European Academy on Youth Work, 2nd edition - Participate Online!

You would like to join the European Academy on Youth Work, but you cannot join the residential event in Slovenia? Join us online! Most parts of the event will be offered in a hybrid setting. 

What is the European Academy on Youth Work (EAYW)?

The EAYW is an initiative of National Agencies of the Erasmus+ programme, youth field, and the European Solidarity Corps [1] and SALTO-YOUTH Resource Centres. The EAYW aims to support innovation in youth work and youth work policy, to promote the development of quality youth work and to contribute to creating a common ground on youth work and youth work policy. It offers a regular platform for reflection, exchange and knowledge gathering on innovation and current European topics, trends and developments in and with relevance to the youth field.

In particular, the EAYW wants to enable learning about why, when and how innovation in youth work happens and under which conditions innovative approaches and practices are successful in responding to current developments and challenges faced by young people across Europe.

The outcomes of studies, the exchange of good practices, perspectives and visions on these questions undertaken in the framework of the EAYW should support the further development of youth work and frameworks for youth work development in Europe and thus contribute to the implementation of the European Youth Work Agenda through the Bonn process.

About the 2nd edition of the EAYW

The 2nd EAYW event follows the successful 1st pilot edition, which was organised in May 2019 in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, and brought together around 170 professionals from youth work practice, research and policy. Following a call for proposals, 36 innovative practices in and related to youth work were presented and discussed in relation to current trends and developments. 

The 2nd edition builds on the experiences of the first EAYW event, but goes a step further by putting a stronger emphasis on learning about the mechanisms that can spark, sustain and support innovation in youth work as a response to the challenges and changing realities faced by societies and young people in Europe today. It further takes into account the outcomes of the recent EAYW Study on Innovation in Youth Work as well as a series of webinars on the topic of “Learning in times of disruption and change” carried out between November 2021 and April 2022.

Objectives

The 2nd EAYW event will offer a space for knowledge-building through peer learning and exchange, and networking, in particular:

TRENDS: To jointly explore what are the main challenges and trends in and of relevance for youth work that are calling for and leading to new, innovative and creative approaches and developments;

RESPONSES: To showcase and mainstream innovative practices, approaches and strategies developed in response to these challenges and trends;

INNOVATION: To find out more about how innovation evolves in youth work, and which conditions are needed by young people, youth workers, organisations working with young people and other relevant stakeholders to spark and sustain innovative and impactful approaches, practices or strategies and

FUTURE SUPPORT: To produce outcomes of the reflections and discussions during the event, which will help to build knowledge as a field and support further developments related to innovation in youth work.

Programme

During the 3-day programme, participants will be able to attend Practice & Reflection Forums of their choice where they will have the opportunity to explore the development (looking at the process behind the product) of innovative examples of practice from different fields and contexts of youth work, research and policy and addressing a variety of themes and target groups. Key notes and inspirational inputs, discussions and exchange among participants will offer further sparks for reflection. At the end of each day, participants can share and further reflect in small groups (“Learning tribes”) on the main questions, insights and take-aways of the day.

Content-wise, we will be looking at innovation from different angles, highlighting those aspects that have been found to be essential to support innovative thinking and developments:  

• the central role of young people as contributors and target groups of innovation,
• how to support a “culture of innovation”, i.e. the ‘cultural factors’ and conditions within an organisation that foster innovative thinking and the development of innovative youth work practices,
• the way youth work connects with larger trends and is supported by the wider environment, which plays an important role in fostering or hindering innovations,
• last but not least, digitalization and the potential consequences of this development on the core of youth work, its principles and values.

Attached, you will find the programme that is open for online participants.

Online participants will be able to actively join all sessions of the event. During those parts of the programme where Practice & Reflection Forums are running in parallel, one forum will be open for online participation.

The programme is built as a coherent whole with a flow that takes participants through different aspects related to innovation. Nevertheless, it is also possible to participate only in some selected sessions online. In the application form, you can indicate which sessions you plan to join.

Online participants will be fully integrated into the Academy: They will be able to interact with the other participants during sessions, they will be invited to join the event app, where they can identify and interact with the other residentail and online participants, and get access to all materials and documentation. 

Profile of participants

The EAYW targets experienced youth workers, paid and/or volunteers, and representatives of NGOs, as well as professionals in areas with relevance for the youth sector, such as: representatives of youth work policies and public services, National Agencies and other youth work structures, trainers and educators in the field of youth work (education) and other professionals from related fields of science and research.

Participants should come with a mind-set open to explore and question, and the drive to further develop their own practices and the environment in which they work.

[1] National Agencies of Austria, Belgium-FL, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden