Let's cooperate for youth

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EDITORS: Nerijus Miginis and Marius Ulozas, Institute for Policy Research and Analysis PUBLICATION LAYOUT: Aleksandras Vitkovskis CLIENT: Ķekavas novada pašvaldības iestāde „Jaunatnes iniciatīvu centrs” Gaismas iela 19 k-9, Ķekava, Ķekavas pagasts, Ķekavas novads, LV-2123, Latvia THE PRACTICAL GUIDE WAS PREPARED by the „Jaunatnes iniciatīvu centrs”, while implementing the project “Improving youth work at local level through cross-sectorial cooperation”, Contract No. 2015-2-LV02-KA105-000803. The project was funded by the European Union program Erasmus Plus.

ABOUT THE TRAINING COURSE PROJECT: Training course brought 32 youth workers, municipality youth affairs coordinators, specialists working with youth in other institutions at municipal level (local level) from 6 countries from 2nd to 9th of October, 2015 to Ķekava, Latvia. Project created space to learn how to develop cross-sectorial cooperation networks and improve efficiency of youth policy implementation at local level. Moreover, it provides space to share youth situation and youth policy implementation good practices in various European countries.

AIM: To develop competences (skills, knowledge and attitudes) and provide tools to youth workers and specialists dealing with youth issues how to foster and implement cross-sectorial cooperation and create cooperation structures in their realities at local level.

During this training course, municipal youth coordinators, municipal specialists on youth issues (civil servants) and youth representatives, youth leaders and youth workers from Italy, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Turkey and Poland coming from various regions have improved their competencies in following areas: cross-sectorial cooperation, developing regional youth policy, researching youth situation, active involvement of youth in decision-making, advocacy and effective representation; got acquainted with the national and European youth policy frameworks and opportunities they provide; expanded international network and learned how to build alliances around different issues; improved communication and advocacy; public speaking and media work competencies; shared and learn individually and in the groups; gained instruments to bring needed changes to improve youth policy in their municipalities.

With in the project we developed cross-sectorial cooperation standard for youth policy implementation at local level and created this manual on cross-sectorial cooperation in youth policy field.

DISCLAIMER: The opinion expressed in this publication, conclusions and recommendations do not necessarily coincide with the position of the Ķekavas novada pašvaldības iestāde „Jaunatnes iniciatīvu centrs”.

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CONTENT

I. Introduction ..................................................................................................................4 II.

The Importance of Youth Policy and Its Historical Development ..............................................................................................................7

III.

The Theoretical Principles of Cross-sectorial Cooperation ..............................................................................................................10

IV.

The Importance of Young People Participation in The Process of Creating Youth Policy.................................................................23

V.

Identifying Potential Partners from Institutions, Agencies and Organizations within Municipality .............................35 Best

Practice

examples

of

Cross-sectorial

VI. cooperation from Europe .................................................................................39 VII. Methods for cross-sectorial cooperation ...............................................47 VIII. Conclusions and recommendations ........................................................72

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I. INTRODUCTION Youth policy is successful when the decisions related to youth are taken at the level where they are most effective. Youth policy is a horizontal part of public policy that includes various sectoral public policies (social security and labor, health care, education, economy and etc.,). Therefore it is important to keep a productive Cross-sectorial and cross-departamental cooperation, which involves not only the business sector but also youth representatives.

Developing youth policy in EU, promoting social dialogue at national and local levels is enhancing cross-sectoral cooperation. It also prioritizes youth involvement, enhances potential of youth organizations, and improves the quality of youth work. Also significant attention is given to dissemination of information to youth and consulting them on relevant topics.

Worth pointing out that the needs of young people are best met at the municipal level, thus it is important to enhance the implementation of youth policy in municipalities, where the leading role should be given to the Municipal Youth Affairs Council. They have the power to ensure a cross-sectorial dialogue and create a platform where politicians, municipal youth experts and young people could meet and discuss relevant issues.

Therefore, the Municipal Youth Affairs Council has to contribute to the strengthening of youth policy and implementation in the regions, ensuring Cross-sectorial cooperationand infrastructure, according to the needs of young people. Also addressing the major youth policy implementation issues in the regions such as unemployment, leisure time activities (involvement), lack of motivation, lack of attention to youth policies, lack of cross institutional cooperation, youth inactivity, and dissemination of information.

