisation for municipal youth work in Stockholm, Sweden. We bring together 14 municipalities and two colleges for youth work.

Hi, my name is Jules Heger and I work at WIENXTRA, which is a large youth work association in Vienna and funded by the city. I work at the Institute for Leisure Pedagogy within the organisation, which is a training facility for youth workers.

And I am Frederike Hofmann-van de Poll, I am working at the Centre for European Youth Policy at the German Youth Institute, and I am a freelance researcher working for the SNAC Growing Youth Work.

What for each of you are the key takeaways from the research?

Frederike

I think there are two big takeaways this year. First of all, looking back over the last three years, what we see is that the European Youth Work Agenda (Agenda) is a really successful European-wide driven process. It strengthens and develops youth work at all levels. We see that it provides direction and it also supports the taking of action. The report shows us that there are a lot of things happening in so many countries within each of the priority areas. Of course, there are some priority areas where more is happening than in others.

The Agenda is being used as a tool for reflection regarding youth work developments, the quality of youth work, and the strengthening of youth work. People are reflecting on what they are doing and how they can use the Agenda and the priority areas to make their own youth work better.

The other big takeaway for me is that there are two very clear focuses from the priority areas in a lot of the national processes and on the European level. One is “Quality Development” and the other is the “Promotion and Recognition”.

When it comes to Quality Development, we see that there are a lot of countries and processes working on education and training, but increasingly also on questions like ethics, standards, and frameworks. And when it comes to Promotion and Recognition, we see that recognition is not something which can be done alone but that it is really a ‘precondition’ and an ‘outcome’. For example, we see that in many cases, recognition is a precondition for funding, if there is recognition politically and socially, then we also see that there is more funding available. Recognition is also an outcome when it comes to quality development. When there is quality youth work and quality education of youth workers then there is more recognition of the profession of youth work and recognition of the field as a whole.

Åsa

Overall, the reports shows to me the importance of simply having a process – the Agenda. I like also that it is something that is organic and is being strengthened over time. It provides direction, which is important and according to the report, we seem to be pushing jointly in the same direction.

Jules

I definitely agree with this, we need a shared direction in order to better understand and work on similar shared problems and goals. For me as a newcomer to the field, I think it is important to be in this setting so that I can understand all of these processes that are happening.

In terms of the national processes, what developments in youth work are you seeing?

Jules

In Austria we have the Austrian youth strategy that we are using as a reference point. However, the country has a federal structure and not every federal state has their own youth strategy. Currently we are in a process of using the Agenda to help establish local and federal youth work strategies. We have a lot of structures and policies for youth work already in place but like the research results show, there is always a need for quality development and for recognition.

Åsa

I think the European processes can feel very far away from the local level. But a positive thing that has come out of the process in Sweden is how we have managed to gather national actors into a Europe Goes Local working group. This national working group puts the focus on current issues, finds common strategies, and works on advocacy. It spreads information about a range of issues related to the quality development of youth work, education in the field, and the status of youth work.

Frederike

From a researcher point of view, we are looking at the whole process and how it is realised. We do see that there are different needs regarding what is happening at the European level and what is happening within countries. Interestingly, we see that the issues at the local level are not very different within Europe. There are similar challenges in Sweden, Portugal, Netherlands, Montenegro and so on. Everywhere, local youth work is dealing with questions on quality, recognition, youth worker recruitment, etc. This is where the Agenda helps, it brings these processes and people together to exchange and talk and find solutions.

What are the connections you see between the Agenda and local level youth work - in practice and through the report?

Åsa

There is a lot happening on the local level that contributes to the Agenda. However, the way the European level reaches the local level, that is a bigger challenge. It is crucial to find the structures that connect the European level with the local level. I think in countries like Sweden where you lack national policy on youth work, it is a really great benefit to have a document and political process on the European level. It is really a great support for the local level to have such a political document, a political weight, which includes directions. This gives status and recognition to the local level.

Jules

It is not so popular at the local level to have things “imposed” from above. Even if it is coming from Vienna to other federal states, let alone from the European level. Many just want to do their own thing. I think the goal is to offer specific formats to the local level in order to encourage collaboration and thereby contribute to the Agenda implicitly.

Frederike

Regarding the Agenda and the local level, there are two different things to take into account. There is the European level process of the Agenda and there is what is happening with the Agenda at the local, regional and national levels. The local level is where youth work is happening and that is where we really want to strengthen and develop youth work. Everything that is happening on the European and even on a national level, those are tools and strategies for strengthening and developing youth work on the local level.

To get information on what is happening on the national level to the local level, there is for example, the Growing Youth Work SNAC, which includes the Survey Report. It shows how national processes are developing and which challenges youth work is encountering. Then there is also the Growing Youth Work Research from the Youth Partnership, which discusses the different expectations from the different actors and stakeholders in the field, exploring their expectations to the national and European levels, what the European stakeholders want and what are their expectations towards the national and local levels.

Are there other aspects from the report that you want to highlight?

Åsa

Something we have only briefly mentioned is the need for adequate youth worker education. It is really important that this is inside any European youth work strategy. It is an issue that is relatively hard to advocate for with local, regional and national actors, yet it is crucial. This is especially so when you don't have the education at the university level. If you don’t have it at the university level you don't have the research, but you need the research to be able to advocate for resources and again for the recognitions. It is like a circle. This is an area where it is really important to have support from the European level because this is an issue that is really hard to advocate for.

Frederike

I think that in a lot of countries in Europe, the difficulty is that there is no such thing as a youth worker as a recognised profession. In Austria and Germany for example, two countries with a long youth work tradition, many people in the youth work system are social pedagogists or social workers who have a specialisation – youth work. There are hardly any university degree programmes that focus on youth work specifically. I think there is an interesting development in South and East European countries which are developing youth work systems. They start with youth work courses at university to establish the profession.

In countries where there is a long youth work tradition, to introduce formal education of youth workers means the existing education system has to be changed, redistributing already limited resources for university studies and degrees. This is not easy and may take a lot of time. Whereas in, for example, Southeastern Europe, they start from scratch and they think completely differently. I think this is a very interesting thing where countries can learn from each other.

Jules

I think Vienna has a unique position within this debate on education, because the basic course of youth work that we have has existed already for 50 years. This is the course provided by the Institute for Leisure Pedagogy, where I work. For me it is important to stress that you don't even need to have a high school diploma to enrol in this course. This low-threshold structure works really well. It is recognised and acts as a prerequisite for doing youth work in Vienna.

One more thing!

Åsa

One more thing that occurs to me, a benefit of the Agenda is that it opens up reflection and dialogue. It brings the field together, the different actors from the national level, from academia, and from youth organisations.

Frederike

I think you are absolutely right, and I really like this idea that the Agenda and the Exchange Forum is a moment for reflection. I think this is very important that this should also stay like this and not get too formalised in the future.