16 – 20 June 2025, Kranjska Gora, Slovenia
What is needed for youth work to become future-ready and forward-looking? The workshop “Futures of Youth Work: From Survival to Shaping the Future” will explore emerging trends and their relevance in youth work today and the future and offer hands-on experience with tools for developing future-readiness.
Building on the Futures of Youth Work research and drawing on the ideas of systemic change, this workshop will invite youth workers to reflect upon the notions of ‘what is’ (looking from the future) rather than ‘what should be’ (looking at the future). Comprehending better the complex and interconnected dynamic of youth work’s present (and to a certain extent, past) will support sensing and shaping a sustainable youth work that remains a driver of empowerment, connection, and social transformation.
The workshop will not be just a ‘conversation space’ about the futures of youth work. It is also an opportunity to experiment and explore the trends that emerged in the research report and try out some tools developed around it.
The workshop will be organised around key questions, such as:
- Is youth work ‘stuck’ in survival mode?
- What conditions are needed for youth work to become future-ready and forward-looking?
- How can youth work move beyond the focus on the individual and embrace interconnectedness?
- Why does youth work often feel threatened, and how can we overcome this?
The intentions of the workshop are:
- to take the ‘Futures of Youth Work’ research a step further
- to explore emerging trends and their relevance in youth work contexts today and the future
- to propose hands-on experience with tools that stimulate working with futures
- to explore the evolution of the purpose of youth work in the future
We are looking for 24 experienced youth workers or other practitioners working with young people in the field of youth work. Participants should have a keen interest in reflecting, discussing and contributing to innovative and forward-looking initiatives and developments, to further develop youth work or frameworks for youth work in their own context.
You can find the Call for applications and the application form HERE.