The EU member states have committed to involve the youth since it signed the “Revised European Charter on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life� (afterwards referred as Charter). Youth involvement in decision making process for youth matters was already required by the 2007 EU resolution. On the other hand, efficient youth policy and cooperation with youth organization and youth is contributing to harmonious development of state and regions, also development of core competencies for effective democracy and civic education.

The guide is primarily dedicated to representatives of agencies, institutions, organizations, who create and implement youth policy and who aim to improve the conditions for young people.

Furthermore, youth representatives and representatives of organizations working with youth

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will also benefit from this guide as it will help effectively plan common activities and projects, understand the reasons why cooperation can be challenging and also find advices on how to overcome these challenges.

Cross-sectorial cooperation_is one of the most crucial principles of youth policy implementation, however, actual implementation is not always clear. In recent years’ new youth policy implementation methods and directions emerged. Work with youth could be named as one of the newly emerged directions, as well as informative work with youth or youth research area.

Utilizing the tools two youth policy priorities are implemented: knowledge-based youth policy development and inclusion of NEET’s and not involved young people. Yet due to the vast innovation in the youth policy even the youth experts can find it difficult to keep pace with them. Thus this guide will help the youth workers, municipal youth affairs coordinators, members of youth organizations and other institutions (e.g., cultural centers, job centers) representatives to better understand the changing policy context, to introduce to the essential information about the policy, policy directions and will provide references to the original sources where if required the reader can obtain additional information.

This guidebook will introduce the reader to the methods, new structures, additionaly the guide will facilitate emergence of new forms of interaction and development of common activates.

The guide is expected to benefit those who conduct educational work in the field of youth and the public sector. Also the guide will provide the reader with the knowledge about young people, their needs and role in public policy.

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GLOSSARY Cooperation – communication between individuals or social groups, with an objective to realize each other’s needs.

Young person – person aged from 13 to 30 years old.

Youth Organization – public organization or association established and registered according to the required laws and law acts. At least 2/3 of the organization members are young people or public youth organizations or associations.

Youth Policy – purposeful activities that address youth issues and aim to create favorable conditions for the formation of a young person’s personality and its integration into public life, as well as activities promoting understanding and tolerance for young people among the public and its separate parts.

Youth Working Party – a working group established by competent Ministries from the EU Member States, which prepares documents for the meeting of the Council of Ministers.

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) – an organization established by a free will of citizens, which aims to serve the public and work for the benefit of the society. NGOs are nonprofit organizations which also do not have interest in direct involvement in the management of state.

Positive Youth Policy – involves all youth and seeks to create incentives to broaden opportunities for youth and not only focuses on solving youth issues which are in present.

Sector – an area of economic activity, distinguished by certain characteristics.

An Organization Working with the Youth – a public entity with one of its objectives focusing on youth-oriented activities which satisfy the needs of the youth.

Cross-sectoral Cooperation – a complimentary cooperation, which include representatives from different sectors such as government, government institutions (healthcare, education, environment, culture, sports and etc.), public, NGO, business and the media.

Cross-departamental Cooperation – a complimentary cooperation, which include representatives with different specialization from one of the sectors (public, business and non-governmental) yet from different agencies/institutions.

Public Sector – set of institutions that are maintained by the state and municipal budgets. The sector provides public services, which have no competition and are unique, and they are available for every individual.

Agency – the system of agencies belonging to one of the sectors of state government.

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II. The Importance of youth policy and its historical development Youth sector is characterized by a frequent change of young people, because active young individuals are naturaly replacing each other, as the first ones grow out of the youth age.

Besides that, young people are constantly facing new challenges which in turn changes their needs. On top of that it should be noted, that youth representatives working in the public sector also frequently move jobs. We should not forget that the number of institutions and agencies which are working with youth is also tremendous. Therefore, it is important to understand the context of youth policy and the challenges faced by young people.

Another issue, considering the importance of cross-sectorial cooperation implementation of youth policy, is to be clear about the position that we follow when working with young people and answer few core questions: do young people actually need youth policy? Does youth policy (Institutions etc.,) need young people? Depending on how you will answer these questions, you will realize why cooperation is needed.

Do you work with young people in order to benefit them or the young people help you to achieve your objectives? Yet in reality the often case is that youth participation opportunities and youth policy priorities are created because of the need to look good in front of the superiors and display that you care about youth.

This dilemma is constantly challenging youth policy implementers such as youth organizations, institutions and young people in general. Whose interests are more important, young people or society? There is no consensus regarding this dilemma. Thus it’s good when interest of young person and society are consistent.

