During the first EAYW, we had the pleasure to hear more from 36 contributors about their innovative and quality youth work practices. The topics of contributions ranged from digital youth work to quality in youth work.
Today we would like to talk with you about quality youth work and innovative methods of approaching topics in youth work! We are glad to present three practices: Youth Work Growth Cycle, Better Together and Eduesc@peroom!
Should youth work be seen as a series of interventions / events / meetings or as a support of sustainable groups of young people? How does regular use of innovations such as mobile devices, internet, big data and social networks influence the needs of young people to form sustainable groups? How does quality in youth work look like?
These were just some of the questions that participants could discuss with Matej Cepin from Social Academy from Slovenia. His contribution called “Youth Work Growth Cycle” was presented, which is a quality system developed at the Social Academy together with partners from Poland, Germany and Italy. The Youth Work Growth Cycle offers youth workers and group leaders the opportunity to rediscover groups and interpersonal relationships as the basis of youth work, without which other results of youth work are unattainable. Find out more about this practice in the workshop report and presentation below.
There is no quality youth work without cross-sectorial cooperation, and this is exactly what we could hear about in the workshop called “Better Together: How a Collaboration Between a National Agency and Higher Education Institute Supported Youth Workers to Integrate Youth Mobility in Youth Work Organisations”, by Anne Molloy and Dr. Hilary Tierney. The project presented addressed the challenge of supporting in-depth learning on youth mobilities for youth workers in a way that would lead to learning at organisational level. The NUI Certificate in European Youth Mobility Project Management is a strategic response to an identified need to provide more in depth learning opportunities for youth workers and support them to integrate their learning at an organisational level through the Training and Cooperation Activities (TCA) plan. Find out how a cooperation between a National Agency and Higher Education Institute looks like by taking a look at the presentation and workshop report or watching the video!
Supporting innovation and quality youth work was one of the main objectives of the 1st edition of the EAYW. The next practice definitely showed us that new methods and innovation are needed in the youth work sector. Gabi Steinprinz presented the contribution “Eduesc@peroom”, which is an escape room developed for various educational settings as a practical learning tool to foster creative learning processes. The eduesc@peroom was part of a KA2 Strategic Partnership project called Looking at Learning or L@L. Throughout this project, the partners tried to find new and relevant ways to change education, as it is not anymore suiting the learning needs of young people. This concrete hands-on tool for youth workers contributes to this paradigm shift. How did this eduesc@peroom looked like at the EAYW? Be sure to check it out in the workshop report below!
During next weeks, we will be publishing other contributions as well, so stay tuned with us!