JINT vzw is looking for a facilitator who will be part of a team that will take care of the overall moderation and facilitation of the 4^th European EGL event.

JINT vzw is the Flemish knowledge centre for international youth mobility and international youth policy and is the implementing National Agency for the Erasmus+ Youth in action programme of the European Commission in Flanders, Belgium.

The project

The EGL project is a long-term strategic partnership between the National and their partners.

The core aim of the project is to raise the quality of local youth work in particular through enhanced cooperation between various stakeholders that are active at the municipal level. The Partnership currently involves about 200 members who represent around 120 municipalities in the participating countries.

Parameters of the Conference

The conference will take place on 17-19 May 2022 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania with 200 participants.

Deadline to apply for the call: 29 October 2021.

Details of the call: Call for a facilitator for the 4^th European conference of the Europe Goes Local project

‘Lobbying for Youth Work’ (LYW) is an European long-term training course, financed through Erasmus+ TCA and organised within the framework of the Strategic National Agency Cooperation ‘Europe Goes Local: Supporting Youth Work at the Municipal Level’. It addresses municipal youth officers and local youth workers who want to strengthen their competences to lobby for youth work in order to actively engage in and influence local youth (work) policy.

We are looking for a facilitator to join the implementing team, who:

• Is familiar with local youth work
• Has experience in facilitating international training activities in the field of youth, both on-site as online
• Has experience with shaping and facilitating long-term learning processes
• Is familiar with Europe Goes Local either at the European, national or local level
• Is a team player
• Is able to work and write fluently in English
• Is able to commit for the full cycle:
  • Module 1: January 2022 – hosted in Belgium-Flanders
  • Module 2: April-May 2022 – hosted in Latvia
  • Module 3: November 2022 – hosted in France
  • 2 in-between webinars

Application & selection procedure

Candidates should send their application via e-mail to inez.adriaensen@jint.be (NA Belgium-Flanders) at the latest by 10 June 2021 including :

• your CV or link to your TOY profile
• your motivation letter in which you explain all experience relevant to this call and the requested facilitator’s profile.

You will be informed about the selection by 25 June 2021.

Further details

Call for facilitator: European long-term training course “Lobbying for youth work“

Europe Goes Local is looking for trainers to facilitate a modular seminar on local youth work.

Europe Goes Local has so far offered conferences, study visits and seminars or training courses on specific topics both at the national and local level. This seminar is a step further on this path as it is a learning opportunity that provides a deeper insight to the themes of the Charter and concretely into enhancing the quality and better recognition of local youth work. It is planned to become a recurring offer at the European level in the framework of Europe Goes Local and it might serve as a model for developing national level training courses and seminars about quality development in youth work.

Themes and structure:

The modular seminar will consist of two residential modules and complementary webinars between the two residential modules.

The residential modules will be hosted by municipalities which will take active role in sharing their practices as a host to enable community-based learning throughout the seminar.

The themes of the seminar will be selected via a needs-analysis within the Europe Goes Local network to tailor the modules according to the needs of the participants. This needs analysis plays a crucial role in shaping the focus of the seminar.

Participants will be expected to start transferring the knowledge they gain to their community already after the first module.

Requested trainer profile

• Involvement in Europe Goes Local either at the European, national or local level in one of the member countries (essential)
• Familiarity with municipal level youth work
• Experience in facilitating international seminars on-site and moderating webinars (minimum 2 previous experience with residential events and 1 webinar/on-line event). Familiarity both with adequate methods and technical requirements, operation of tools. .
• Familiarity with the youth sector and youth policy frameworks in Europe, awareness of the role of different stakeholders, institutions
• Fluency in English

Further information: https://www.salto-youth.net/tools/call-for-trainers/call/europe-goes-local-quality-in-local-youth-work-a-modular-seminar-for-municipal-stakeholders-call-for-trainers.598/

Deadline to apply: 11 April.

As part of the initiative of the Association of Cities in the Republic of Croatia, a public call has been opened for the submission of proposals for the award of the “City for Youth” certificate. It is a recognition of cities that are dedicated to creating conditions for the quality of life and personal and professional growth of their young people.

