European Academy on Youth Work, 2nd edition

IMPORTANT NOTICE! Due to the ongoing uncertainties and risks linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2nd edition of the EAYW is postponed to 31st May – Friday, 3rd June 2022! You can still apply until 8th Sept, participants will be selected on the basis of this call. All applicants will be contacted after the deadline, and selected participants again in January 2022, to reconfirm interest in participation at the new dates. The call might be re-opened in January for additional applications.

For more information, also about EAYW activities until May 2022, please consult the EAYW website.

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, promote the development of quality youth work and 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, as a field, 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.

In this respect, the EAYW responds to the demands expressed in the final Declaration of the 3rd European Youth Work Convention to encourage and support the different stakeholders in youth work in Europe to strive “towards the maintenance of the good structures and practices that already exist, their development when the need arises, and the space for innovation in our thinking, our organisation and our practices”. Especially “in a post-pandemic Europe, youth work must seek to innovate and go further than the paths already known”.[2] 

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

What can you expect at 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, including institutions supporting youth work at different levels. 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 identified by the participants. More information and the final report of the 1st EAYW event are available at www.eayw.net.

The 2nd edition builds on the experiences of the first EAYW event, but also intends to go 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. It also takes into account the outcomes of current research on innovation in youth work carried out by the EAYW.

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

• 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;
• To showcase and mainstream innovative practices, approaches, concepts and strategies developed in response to these challenges and trends;
• 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 develop innovative and impactful approaches, practices or strategies and
• 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.

The EAYW aims to be inclusive and participatory in its approach and to give a voice to contributions representing the diverse levels, environments and stakeholders in youth work. Furthermore, it promotes cross-sectorial and multi-perspective approaches involving youth work practice, research, and policy, which have proven vital to successfully address identified developments or challenges. Reflection based on different perspectives should help to identify responses to trends that could be taken up by different roles.

Concretely, participants will be able to attend workshops 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. The learning from these workshops will be taken further in other discussion spaces and should contribute to learning as the youth work field about how innovation can be understood and what actions might be needed to further support it. For more details, please consult the draft programme outline.

Profile of participants

The target group of the EAYW are:

Experienced youth workers, paid and/or volunteers, from all levels (local, regional, national, European) 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
• professionals from the fields of science and research.

Participants should have a keen interest in learning about and contributing to new and innovative initiatives and developments, in order to further develop youth work or frameworks for youth work in their own context.

Note on the potential influence of the Covid-19 pandemic on the EAYW event

In order to allow for ample joint time for exchange, sharing, networking and learning from and with each other, the EAYW is envisaged as an international residential event. Some parts of it will be live-streamed or otherwise be made available online in an interactive format.

The organisers will ensure that safety and hygienic measures needed in relation to Covid-19 are in place during the activity. The selected participants will receive information about the conditions and coverage of costs in cases of emergency, so that they can take them into consideration when deciding on and preparing their participation in the event.

Should it not be possible to hold the event in November 2021 as planned due to the state of the Covid-19 pandemic, the EAYW will be postponed to spring 2022. In case of postponement, the selected participants will be informed accordingly so that they can plan the new dates in their agendas.

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

[2] Final Declaration of the 3rd European Youth Work Convention, Signposts for the Future (Bonn, 10 December 2020)