Rebuilding Confidence in the Future: A Futures-Oriented Approach to Youth Work

Young people’s confidence in a positive future is weakening -  this has become an increasingly urgent concern across Europe. In Finland, this issue has risen to the forefront of official youth policy discussion as well as within the youth work practice field. 

We believe it is time to move from talk to action and find concrete ways to tackle this topic within youth work. By offering a targeted capacity-building activity, Marttinen aims to strengthen its role as a pioneer in integrating futures thinking into youth work. This initiative addresses young people’s diminishing confidence in the future and explores the role of youth work in actively strengthening and restoring this confidence–help young people navigate in a fast-changing world and recognise the full potential of their own life, while also creating a better future for all.

To attain this objective, the trainers use established theoretical foundations such as the concept of futures consciousness and futures skills/literacy. 

Objectives

To identify and  explore the factors contributing to young people’s declining confidence in the future

To build a broader European-level understanding of young people’s current confidence in the future through the exchange of knowledge and experiences 

To understand how an individual’s relationship with the future is formed and how challenges in this relationship may manifest in young people

To experience and test activities that develop futures thinking

To analyse and further develop youth work practices through sharing approaches and taking time to reflect on what is possible

To provide space for self-reflection and for strengthening participants’ own individual relationship with the future

To develop new practices and guidelines for a futures-oriented approach in youth work through both individual reflection and group work

Participant profile

Participants should:

Demonstrate a strong interest in the topic and motivation to engage with it

Be working regularly with young people who experience a lack of confidence in the future

Have at least 3 years of experience of youth work and sufficient proficiency in English to engage with conceptual discussions and youth work development

Be supported by an organisation interested in integrating a futures-oriented approach into its youth work