Conference “Mind the gap!” – Connecting youth work and the employment-related sector by valuing and developing mutual understanding of skills and competences

Throughout their lives, young people participate in youth work activities, voluntary work and all type of non-formal learning settings through which they gain various competences or ‘generic’ skills. These competences will help them in all different aspects of their lives - professional and personal. Learning happening and competences gained in youth work activities are recognised by different tools (e.g. Youthpass at European level, various national recognition tools etc.) to help young people self-assess, record and validate the skills and competences gained. Youth workers are support persons in all different type of youth work activities, as well as in voluntary work and training of young people. They use a variety of methods and tools to support young people’s learning and its recognition. Employers increasingly value and seek candidates who possess transversal competences – such as problem solving, sense of initiative, communication, teamwork, etc. – but probably have little awareness of what youth workers do to equip young people with such competences or the tools they use to demonstrate these competences. Young people, and youth workers on the other hand, need to be more aware of the skills and competences they acquire in non-formal learning settings and need to be more able to communicate - or "sell" - them to potential employers when applying for a job. This conference aims to bring together youth workers and people from the employment-related sector (e.g. HR and business people, guidance and public employment services) in order to: 1. Learn from and communicate with each other on the competences gained in youth work sought in the labour market, how they are developed and revise individual and mutual understandings 2. Learn about the different competence assessment/recognition tools and processes of implementing or using such tools and how to improve them 3. Develop ways of cooperating together and building partnerships to equip young people with such competences and to support them in accessing the labour market The conference will bring together 120 participants from both fields, coming from more than 16 countries all over Europe and beyond. Each country will send delegations consisting of youth workers and people from an employment-related sector (HR managers, coaches, supervisors, business, employment agencies, guidance services, etc.). As integral part of the Mind the gap! conference there will be the opportunity to participate in a Human Resources Conference organised by the Turkish NGO PERYÖN, taking place the same days in Istanbul, gathering over 2000 Human Resources managers and experts working at international and national level. In this conference the official language will be Turkish. But a simultaneous interpretation will be provided. The website for the congress is: http://www.peryonkongre.com/kongre2014/konusmacilar.html . A platform will be offered to discuss related questions with participants from this conference as well. We are looking forward to your application! The Turkish National Agency for the Erasmus+ programme will host this event in close cooperation with the German, Italian and Slovenian Erasmus + Youth in Action Agencies, the UK Erasmus+ NA and the South East European SALTO Resource Centre and the Training & Cooperation SALTO Resource Centre in November in Istanbul.