Plug In

Traditional youth work is nowadays challenged, because not all young people will go to the youth centre or can be reached through traditional youth work, where young people 'expectedly' meet up in a youth centre and participate in person.Young people spend more and more time online and in the virtual world with friends or on their own. Taking into account that the average age of first-time users of the Internet is approximately the age of two, that challenge will not diminish in the coming years. Therefore, it is time to move youth work into the future, and this training is a first step Focus The training will consist of several elements. During the training the participants will be introduced to different innovative approaches on how to gain contact to young people “who are hard” to reach. This will be explore through different ways to approach young people virtually or face to face, not waiting for them to come by themselves, but being present in the settings where they already are. There will be a clear focus on creativity and innovation in order to promote these new approaches. Researching the context The participants will also experience youth work in action – and work and talk with youth workers working with young people on the street. In this setting youth workers are constantly developing new ways to engage young people, once they are not attached to a place or a group. The participants will also get a chance to talk to the young people with whom they work. To complete the picture, a researcher from EU Kids Online, will outline the context of this issue and identify some of the risks and trends in how young people behave and use the internet on a European level. Creating awareness Another important element will also be to create awareness on how to support young people in recognising and developing their own “virtual skills”. The increased recognition will make it easier for young people to “translate” these competences (like self-organisation, networking, graphic skills etc.) into something they can use to increase their employability and entrepreneurial skills. Risk and safety If youth workers are “virtually skilled and present” on the Internet, they will also be able to more efficiently support young people to avoid and identify potential risks and also discover potential problems like (loneliness, bulling, extremism etc.) Learning goals • Developing new approaches within your own youth work •To explore innovative approaches to engage "hard to reach” young people •To understand safety and risk elements •To increase strategic use of online tools in youth work •To develop methods to support and recognise young people’s online-skills and translate them into concrete skills that they can build on and use in employment and education. Target group Experienced and inexperienced youth workers, ICT (Information and and Communication Technology) skills are not a precondition for applying. (Info for NAs - this TC is financed from the TCP budget)