The EAYW aims to promote the development of quality youth work, to support its capacity to react to current and future developments, and to contribute to creating a common ground on youth work and youth work policy. To this end, it focuses on supporting innovation in youth work, as a response to the trends, challenges and uncertainties faced by young people in today’s fast-changing societies.
The EAYW offers a platform for reflection, exchange and knowledge gathering on trends and developments in and with relevance to the youth field in Europe, and on innovative youth work responses to these trends and developments. In this way, it contributes to a European youth work ecosystem that supports quality development and innovation in youth work.
The EAYW responds to the demands expressed in the final Declaration of the 3rd European Youth Work Convention to encourage and support the different stakeholders in youth work in Europe to strive “towards the maintenance of the good structures and practices that already exist, their development when the need arises, and the space for innovation in our thinking, our organisation and our practices”. Especially “in a post-pandemic Europe, youth work must seek to innovate and go further than the paths already known”.[2]
The European Academy on Youth Work is a strategic cooperation of National Agencies of the Erasmus+ programme, youth field, and the European Solidarity Corps and SALTO-YOUTH Resource Centres.
Activities
Biennial events for 120 – 150 participants are part of the role and activities of the EAYW.
- The first edition of the EAYW took place from 21 – 24 May 2019.
- The second edition was held from 31 May – 3 June 2022.
- As part of the second EAYW, an online programme of activities entitled Learning in Times of Disruption and Change was implemented from November 2021 to April 2022.
The EAYW also includes the production of resources on the topic of innovation and current trends and developments.
- A Study on Innovation in Youth Work was published in autumn 2021, followed by several tools for dissemination of main findings.
- Resources further include reports with outcomes of the EAYW events and collections of innovative practices, video podcasts with EAYW Advisory Board members, articles and good practices.
Target group
The target group of the EAYW are in particular youth workers, paid and/or volunteers, from all levels (local, regional, national, European), professionals in areas with relevance for the youth sector and representatives of youth work policies and public services, National Agencies and other staff working in youth work structures, from [I]NGOs and from science and research.
Participants come from a wider European context, and where relevant and needed from other parts of the world.
The EAYW targets those who have a keen interest in learning about and contributing to new and innovative initiatives and developments in order to further develop youth work or frameworks for youth work in their own context.
[1] National Agencies of Austria, Belgium-FL, Cyprus, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden
[2]Final Declaration of the 3rd European Youth Work Convention, Signposts for the Future (Bonn, 10 December 2020)