How much a young person is in need of youth policy? Well it is definitely needed, as youth policy creates more opportunities for young people and not only focuses solving some of the issues they face. And the opportunity feature of youth policy is a distinctive feature of positive youth policy. Following the positive youth policy perspective allows to get to know young person better especially their needs and interest and not only focus on the challenges they face, but also create new opportunities for different institutions to cooperate. For instance, youth employment became a priority at EU level, and numerous institutions such as Job centers, YNGOs, educational institutions etc., started closer cooperation. Cross-sectorial cooperation, which appeals to interest of young people, is necessary for institutions, which want to contribute to creation of wider opportunities for the youth, rather than solely organizing tradition events and implementing action plans.

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This guide follows the positive youth policy approach. Thus it is important to familiarize with youth as a social group and understand the way young people lives, what is important for them before offering them the cooperation or even worse creating actions plans which supposed to affect the daily life of youth.

ABOUT THE YOUNG PERSON Age is not the main characteristic of the young person. Young people are a separate social group which has different needs, expectations than children, teenagers and adults. The simplest definition of a young person is a person in transition from childhood to adulthood. Or in other words, youth is a period, when a person becomes independent from adults and starts leading independent life. It is clearly a difficult period in life, as young person has to obtain qualification, find a job or start working for themselve, find apartment. Do everything in order to become economically independent from their parents, perhaps even start a family. Once they accomplish that it means they have successfully transitioned to adulthood. Thus during the youth period, a person must work hard in order to secure a quality independent adult life.

Due to numerous social, economic, psychologic and political reasons the transition period is constantly being extended, while reaching quality adulthood level is becoming a more challenging task than ever.

During this transition period there are many risk factors which challenge the youth such as falling out from the education system or inability to successfully enter the labor market, crime, physical and mental health issues, addictions, early parenthood and so on. In these situation the role of the state becomes important, due to the power of rule and control it possess, thus it can impact the transition and diminish the risk factor. Yet youth age group is not unanimously defined across countries.

WHAT IS YOUTH POLICY? Youth Policy is a purposeful activity that address youth issues and aim to create favorable conditions for the formation of a young person’s personality and its integration into public life, as well as activities promoting understanding and tolerance for young people among the public and its separate parts. The overall objective of youth policy is to empower the youth.

The objective of empowerment of the young person is to ensure young person’s development, independence, and give a young person an opportunity to contribute to the development of society. The youth empowerment in the youth policy is exercised through youth education and participation. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure transparent Cross-sectorial and crossdepartamental cooperation with all the required inputs and resources among all the sections of youth policy (education, health, employment, culture, social security and etc.) in order to maximize the creation of new opportunities for the youth.

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Methodical recommendations:

It is easier to get attention of the youth when conducting a workshop or discussion about youth policy, when they are fully aware about the importance of the topic. Therefore, we would firstly advice to conduct practical workshop, let the young people to analyze their surroundings and familiarize with the environment and only afterwards relate their findings with the youth policy, public policy and the youth issues.

Task advice:

In order to get to know the interest of the youth better, we would advise to conduct task which allows getting to know the interest of the youth better, the tasks are listed in the methodical section.

The following methods are perfectly suitable: “Social map”, “Portrait of a young person”.

Important that youth policy implementation (State priorities and effort) would be understood as a structured, consistent and continuous process and based on the needs of young people and take culture aspects into account. Young persons have to acquire competencies, which they will use in their independent lives and which will help them to make the decision and take advantage of opportunities. Youth policy prepares young person to make independent decisions rather than give them “everything ready made on a plate”. Thus the main objective of positive youth policy is independent young (adult) person.

Youth policy is a tool which tries to help a young person to fully live independently. Implementing youth policy aims to create conditions for young people where they can fully integrate into society. As opposed to different public policy areas, youth policy is horizontal and includes all the issues related to youth ranging from education to social security, from culture to healthcare and etc.

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III. The theoretical Principles of Cross-sectorial cooperation Cross-sectorial cooperation is often mentioned in the laws and governmental resolutions in social areas such as healthcare, family, education and youth policy. Furthermore, the term Cross-sectorial cooperation often can be found in the areas under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs such as state border protection, documents on crime prevention policies, as well as health and social security. Other institutions such as State Tax Inspection under the Ministry of Finance and the Labor Exchange, base their activities on the principles of cooperation. Thus this mean of communication is important and effective governance form of the state.

