LevelUp! Quality in youth projects & recognition and validation of youth workers' competences.

The training course

Youth work can greatly contribute to young people's personal and social development and as a result the society also grows when young people are well equipped with competences that can have a positive impact in their lives and their communities at large. There is a strong motivation for further improvement within the sector and there are a lot of significant efforts being done throughout Europe, on national, regional and local level, to enhance the quality and recognition of youth work.

We believe that youth work can be better recognised by measuring its real impact and effects on young people's lives. Often, youth organisations focus on the quantitative and not on the qualitative outputs. In order though to ensure the credibility and the real value of youth work, the opportunities and challenges in youth work shall be identified and analysed and quality tools shall be developed.

For this reason, the training course LevelUp! aims to gather youth workers, youth NGO practitioners, youth educators and volunteers with the aim of sharing best practices, experiences and expertise on measuring and assuring quality in youth work and on identifying and validating youth workers’ competences.

Youth workers & youth educators, NGO practitioners as well as volunteers involved in youth projects, from Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Spain and United Kingdom are invited to participate in the second activity of the "LevelUp!" training course in Thessaloniki, Greece from 25 to 30 January 2019.

The 2nd activity of the "LevelUp!" training course includes interactive workshops, team-building activities, case-studies, study-visits to youth centres, role-playing games, storytelling and theatre methods, sharing good practices tools and methods about qualitative youth work through team/group/pair work and round-table discussions.

The main topics that are going to be covered in the second activity are the following:

• Discussing the effectiveness of “Open Badges” as a tool for the validation of youth workers’ competences and how the youth workers that participated in the first activity of the training course used this tool further after the implementation of the first activity in Dresden.
• Quality development in practice – case studies about the intercultural opening of organisations
• Quality and professionalization of European youth work
• Exploring local youth work in Thessaloniki through study-visits
• Story-telling methods to involve and engage young people through artistic approaches
• Conflict management in the field of youth work based on role-playing and theatre methods
• Good practices in quality volunteer management
• Networking and follow-up of the training course

The participants are expected to contribute to the course putting as a main priority sharing their knowledge, best practices and experiences regarding the mentioned topics. The participants will be invited to reflect on their day to day work realities, as well as on the learning process during this course.

Methods
The training course will be based on peer-learning, interactive presentations and workshops. All activities will be based on team-work. Theoretical sessions will be also integrated but performed in an interactive way.

Learning Methods and Formats:

• Ice-Breakers
• Team-building Activities and Energizers
• Peer-learning
• Gamification
• Study-visits to youth centres and centres for young refugees
• Round-table discussions
• Presentations
• Workshops
• Evaluation meetings
• Intercultural evenings
Participants’ Profile

This training course is aimed at youth workers, trainers, youth facilitators, youth project managers and volunteers actively involved in youth projects and youth organisations, who:

• have some experience in implementing and/or coordinating Erasmus+ projects and running youth and community projects;
• are actively involved in the development of quality youth projects that address the needs of their local communities;
• are willing to learn new methods and use digital tools of validating their competences.

Participants should be:

• Youth workers, youth educators, trainers, mentors, youth leaders or volunteers actively involved in youth NGOs and youth projects preferably over 22 years old
• Able to communicate at proficient level in English
• Willing to co-operate, share experiences, best practices and knowledge and work in teams/groups/pairs
• Open to new knowledge, experiences and ideas
• Motivated to take part in this training course, be personally interested in its main subject and activities
• Prepared and well informed about the topics which are going to be discussed
• Able to participate from 25 to 30 January 2019 in Thessaloniki

More information about this activity you can find enclosed in the info pack. A registration form is also attached which should be filled out and sent to myrto.pertsinidi@jkpev.de by all applicants.