The Certification working group consists of nine members, representatives of relevant organizations and institutions with experience in working with young people. In this particular case, they are representatives of the Central State Office for Demography and Youth, the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, the Agency for Mobility and EU Programmes, the Croatian Youth Network, the Society “Our Children” and the Association of Croatian Cities. Based on the analysis of nine existing youth-friendly city models, the working group created the Croatian certification model and defined a total of eight thematic areas in which cities can improve their work with young people, namely:

• participation,
• demographic incentives and measures,
• employment,
• mobility,
• health and sport,
• youth work and culture,
• education,
  information

The Agency for Mobility and EU Programmes recognized the natural synergy and connection of the certificate with Europe Goes Local project, which gave the “City for Youth” certificate a European dimension.

Adoption of the European Charter on Local Youth Work as part of Europe Goes Local project is one of the preconditions for obtaining the certification. So far, 70 Croatian cities signed the Charter. The mayors were acquainted with the EGL and Charter’s principles. By signing it, they acknowledge the Charter’s principles as a ground basis for quality-oriented local youth work. The call for the certificate ‘City for Youth’ is open until 8th of March 2021, and all the cities that receive it will be announced in April.

European Charter on Local Youth Work is a tool for quality development of youth work. It was created by the input and insights from the youth sector in the EU and Europe Goes Local network project published it in 2019. You can download a copy of the Charter in your language at https://www.europegoeslocal.eu/charter/.

The Europe Goes Local strategic cooperation project is arriving at a new milestone. After launching the European Charter on Local Youth Work in 2019, the network started to build an on-line toolkit to support the implementation of the Charter. This on-line toolkit, which we will call the Changemakers Kit includes good practices, explanatory and background information, a library of policy documents and an interactive tool for self-assessment and planning future actions.
The launch of the Changemakers Kit will happen via a live streamed webinar on the 20th of October at 14:30-16:30 CET. Besides introducing the features of the new tool at the webinar, we also intend to create a moment for reflection on the situation of local youth work and to have a live a panel discussion between key stakeholders, presenting good practices from the municipal level and some messages from decision makers.

Open access via Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/98578086587

and the Facebook event.

Europe Goes Local is looking for various experts to implement its upcoming activities:

On-line activities of the Europe Goes Local project in October 2020

• Facilitator to run on-line sessions
• Digital facilitator to support the successful implementation of the on-line activities
• Visual recorder who prepares a visual report about the events

Training of Charter Ambassadors (residential training course – April 2021)

• Facilitator/trainer
• Rapporteur

How to apply?

Please, send your proposal via e-mail to the project coordinator, Judit Balogh (judit.balogh@jint.be) by the 28^th of August 2020.

Please, find all details of the calls in the attached files:

Call for experts to implement on-line activities

Call for experts: Training course for Charter Ambassadors

One of the initial goals of the Europe Goes Local project was to help the recognition of youth work as an important domain of the personal development of young people and a crucial tool to build flourishing communities. Europe Goes Local created a framework in which the National Agencies of the Erasmus+ programme and the stakeholders of municipal youth work could respond to the needs of the youth work sector of the local level. MOVIT, the Slovenian National Agency for the EU programmes Erasmus+: Youth in Action and European Solidarity Corps decided to create a literature review about the impact of youth work first. The study was first published in Slovenian and now the TRUTHS ABOUT THE IMPACT OF (LOCAL) YOUTH WORK, written by Tomaž Deželan and Nina Vombergar, is also available in English.

Uroš Skrinar, the director of MOVIT describes the rationale behind the publication in the introduction of the publication:

“It was when we discussed with Europe Goes Local partners about how to approach convincing the others, the unconvinced, as well as support youth workers on the local level in their advocacy in support of youth work, that we agreed that we need a short document about what youth work is and what impact it has. This gave life to this publication, which provides a clear and rich overview of the relevant literature on the characteristics and impact of youth work. With it we wish to contribute to the added value of youth work both on the national and local level becoming better understood and more valued. It can serve as a set of arguments in advocating youth work, which really needs to be strengthened; it can serve as a guide for youth workers for higher quality of their work; and, yes, it can also serve as a source for further research into the impact of quality youth work—our work.”