WHAT IS CROSS-SECTORIAL COOPERATION? During the implementation of certain public policy areas (e.g. culture, education) it is impossible to purely depend on tradition framework from a single area as other areas include relevant implementation preconditions which would complement initial objectives. This is core assumption of Cross-sectorial cooperation. For example, it is very difficult to identify the differences between the objectives of cultural and educational sectors. Thus it is very unlikely that one sector would be purely responsible for group gatherings while other for leisure activities.

Hence the questions for the reader: who is responsible for organizing first day at school event, school or the center of culture?

In different countries and sectors use rather different terminology too: cross ministerial cooperation, cross departamental, crossinstitutional cooperation is used as a synonym with the term cross-sectoral cooperation. Also often terms such as collaboration, partnerships, cooperation networks, and cooperation systems are used. Other synonyms would be agent cooperation, inter-organization interaction, central and local government relations (hub and spoke approach).

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Workshop advice:

In order to make the terms clearer and to get the attention of the participants, you could initiate a group exercise and ask participants to explain the listed terms in their small groups. Exercise duration from 15 to 20 minutes.

Objective:

participants will find the linkage with the topic and will better understand the terminology.

Few possible variations:

you can ask them to find the definitions online, and ask them to clarify the core differences of the terms.

After the participants prepare presentation, the workshop leader can elaborate more and clarify the differences.

Cross-sectorial Cooperation is a coordinating activity of two or more institutions, which are responsible for different areas of public policy, on a specific topic/area (e.g. youth policy) with a common objective. The core feature of Cross-sectorial cooperation is different and independent institutions coordinating their activities.

Word cooperation means work together with other, while communicate- having common affairs. Thus the nature of the term is simple, yet the implementation of it is difficult. Successful implementation of Cross-sectorial cooperation is difficult and the evidences are visible in a number of countries as different institutions struggle to create strong sense of strategy ownership especially when all institutions want to take the coordinating role and have different working culture and are differently exposed to competition.

Each institution has its unique features: specific working culture, peculiar vocabulary (terminology), traditions, and a typical behavior of their specialists. Therefore, to some extent, this explains the differences in the employee behavior from the municipalities, schools and youth centers. If the institutions lack flexibility, willingness to understand and adjust, it will be challenging to cooperate with them.

Cross sectoral cooperation - a complimentary cooperation, which include representatives from different sectors such as government, government institutions (healthcare, education, environment, culture, sports and etc.,), public, NGO, business and the media.

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One of the implementation principles of youth policy is participation principle and it claims that youth related issues should be solved by involving the young people. Therefore, Cross-sectorial cooperation is impossible without involvement of representatives of other sectors. Youth organizations, being part of NGO sector, are a significant part of youth voice and opinion.

WHY DO INSTITUTIONS COOPERATE? It is challenging to meet all the needs and requirements of all individuals and organizations, because of numerous constraints such as time, funding, human resources, and limited state and municipal budgets. Therefore, in order to optimize the resource usage and process management, principles of Cross-sectorial cooperation can be utilized due to its special features.

Cross-sectorial cooperation helps

a) to see broader issue area (see out of the box); b) to avoid funding duplication; c) to minimize the number of competing or conflicting programs and activities.

REASONS FOR COOPERATION AND PARTNERSHIP Common priorities (common policy or ideology): objective to optimize the use of the budget, the efforts of institutions are merged, alternatives are sought by looking into nongovernmental and business sectors. Led by the theoretical assumption that NGOs and the business sector are more cost efficient than public sector and that these sectors can achieve similar results with fewer resources. The joint effort or merge actions of various institutions or sectors indicate the importance of certain public policy area or the importance of the issue. Let by this principle civic inclusion and participation in solving current issues is being implemented. Furthermore, with implementation of cooperation public policies become consistent with the needs of target groups and their interest is being represented.

Financial reasons: optimizing the use of financial resources through the reduction of administrative costs, merging institutions with similar objectives and programs. Their material and human resources and political connections are being utilized. An example from this section could be initiatives by the municipalities to merge institution which have similar objectives or engage in similar activities in order to reduce expenses.

