Snežana Bačlija Knoch

Current occupation

Freelance Educator in the European youth work field

Work experience

I became involved in local youth work in 2001 through BalkanIDEA Novi Sad. In the first years I worked directly with young people (both young volunteers and beneficiaries of the organisation) designing and facilitating programmes aimed at their personal development. In 2015 I was officially validated as youth worker by NAPOR - National Association of Youth Workers in Serbia. Currently I am working on youth policy through NAPOR and the development of a Local Youth Action Plan and am working on implementing the curriculum for youth worker education in Serbia. I also have experience of working as a youth worker in the UK. I worked for Encompass, the Daniel Braden Reconciliation Trust, over a period of 5 years. I was working on a long-term project with young people from all walks of life empowering them as young activists. As of 2018 I am one of the trainers for YOCOMO – set of pilot courses for youth workers on working with the ETS competence model for youth workers and one of the members of the team for YOCOMO online solutions.

At the same time, I have been international trainer and facilitator for over 15 years. I have facilitated learning processes of different groups of young people: high school and university students, youth leaders, NGO activists, young politicians, unemployed youth, minority groups, youth at risk, youth from conflict areas, immigrants and refugees. I have implemented a number of trainings for trainers, facilitators and multipliers. Apart from trainings, I have been working in different non-formal educational activities: workshops, youth exchanges, seminars, conferences, but also campaigns, street actions, festivals etc. I have experience facilitating non-formal education both online and offline. In addition to working as a trainer and facilitator, I worked as the educational advisor and programme director for several organisations: BalkanIDEA Novi Sad, the Youth Dialogue Programme, Encompass Trust and American Councils.

I have been involved in writing different articles, publications and handbooks in relation to the field of youth work and nonformal education for several years. All the written materials have encompassed different styles and formats and have been for a variety of target readers – from young people to the political level. Examples below:
• Cherry on the Cake: Advice for quality planning of youth exchanges (2nd edition Nov. 2018)
• The “4thought for Solidarity”, research study for establishment of a common narrative on Solidarity, European Solidarity Corps Resource Centre
• EVS TEC Research - perspective of trainers, Agencia Nazionale per I giovani and SALTO Training and Cooperation Resource Centre
• Quality Handbook on Learning Mobility in the Youth Field, Council of Europe European Union Youth Partnership
• Youthful Europe: Working with young people on the topic of Europe, SALTO South East Europe Resource Centre
• Youthpass Learning Agora Report, SALTO Training and Cooperation Resource Centre
• Publication: “Cherry on the cake” – Advice for Quality Planning of Youth Exchanges, MOVIT, Nacionalna agencija programa ERASMUS+, 2015 and 2018
• Member of the Coyote No.24, “Learning Mobility: Opportunities for All?” Editorial Team, Youth Partnership, 2016
• “Ne ceni knjigu po koricama”, Living Library handbook, Council of Europe, Office in Belgrade (no online copy available, unfortunately).

In addition, I have several years of experience in content development of digital tools:
• 10 years of developing content for online learning courses, mostly based on Moodle technology. Since 2018, I am also a member of the HOP e-learning council and since 2019, I have been part of the team of developing and facilitating MOOC on European Solidarity Corps.
• YOCOMO Online Solutions, SALTO Training and Cooperation Resource Centre
• AppRaiser, web-app for competences development based on ETS Competence Model for Trainers, International Youth Work Trainers Guild
• ‘app4learning’, Android and iOS app for supporting learning, SALTO Training and Cooperation Resource Centre
• EPLM “Q!App”, web-app for quality in learning mobility projects, SALTO Inclusion and Diversity Resource Centre, part of the development group