The on-line version of the publication is accessible via issuu.com.

The Europe Goes Local network had planned to meet in Paris this spring to exchange views about the current state of play and to share thoughts about the future of the project.  These plans had to change and the initial ideas were transformed into an on-line process which included a virtual meeting on the 28^th of April which brought together 50 participants from the participating countries of the project network.

The participants of the seminar worked together on recommendations regarding the future of the project. The key messages of the group are the following:

Recommendations on the future aims and objectives of Europe Goes Local at the European Level

• Emphasize on policy impact through reinforced advocacy activities at the European, national and local levels.
• Develop structured and coordinated activities at the European level (conferences, trainings, study visits, online activities, networking and partnership building, peer learning etc.) and support network members in the development and implementation of activities that address specific needs of the diverse local youth work realities.
• Further develop the concept of the European cooperation platform to support quality development in local youth work, keep the doors open for possible new partners and strengthen cooperation with international stakeholders (YFJ, EU-Coe partnership, etc.).
• Develop a strategic communication plan and implement it at the European and national levels.
• Implement and/or support researches of local youth work to enhance evidence-based youth work development and advocacy. Explore the possibility to cooperate with educational institutions to put youth work on the agenda of the educational sector.
• Use the Change-makers’ toolkit as a starting point for building an online knowledge-database (good practices, researches, funding opportunity etc.) on quality youth work at the local level.
• Put more focus on bringing additional municipalities to Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps programmes with activities like mapping and showcasing of successful projects implemented by municipalities, presenting benefits for them.

Reflections on future training offers for youth workers and members of the network

A training for Charter Ambassadors (for the European Charter on Local Youth Work)

• Majority of the National Working Groups expressed support for the Charter Ambassadors training concept.
• Ambassadors should support National Agencies in the dissemination and exploitation of the Charter (presenting the Charter, help to incorporate Charter principles in training activities, etc.) and provide feedback to the European level regarding the use of the Charter.
• Ambassadors should be youth workers or youth trainers who have an excellent knowledge of European and national youth work, have a sound knowledge of non-formal methodology and are able to advocate, lobby and communicate for the quality youth work development.
• It is important to keep in mind the diversity of the local youth work realities when preparing the final proposal of the activity.
• Address the concerns and questions from the National Working Groups on mission, objectives, representation, sustainability and motivation of the potential ambassadors to further elaborate the proposal.

Modular Training on Local Youth Work

• The proposal received very strong support from the National Working Grouips. The common opinion is that it represents the next step in the evolution of the Europe Goes Local network activities and supports the implementation of the European Charter on Local Youth Work.
• It should be strongly considered to provide more than 1 participant per country the opportunity to participate in the modular training. Modular design also provides an option to have different participants for each module.
• Structure and methodology should be based on youth work activities and non-formal methodology. The length of the modules should be between 2-4 days (consider the time investment of participants) and there should be 3-5 different modules. To fully utilize modular design, modules should be standalone units.
• Important question is how to develop the content that is relevant for all the participants. Some proposal on concrete activities are peer-learning, sharing and discussion activities.
• Topics for the training: (1) horizontal themes (participation of young people, cross-sectoral cooperation, etc.) and (2) specific topics: lobbying, work conditions of youth workers, knowledge based youth work, etc.).
• Exploit available resources and activities to create synergies (or use the same approach) when developing the modules. These activities are organized by network members or others: youth workers 101 (Estonian NA), lobbying training course (German NA), Charter Ambassadors training, European Solidarity Corps General Online Training (DG EAC). These and additional options should be further researched.

These recommendations will now be discussed by the Steering Group of Europe Goes Local and a new vision, aims and objectives will be finalized.

Find more information about the seminar at the Events section of our website.