Inevitability: institutions which operate in similar or the same areas sooner or later start cooperating because in the long term they identify their similarities. Both sides notice that they have common objectives and follow similar principles and in this manner opportunity to cooperate occurs. This refers to two aspects:

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a) Common issues - which are tackled by different organizations. The most common example at the local level is children protection rights. In order to tackle the issue on a timely manner forces are being united. For instance, policy, educational institutions and institutions focusing on children protection cooperate in order to solve issues such as violence in families, juvenile delinquency and school absenteeism; b) Functional dependency - when competencies and functions of institutions coincide. Seldom in practice certain function duplicate, although in many cases they are similar, peculiar in certain manner.

Actions of institution have an impact on overall system: an institution operating in adjacent area/sector can play a key role, which has an effect on the overall operation efficiency of the entire system. Lack of available information can be significant in this situation. Thus cooperating with partners, consulting with them and sharing information can address the lack of information issue. For instance, one of the youth policy priorities is tackling youth involvement and youth unemployment. On a local level this issue is tackled by vocational training institutions, youth information centers (partners of Eurodesk), youth centers, schools, territorial job centers and youth job centers. These institutions at a local level organize common activities and can utilize the broad information resources of youth job centers.

Public awareness about institution and a positive public image is another important aspect.

Institutions cooperate for personal gain. Cooperation becomes a public relations (PR) tool. The communication channels of the partners are being utilized and the information about partners and their activities is obtained. It created a positive or repaired rocky institution image. Hence several risks are being created in particular that partners might seek cooperation only in order to gain public awareness and their contribution would be minimalized. For instance, institutions sign a cooperation contract, this is being publicly advertised, however, no common activities are being implemented.

Workshop advice:

In order to introduce the cooperation causes and assumption you can: a)

Ask the participants why cooperation is important;

b)

Method “X & Y.

After the workshop theoretical principles, which were described in this chapter, are being introduced.

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CROSS-SECTORIAL COOPERATION FORMS Cross-sectorial cooperation can be split according to the forms a) nonformal, cooperation based on personal relations and b) a contract based cooperation. The first one (a) occurs when representatives from different institutions or sectors communicate informally: share information, opinions, insights, and together seek solutions to the issue. The QUESTIONS TO THE READER: second (b) - formalized cooperation, based on a formal agreement outlining the common objectives of different Which forms are more appealing to you? organizations and (or) departments. The second method What kind of events would be more is more advantageous in a situation when there is low appealing to the young people? retention of experts, because written agreement has What forms of cooperation are present outlined the cooperation conditions, objectives, areas in your municipality? of cooperation, communication forms and frequency.

The document can also list the responsible people. This form is more effective in states with high bureaucracy levels, especially in statutory organizations, police. The most common Cross-sectorial cooperation forms are working group, commissions, committees, advisory councils, Cross-sectorial group and funds.

Formalize commitments help to bypass the internal barriers of hierarchy, but nonformal cooperation is a more dynamic and less constrained by established procedures or restrictions.

Nonformal cooperation requires time in order to maintain relationships with colleagues from other institutions or organizations, yet there is a risk that sometimes it becomes difficult to distinguish between personal and professional relationships. Therefore, partners can be invited to cooperate when there is a need, and assign them particular role and responsibility.

ELEMENTS OF CROSS-SECTORIAL COOPERATION Core element of Cross-sectorial cooperation is the added value, which is created by inviting other organizations or institution sharing similar interests. During the process of cooperation effective coordination skills are required in order to coordinate activities of different institutions, organizations and social groups.

When we seek efficiency in areas of time, human and financial resources, institutions coordinated with each other activities and plans. In order to ensure effective communication managing partner designates a coordinator.

Cross-sectorial cooperation is based on commonly defined objectives, which form a systematic, coherent and effective interaction. Cooperation is a voluntary action, thus the main condition for cooperation to happen- is seeking common objectives without competition among the partners. Due to this reason the results of Cross-sectorial cooperation are more effective than a independently operating agency, institution or organization.

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Workshop advice:

Interests in recognition tasks: these methods intend to define the different fields of interest of different institutions, and different topics of interest for these institutions: a) You can discuss this chapter material with the following tasks:„Who bothers a young person“; „Social Map“. b) The cooperation between departments can be revealed by conducting orientation competition in the actual institutions or organizations, which work with young people. You could tweak the task by requiring the participants to ask the employees of the institutions about their cooperation in the youth filed.

After reviewing the reasons, forms and elements of Cross-sectorial cooperation it became clearer that cooperation is necessary. As a matter of fact, in many cases it is inevitable, because interests of institutions and organizations can sometime match or even oppose each other. Therefore, in order to fully understand specifics of cooperation, it is important to review the principles of implementation.

