European Academy on Youth Work: Meet your future - Tools to navigate the future of youth work

In the European Academy on Youth, we want to support the professional development of youth workers and other professionals in youth work practice, policy and research.

For this reason, we are excited to invite you to the first webinar of a series of three webinars on the topic of “Meet your future - Tools to navigate the future of youth work”.

The Academy’s Futures of Youth Work research explored the trends that can influence how youth work might evolve in the years to come. The research report outlines several strategies for strengthening the future readiness of youth workers individually, but also collectively, as a community of practice.

One of the strategies pointed out the need to enhance future literacy in the youth field. In other words, there is a need to find practical approaches and methods to grow youth workers’ future-related awareness and to deal with possible future developments. This is why the Futures Toolbox was created.

These webinars will be 2-hour long dynamic and interactive online sessions where you will have the chance to “taste” a bit of the tools and explore, together with other colleagues from different parts of Europe, how you can start future-related reflections in your context (your team, youth organisation, or youth worker community).

We welcome all participants that are professionals (including volunteers) in youth work or in a field related to it.

To register for the first webinar, please fill in the "application form" (at the Apply now! button) in order to receive the link for the webinar.

Webinar 1 Focus: Exploring futures and future readiness

16 Dec 2025, 10:00 - 12:00 CET, Zoom

The first webinar in the series will explore different futures and the concept of future-readiness. In this webinar, you will have a chance to experience two tools: Types of Futures and Four Quadrants of Future Readiness.

You might expect to learn:

• What are the types of futures out there, and how can we relate to them,
• How do different types of futures shape our thinking and our actions,
• What is future readiness at the individual and the collective levels,
• How to start conversations about the futures of youth work,
• How to use the presented methods in your context.

The webinar will be facilitated by: Gisele Evrard, Darko Markovic and Sabrina Apitz.

Outlook to the whole series of webinars:

Here are the topics we plan to cover in webinars 2 and 3:

Webinar 2 Focus: Widening horizons and shifting perspectives on the future

22 Jan 2026, 10:00 - 12:00 CET, Zoom

This webinar will guide us in broadening our focus and enhancing our ability to see the future from various perspectives. In this webinar we will be exploring two tools from Futures Toolbox: The three horizons and Window to the future game.

Webinar 3 Focus: Dealing with change

12 Feb 2026, 10:00 - 12:00 CET, Zoom

The last webinar in the series will focus on the topic of change and to what challenges and growth opportunities the future might bring to us. To explore the topic of change at organisational and at individual level, we will use two tools: The fields of change and How do I relate to future changes.

You need to register for each webinar separately. Registrations open about a month before the webinar and are open until 3 days before it takes place.

More information about the European Academy on Youth Work: www.eayw.net.