Youth work practice is – and needs to be – diverse. But the Council of Europe Recommendation on Youth Work* outlines some common ground: all youth work empowers young people to find a constructive pathway in life and facilitates young people’s active participation and inclusion in their communities and in decision-making.
Youth work does so by facilitating learning, supporting labour market participation, strengthening young people’s well-being and sense of belonging. The Charter on Local Youth Work is meant to be a youth policy tool to safeguard and support the quality of youth work at municipal level, as this is where the vast majority of youth work takes place.
In order to achieve a broad consensus and create ownership of the Charter, a Europe-wide consultation process would be implemented with the support of the National Agencies of the Erasmus+ Youth in Action programme and with the participation of the Europe Goes Local National Working Groups.
The outcomes will be collected and analysed by the expert group, and will be channelled into the further Charter development process. As a next step, they will feed into the discussions of the 2nd European event of the project.
According to the plans, the Charter will be launched in 2019.
Please, download the draft text from here:
Towards a Charter on local youth work
If you have any questions, please, contact the project coordinator or your National Agency.
*Recommendation CM/Rec(2017)4 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on youth work – Scope and purpose of the Recommendation – definition and scope of youth work
Many steps contribute to a journey, towards quality youth work at the local level. The strength of Europe Goes Local lies in the synergy between European and local interventions. A lot of the discussions happen at national meetings and events, inspired by the work at European level. This way Europe trickles down to the local level.
The Croatian Erasmus+ National Agency consulted 21 local self-governance units (mayors, deputy mayors and heads of department of 21 towns and municipalities) who are actively involved in Europe Goes Local. They received a self-evaluation questionnaire about their capacity, potential and needs for establishing a system of local youth work. The initial analysis of the questionnaire was presented to a preparation group composed of 2 representatives of the Erasmus+ National Agency, 4 EGL working group members and 2 trainers.Together they prepared the central EGL activity for 2018: a national seminar on youth work for local governance units (towns and municipalities). The trainers were present to develop the concept of the seminar. And deliver it later in the year.
10 youth work representatives from Latvian municipalities visited Tartu City Government and two youth centres in Tartu (one municipal youth centre and one NGO). The participants discussed youth work structures in place, funding schemes, the work of the youth council, mobile youth work and influence patterns in local youth work (lobbying).
They Latvian delegation also went out to a youth centre in Rõuge in the south-east of Estonia to discover how youth work is done in a more rural setting. There were enlightening discussions about the definition of youth work, the different types of youth work organisations and youth work legalisation in Estonia.
Because comparing is caring.
The Italian Erasmus+ National Agency invited 50 youth workers and local administrators from all over Italy to discuss the European Charter on Local Youth Work. In smaller working groups the delegates elaborated a national consultation plan for the charter.
The participants were introduced to the Europe Goes Local project from a European and national perspective, but they also became familiar with national research on youth work and the youth worker profiles that exist in Italy and Europe.
A nice mix of input and action.
The Estonian Erasmus+ National Agency gathered 10 youth work specialists from 3 active municipalities to discuss the work on the European Charter on Local Youth Work.
The participants also made a need analysis of youth work in their municipality and possible activities to strengthen local youth work. Each municipality will develop their action plan by the end of March 2018.
From talking to action!
Send your updates to Judit Balogh, EGL coordinator.
Our project, Europe Goes Local is a network project that connects about 150 partners all over Europe. With this website, we intend to offer the opportunity for all our partners to publish articles that relates to municipal level youth work. One of the primary aims of the Europe Goes Local project is to create a lively network of different stakeholders that are active in municipal level youth work.
We offer our partners different types of opportunities for building knowledge, developing partnerships and exchanging on experiences. Conferences, seminars, trainings, meetings and study visits are organized by the National Agencies of the Erasmus+ Youth in Action programme. Activities take place both within national and international context.
We believe that successful and fruitful networking has various dimensions. To support communication and exchange amongst the members of the network, we wish to invite all our partners to publish their articles on our website in line with the following criteria:
If you wish to publish and article, please, contact the project coordinator, Judit Balogh via the judit.balogh@jint.be e-mail address.
The articles of the website will be promoted through our newsletter and Facebook page.
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 conference of our project ‘Europe goes local –Supporting youth work on municipal level’
The 2nd large European event of the project will take place Cascais, Portugal from the 4th to the 8th of June 2018. The conference will bring together about 150 people from the countries participating in the project and the representatives of European organisations.
One of the main goals of the project is to develop a Charter on Local Youth Work (working title of the document). A broad-based consultation process will take place from March 2018 until May 2019 when the Charter is planned to be launched. This conference is also a forum for discussing the first draft of the Charter and its purpose with the participating stakeholders.
Besides this, the event is going to provide opportunities for building knowledge, creating discussions and sharing experience about the key issues of local level youth work. A thematic approach will be followed which will relate to local level youth policy, youth policy-making and youth work policy-making.
Please, find the call for the facilitator on the following link: http://www.jint.be/Callforfacilitator
The main decisions making body of the Europe Goes Local project is the Steering Group that has its next meeting from the 31st of January to the 2nd of February in Brussels. The Steering Group involves four National Agencies of the Erasmus+ Youth in Action programme (Belgium-Flanders, France, Germany and Slovenia), the European Youth Forum, the Partnership between the European Commission and the Council of Europe in the youth field and two networks: POYWE and InterCity Youth.
The coordinating National Agency of the project, JINT vzw is hosting the upcoming Steering Group meeting in Brussels on 31 January – 2 February. The members of the Steering Group come together to decide about the next steps within the project and to define the aims, goals and activities for the second half of the its implementation period.
The project activities take place at two levels. National Agencies plan all initiatives that are implemented at the national level or within a small circle of European partners, while the Steering Group decides about the actions and aims that concern all participating actors.
2018 and 2019 will be an active period in the life of the project. Two European conferences are foreseen and a consultation with stakeholders in each participating country that will result in a new tool to support municipal level youth work. The new tool shall be a Charter on Local Youth Work that is intended to help all involved actors of local youth work in advocacy, practical planning as well as a checklist for quality control.