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PRINCIPLES AND SPECIFICS OF CROSS-SECTORIAL COOPERATION 1. Planning – representatives of different institutions pursuing a common objective tend to create common plans, programs and measures.

2. Division of roles and functions – institutions contribute to Cross-sectorial cooperation within their area of expertise. In order for Cross-sectorial cooperation to be effective it is important that the roles of the specialist would not duplicate and responsibilities should be aligned with the core competences and qualifications.

3. Systematic approach – thoroughly analyzing cooperation situations, from different perspectives. Looking for mutually acceptable solutions to common problems.

4. Information – during the process of sharing relevant information, institutions learn about work of other institutions and their area of expertise. This principle addresses one of the largest obstacles of public policy implementation – lack on information.

5. Resource optimization – coordinating activities and setting priorities, mobilization and efficient use of material and human resources.

When institutions cooperate they broaden their scope of activities, in turn, focus on a greater result, because they adjust their strategies with strategies of other institutions, and tend to align it more with the sector wide or even state wide strategies.

The following measures help to focus on the pursuit of change. The focus is on short-term objectives, activities or individual priorities. Following measures assist in securing common actions:

• Creation of a common vision – all partners list their priorities, expectations and needs of partnership. This allows aligning a common position of partners and seeking common objectives.

• New communication channels are created and utilized – after linking the partners together, an effective method of communication is being sought. Hence new channels of communication are sought and often new technology is utilized. Therefore, it is important to take into account the different cultures of communication across institutions; • Agreement to plan and cooperate – agreeing to seek a common objective, optimizing their competencies, share costs and utilization of common resources; • Risk and result sharing – institution is willing to share the risk, yet not willing to share the final result and recognition.

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IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS OF CROSS-SECTORIAL COOPERATION Cross-sectorial cooperation is a complicated process. It is affected by internal process such as organizational culture, and external factors such as Cross-sectorial plans and strategies.

In order to better understand the peculiarities of cooperation it is important to analyze the implementation process. The implementation process is displayed in the following chart (Chart 1).

Chart 1. Implementation process of Cross-sectorial Cooperation

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Initiation – the different sides understand the need to cooperate. The initiative can emerge from one agency, which later involves other partners. While implementing the policy, the so called cooperation appears to be a simple task allocation or conduction of the allocated task/role.

Agenda preparation – at this stage it is important to define which organization or person holds the power to propose new issues to the agenda. In practice, there are known cases that agenda is prepared by either a leading partner or by all parties.

Common decision making – a prerequisite requirement to agree how the decisions are made: unanimously, based on consensus or by the majority vote. We highly suggest that all parties have equal voting power.

Responsibility sharing (input and activities) – A common decision making is a difficult task and as a rule of thumb it comes with a pressure. Hence at this stage the parties share the pressure.

This helps to identify how many resources each partner can contribute to the objective. It could be the case that partners only participate in the process i.e. tokenism (Hart, 1992).

Decision implementation and monitoring – the coordinating partner, however could involve all participants, administrate the process implementation. Hence, it is important to pre-define if the partners have the rights to urge other participants Publication of results – the input of all partners is acknowledgement of the publication of results.

Partners have to decide who is responsible for the result publication.

Impact evaluation – upon completion of work it is recommended to devote time for impact evaluation. The goal of this phase is to reflect on positive experience and learn from mistakes encountered in the process. At this phase it is advisable to design alternatives, identify new and more effective decision making methods. Prior to starting phase 7 it is important to pre-set evaluation scale.

In the process of Cross-sectorial cooperation there are two very important aspects - inputs and outputs. The inputs show how individual institutions contribute to the project, what resources they allocate. This test helps evaluate how much a partnership is important to a particular organization partnership is important. On the other hand, the result shows the effectiveness and success of cooperation i.e. if the objectives were achieved, what positive change it made.

The implementation process of Cross-sectorial cooperation can be characterized by all of the project phases. Cooperation in specific fields has a specific start and end of the phase. Different agencies can cooperate with each other on a number of issues and to continue cooperation in the long run, yet reviewing and updating the existing agreements. The literature highlights the planning, monitoring and evaluation phases as extremely important for a successful partnership. Allocating enough time for these phases’ results in efficient implementation of projects, saves time, human and financial resources.

