On the 8th of April 2025, the “Youth Work Talks” held another in its series of webinars, titled “Xcelerating the recognition of youth work”. This webinar provided information about the 4th European Youth Work Convention and its themes. At the same time, it highlighted the topic of recognising youth work, which is the current focus of the event series “Youth Work Talks” by the cooperation project “Growing Youth Work”.
Written by Nik Paddison
On the 8th of April 2025, the “Youth Work Talks” held another in its series of webinars, titled “Xcelerating the recognition of youth work”. This webinar provided information about the 4th European Youth Work Convention and its themes.
At the same time, it highlighted the topic of recognising youth work, which is the current focus of the event series “Youth Work Talks” by the cooperation project “Growing Youth Work”. The Convention takes place in Malta from 27-30 May 2025. The webinar was organised by “Growing Youth Work” with the support of the hosts of the Convention from Malta and the EU-Council of Europe Youth Partnership.
This edition offered a chance to discover something about the upcoming 4th European Youth Work Convention. It was created especially for those who would not be able to attend, allowing them to contribute to the topics of the Convention. Almost 100 participants joined the webinar.
Tanya Basarab, Youth Research and Policy Manager at the EU-Council of Europe Youth Partnership, introduced the history of the Conventions.
The first Convention took place in 2010 and focused on taking stock - connecting the past, present and future thinking and practice of youth work in its diversity across Europe. The second took place in 2015 with the theme of seeking common ground - to identify the common ground on which all 'youth work' stands and its relation to wider agendas of concern to public policy and issues facing young people. The third Convention (2020) then took this forward as signposts for the future and oversaw the launch of the European Youth Work Agenda in the youth work sector.
Now in 2025, 27-30 May, the fourth Convention's theme is “Youth Work Xcelerate”.
Marvic Debono, head of the European Union Programme Agency for Malta, provided an overview of the 4th European Youth Work Convention. She explained how this fourth Convention, building on the previous ones and reinforcing the European Youth Work Agenda, is focusing on the urgency and momentum needed to elevate youth work to new heights. She described how it is the perfect opportunity to focus on improving standards, recognition, and quality in youth work.
The main outcome of the Convention will be a “Roadmap Towards a European Strategy for youth work policy implementation, recognition and quality practice” containing actions, initiatives, measures and processes for the next five years. The Roadmap is foreseen to be incorporated in and become an integral part of future youth policy and strategies in Europe, supporting youth work policy development and implementation as well as the recognition and quality practice of youth work at all levels.
The Convention has three main themes and a transversal theme.
This is the core or essential features of youth work. It includes working on a common vision for the nature and purpose of youth work, and affirming the principles, values and ethos that underpin youth work.
This focuses on young people, youth organisations, youth workers, trainers and leaders, programmes and initiatives, and practice. It is also about young people’s needs and aspirations with a view to monitoring their access, inclusion, participation, and empowerment in youth work.
This is about broader policy fields, support structures and the social context in which youth work operates. It includes policy and strategy developments at the European, Member State and local levels.
The transversal theme is inserted into the Convention as a challenge to the community of practice. What are the issues that we talk about too much and what are the ones we talk about too little? What do we need to do to ensure we understand the noise we are making in order to realise the silence and so stir that silence for it to become noise?
After the presentation by Marvic, the webinar participants had the opportunity to discuss one of the three main themes in a group and link it to the overall effort for strengthened recognition of youth work. The main guiding question for each theme was “What is important to further develop recognition in the youth work core/environment/systems?”
In each group the participants got to know the four dimensions of recognition and how they link to the three Convention themes. Each group was hosted by a member of the Youth Work Talks team. This person would present a link to the last bigger European event on recognition: the conference “Value and Recognition of Youth Work”, which took place in Zagreb in 2023.
The key recommendations of this conference that link to each Convention theme are as follows:
The following are the outcomes from each group discussion.
The group that met to explore the Youth Work Core shared a number of examples and ideas. In Ireland, the youth workers are explaining to young people what youth work is. Many young people don’t know about youth work and even the ones who know about it, because they attend youth clubs and activities, don’t necessarily know what it really is. At a Scottish conference, other sectors were asked to discuss what youth work is and its importance.
As with the Recognition Conference, it was again highlighted that it is important to use language that people use in their daily lives when explaining about youth work. This group also pointed out the need for using a common language with the sector when describing youth work, its nature and purpose.
The narratives and stories describing youth work from young people are an important resource. Also, youth workers sharing stories can be more powerful and explanatory than trying to describe what youth work is. People's stories impact people.
The group also reflected on the period of COVID-19, when youth workers had to step up, and were being recognised and had a good reputation. It would be a useful exercise to work out what the factors were that contributed to that level of recognition and see if they can be utilised again. It is important to identify what it is that makes youth work essential; this is what needs to be shared. It is also necessary to recognise the synergies between youth work and other sectors like schools, employment, social work, probation, etc.
This group highlighted the need for collaboration between those working directly with young people (e.g. youth workers) or indirectly with young people (e.g. youth work managers) and decision makers.
With regards to advocacy and lobbying, the sector needs to develop networking systems that are visible and open to organisations that do not focus primarily on advocacy. Examples of good practice from different parts of Europe need to be shared across Europe to support more organisations and youth workers to get involved in this aspect of the work.
A lot of work still needs to be done in terms of working towards the formal recognition of youth work across Europe. In countries where there is formal recognition, the different approaches, policies and practices need to be shared. It would be useful if the European level would promote these different approaches and encourage countries to explore what can work for them.
As an alternative to promoting youth work in society, youth work can instead listen to society. The questions become: what does society need, and what is the value that youth work can bring into society to meet those needs? Such an approach can also provide a mirror for youth work to see if it is actually answering/responding to the “real” problems the young people are facing.
Members of the youth work community of practice need to have spaces to talk about and share what it is they do and the success stories they have been a part of. While this is linking into self-recognition, it is also an important part of social recognition. It is key to understand the impact that youth work is having on the wider community.
One last point from this group was that although cross-sectoral cooperation and collaboration has been discussed for many years, the question now is, how do we further strengthen it?
It is important to know who is doing what in the context of Systems. For example, Ireland has a toolkit that supports youth workers to lobby. This is something that could be shared across different countries and adapted to meet specific needs. It would also support the capacity-building of youth workers.
There is a need for more links and contact between the community of practice and ministries and other sectors working with young people. Youth work should be developing campaigns and dedicated events to reach out to policy makers, ministries and other sectors.
In most countries, there are Governmental departments or ministries that represent ‘youth’. However, the youth part is often the smallest element in a larger ministry consisting of culture, sport, family, education etc. In these cases, youth work often risks remaining in the shadow, with youth policy, youth work policy and youth work development being neglected. We need young people's representation in specific departments or ministries.
The webinar was closed with words of encouragement from Marvic Debono and Elke Führer, coordinator of the SNAC “Growing Youth Work”. Marvic shared about the next steps leading up to the Convention and how the report from it - which will include the findings from this webinar - will be presented by the Maltese Presidency of the Council of Europe to the Conference of Ministers responsible for youth that will take place in October 2025.