Youth Work Recovery Conference

Aims & objectives

The conference aims to explore the evidence on the needs for support of youth work in Europe, on the one hand, and the available support options for youth work in Europe, on the other hand. Therefore, gaps in existing support measures as well as specific and concrete mechanisms needed (in addition to existing ones) should be identified.

Another objective is to discuss the role of the European youth programmes in strengthening post-pandemic support of youth work.

The Youth Work Recovery Conference aims to formulate clear recommendations for action for relevant actors on how to improve, strengthen and widen the post-pandemic support and development of youth work across Europe.

Follow-up

As a follow-up it is planned to coordinate parallel (policy) activities - policy events, social media coverage, panel discussions etc – where the recommendations for the recovery of youth work are disseminated and discussed at European, national and regional level. Furthermore, national delegations and European stakeholders are encouraged to develop strategic approaches and concrete activities within their contexts.

Participants

The Youth Work Recovery Conference seeks to involve and invite various actors and stakeholders of the European youth work sector from practice, policy and research.

Conference participants should be working on designing and developing or are already involved in implementation of recovery programmes for youth work in a capacity that allows them to contribute to the conference meaningfully, whether that be from the perspective of policy, practice, programming and/or research.

Balance of participants (backgrounds, experiences, countries, ...) will be ensured in the selection process. Only limited places for participants from Partner Countries (= 'Third countries not associated to the Programme') can be provided.

Further details:

- More information about the participants and aims can be found in the concept note attached.

- More information about the sessions can be found in the short programme attached.

Host & co-hosts

The Youth Work Recovery Conference is co-hosted by the National Agencies of the European youth programmes from Finland (host), Croatia, Germany, France, Portugal and Slovenia (co-hosts) as well as co-financed by Movetia (Swiss agency for exchange and mobility). The RAY Network Coordination (at the Finnish National Agency) will lead and coordinate the preparation process and the implementation of the conference in cooperation with the RAY transnational research team.

The conference is part of the European Year of Youth.

Safety and Covid-19

In our activities we support the principle of a safer space, where no one is discriminated or bullied because of their background or person. We want you to respect the same principle.

We are closely monitoring the situation with Covid-19 and the Russian attack to Ukraine and are taking measures for the safety of our participants into consideration. Read more, https://um.fi/entering-finland-and-travelling-abroad. 

In order to apply, you should familiarise yourself with the Covid-19 rules when traveling to Finland. Note, that the rules might change before the conference. It is possible to apply / participate only if you are fully vaccinated with a vaccine that is approved in Finland or if you have a certificate stating a recovery from Covid -19 less than 6 months before entering the country.

Link to the guidelines of the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare: https://thl.fi/en/web/infectious-diseases-and-vaccinations/what-s-new/coronavirus-covid-19-latest-updates/travel-and-the-coronavirus-pandemic

Accessibility and sustainability

Our activities are accessible to people with disabilities. If you need a support person, accessible room and transport or supporting tools, we will provide it for you. You can tell us your needs already beforehand so that we can be ready.

We take sustainability in consideration where we can. Since most participants have to fly over the sea to Finland, we encourage you to travel on land within Finland. We also encourage you to contact your own national agency to find out how they support low-emission travelling to activities abroad.