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CROSS-SECTORIAL COOPERATION CHALLENGES The common vision is the main challenge for cooperating institutions. Institutions vary in terms of their work focus area, different objectives and goals, and finally envision the end result differently.

Yet these aspects may partially overlap. For example, interest of target group focusing on youth and target group focusing children rights overlap partly and only on definition matter.

Children fall under the age range from 0 to 18 year, while a young man’s age range is 13 - 30 years.

Another possible challenge for Cross-sectorial cooperation is the territory of their activities.

When institutions work at the same level (municipal or national) the territory of activities often overlap, however, the priority regions may differ. Thus there is often an issue that the regional partner involvement in matters of national level is only symbolic.

In order to implement Cross-sectorial cooperation in public sector, institutions are forced to cooperate for preparation and implementation of the state planning documents, such as a long and medium-term strategies, inter-institutional action plans. These documents have a hidden agenda that numerous institutions should have common tasks and after conducting these tasks together, these institutions will learn to cooperate and coordinate their activities.

Cross-sectorial Cooperation Challenges: 1. Cross-sectorial Cooperation lacks legal regulations; 2. Inability to understand common objectives and prioritization of personal goals over it; 3. Inability to understand the importance and principles of implementation of partnership or cooperation; 4. Precondition for manipulations remains in case of absence of legalization of cooperation agreement; 5. Cooperation is implemented in a formal manned without application of creative tools; 6. Ignoring the principle of equivalence; 7. Absence of coordinating partner.

8. Differing organizational culture, specific jargon, communication channel, action processing speed and role delegation peculiarities; 9. Being close to a political party could also impede cooperation;

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Workshop advice:

If you are preparing for cooperation it is important to conduct analysis of the issue which you want to address. Even if you are well prepared, set all the plans and collected the required info, activity or project can still fail especially if efforts and measures were not focused on the main target group. The following workshop can help to identify who hold a decision making power on certain issue.

During this workshop you can conduct task “Power Map”. This task will help your participants to identify who can make a decision or has influence on decision making on certain issues.

If your participants enjoyed this task, you can devote more time for the topic interests of the youth.

The issue of decision making power is particularly relevant in the public sector, it is important to have the understanding where the power is concentrated and who has the largest influence.

Once the department of institution, where the power is concentrated is known, the most efficient utilization of power should be considered.

This publication cannot discuss all possible challenges and how to overcome them, because it depends on situation, people and other factors. However, we want to encourage the reader as everything is possible. You do not have to make sacrifices for the youth that is not what it needs. In order to obtain new connections which can facilitate cooperation, you need to step outside of your comfort zone or just outside your office doors and initiate meetings with young people and potential partners, and repeat your offers until it will be heard and addressed by someone.

SPECIFICS OF CROSS-SECTORIAL COOPERATION IN YOUTH POLICY According to the World Bank’s World Development Report (2007), there are three main reasons why it is so difficult to develop successful youth policies. First of all, a successful youth policy combines activities across different sectors in order to create a unified cross-sectoral strategy that sets clear priorities and measurements. Nowadays, youth policies are often left alone and are not integrated into the state development strategy. Secondly, youth policy fails when young people do not have opportunities to express their opinions in the development and implementation of policies that are designed for them. It’s challenging to create a successful youth policy, because till now there are only a few success stories and best practices.

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The Council of Europe’s Congress approved the European Youth Participation at local and regional level Charter in 2003. The Charter identifies 18 youth policy topics ranging from youth health to education, mobility to housing and employment. Therefore, there is no welfare policy which would be irrelevant for young people. This strengthens the statement that youth policy is horizontal and a good example of Cross-sectorial cooperation.

Youth policy issues are receiving more attention due to the ageing populations and migration issues. In order to ensure sound formulation and implementation of youth policy it is necessary to involve young people and their representatives. The young people and their representatives are involved into the process by defined forms, principles and methods.

AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO YOUTH POLICY Many welfare state policy issues seem to belong to different policy areas, but are connected and have a significant influence on each other, therefore relevant policies must be coordinated at crossinstitutional level. For example, the quality of education and its availability have a direct impact on young people’s awareness of health issues and access to employment after graduation. This example well defines the links between education, healthcare, social security and employment policies.

The components of youth policy interlinked within one vertical policy boundaries. For example, lifelong learning memorandum includes formal education, non-formal education and vocational training, all of which are relevant to youth policy. A young person participating in the implementation of youth policy, YNGO activities, volunteering gains valuable personal, social or even professional competencies.

