YOUTH WORK AT MUNICIPALITY LEVEL CREATING SUSTAINABLE YOUTH POLICIES AT LOCAL LEVEL

The II International Conference focusing on the theme of “Creating Sustainable Youth Policies at Local Level” - youth policies and youth work at Municipality Level, with a specific focus on inclusion (NEETs, migrants, youth at risk and marginalized youth) comes in the follow up of several European guidelines that have been recently established highlighting the importance to mainstream youth at local and regional level that have identified the need to tackle these issues at grassroots. However, to be able to find effective paths for this direction to be taken, and to keep improving impact and outreach of our activities, stakeholders need to meet, discuss, reflect, exchange practices and develop their competence to work together on such themes.

The Conference is the flagship event for youth workers, youth leaders, young people and public officers from local and regional authorities that work with youth in their local realities. They will come together for 4 days to share debate and discuss about key policy fields to find ways to improve youth work at municipality level and increase youth participation on policy making at local and regional level.

OBJECTIVES

- To develop the capacity of Local Authorities (LA) and Civil Society Organizations (CSO) and their youth workers to work together on the field of youth public policy to provide answers to the challenges of participation, inclusion, unemployment
- To identify and promote good practices and mechanisms for youth participation in decision-making and debate about their potential and challenges on public governance
- To share practices of inclusion and engagement of young people at local level
- To develop more inclusive approaches to foster participation of young people with fewer opportunities into spaces such as local youth councils and youth fora
- To allow youth CSO and LA to share their best practices in terms of cooperation between local authorities and civil society, with a specific focus on how to target NEET youth, young migrants and other marginalized youth

The conference will held the II Assembly of Members and Partners of DYPALL Network. This meeting will allow for all the members and partners of DYPALL Network to gather and work on the future network priorities, discuss on how to mainstream our network values, objectives and work, deepening the connection among stakeholders working in the field of youth work and youth participation in different dimensions, levels and spheres.

PARTICIPANTS’ PROFILE

The Conference will be a space for learning, development of competences, dialogue and sharing of experiences among 50 international participants with the following profile:

- Municipality representatives working in either youth, social, education and/or employment policies

- Local professional youth work manager or senior professional working with and for young people, especially youth from vulnerable/marginalized backgrounds and fewer opportunities (unemployed, NEETs, migrants, etc.

Whenever possible, these participants should preferentially have already worked together within their own local setting and be able to work together after the training in order to implement the lessons learnt and boost concrete and sustainable follow-up activities

Moreover, participants must:

- Be able to work in English

- Be willing to contribute with their experience to the Conference

- Be residents of Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey

- Be able to attend the whole duration of the Conference

- Have relevant experience in the topic of youth participation in decision-making processes at local level in general and participation of young migrants and young people with migrant background in particular;

- Highly motivated towards the follow-up of the Conference