This research is part of Erasmus+ K2 project ‘European youth workers unite to empower youth and youth field-Youth worker is a lifestyle’. The background of the project was described as follows: it is crucial for youth work and youth work policy development to have a strong voice of youth workers on all levels of governance. Development of the quality of youth work as well as encouraging better recognition of the field, clearer political commitment, and stronger links with stakeholders and researchers are essential for the existence of youth work.
During the 3rd European Youth Work Convention, participating youth workers from EU and COE member states, and other stakeholders strongly recognized the need for an international network of youth workers, to give youth workers a voice, support peer learning and quality development in the youth field across Europe. The final declaration of the convention calls to action establish a European Network of Youth Workers Associations.
To support the fulfillment of this objective 12 organisations agreed on a memorandum to set steps towards a European Youth Workers Association.
Some of these steps are taken through this research and results are presented in this report. We needed to map the realities of youth workers associations and find out what they work for and how they work. We also needed to know what are the expectations towards the European umbrella organisation.
Countries participating in the project: Estonia (lead partner), Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, North-Macedonia, Portugal, Serbia.
Researchers who helped to collect and analyse the data:
Project partners:
Petra Kutálková, Czech Republic
Margaret White, Christian Mizzi, Malta
Sofia Magopoulou, Greece
Silvia Coricitta, Italy
Dragan Atanasov, North Macedonia
Gisela Barbosa, Portugal
Niko de Groot, Netherlands
Birgit Kelement, Ilona-Evelyn Rannala, Estonia
Read the research here: Youth Workers Associations the state of play