It is important to recognize these competencies in order for the person’s future successful participation in the higher layers of the educational system.

There is a need for coordination of different areas of public policies, one of the possible measures - identified youth policy a separate area of Cross-sectorial policy. This suggests that various policies, government actions and activities are coordinated into one clear strategy, such as youth policy. Different ministries or government institutions can take the responsibility for the implementation of the strategy.

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ADJUSTING NATIONAL AND LOCAL YOUTH POLICY Youth policy is implemented at a local level, where the young people dwell. The national youth policy gives directions which spring from needs that exist at the municipal level. The competency and responsibility of local institutions is of crucial importance for youth policy. The competency and responsibility of local institutions are crucial for youth policy. It is important to offer implementation measures for institutions from national level, provide them with assistance and consolation, share best practices, and coordinate their activities while cooperating, yet treat them as an equal partner. National level should provide financial and other incentives such as delegated state function, regular reporting, and additional funding for the implementation of local youth policy.

INFLUENCE OF INTERNATIONAL LAWS ON NATIONAL YOUTH POLICY The national youth policies of the EU members must be developed and implemented in an open and transparent manner with the participation of young people, youth workers and YNGOs. Yet, youth policy is within the competence of the EU Member States and is not regulated by the international agreements or the EU. According to European youth policy expert F.Y. Denstad it is clear that European level recommendations do affect development of national youth policies.

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IV. The importance of young people participation in the process of creating youth policy The core difference between Cross-sectorial cooperation in youth policy and other public policy sectors is that the target group (youth) has to participate in consultation processes as well as the decision making process.

There are numerous expressions of participations. Youth participation can be understood as one of the rights, also youth activeness in certain activities can be seen as sort of a partnership between youth and adults because they consult on the objectives, goals, roles, responsibilities, decisions, etc.

This guide follows a definition provided by the European Council that youth participation is a civic right of the young people to be included in the daily life and the right to influence their life processes. The revised European Charter on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life claims - “participation in the democratic life of any community is about more than voting or standing for election, although these are important elements. Participation and active citizenship is about having the right, the means, the space and the opportunity and where necessary the support to participate in and influence decisions and engage in actions and activities so as to contribute to building a better society”. Youth participations often include the following areas: economic participation, especially related to employment and occupational activities, economic development, fight against poverty, a stable economic society, regional or youth situation improvement, political participation, related with the executive government, public policy, resource allocation and etc., social participations, including involvement in local community life; raising awareness about local issues; cultural participation, related to the different forms of art expression.

WHY YOUTH PARTICIPATION IS IMPORTANT? It is worth mentioning one of the youth policy objectives - create favorable conditions for young person’s personality development and assist them with successful integration into society. The objective is development of young person’s consciousness, activeness, creativity, independence and ability to take responsibility for their actions. Youth participation is a prerequisite condition to reach these objectives. This right is listed in the Youth Policy Foundation Law, which states that “young people should participate in solving issues which relate to youth”. Meanwhile the principles of the self-governance, independence and volunteering are understood as a youth freedom of choice of activities, objective formulation, active participation and responsibility for fulfilment of objectives, choosing the means for objective implementation, and evaluation.

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Youth participation is important because: • helps institutions formulating and implementing youth policy to better understand the actual needs of young people and their situation; • helps to develop skills to work effectively with young people for institutions formulating and implementing youth policy; • decisions, related to young people, must include young people, and therefore including young people in decision-making process makes the decision more legitimate; • offers new ideas for solving local and regional issues: it helps institutions formulating and implementing youth policy to discover talents and potential of young people; • it helps youth to understand how democracy works and how to participate in democracy; • has a positive impact on lives of young people; allows the society to hear the voice of the youth better; • encourages young people to develop new skills and gain more confidence; • creates a space for young people to use their talents and abilities for the benefit of the whole community or organization.

DIFFERENT VIEWPOINTS TO YOUTH PARTICIPATION The Revised European Charter on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life is dedicated to numerous target groups: young people and people working with youth at a local level. The viewpoints expressed in the Charter are close to Cross-sectorial cooperation in youth policy. In order to have quality cooperation in youth policy, it is important to follow the viewpoints on quality youth participation expressed in the Charter. This viewpoint helps to assure young people involvement in different activities ranging from youth project implementation to establishment of youth organization or to youth representation in the process of political decision making. In this way adult experience and knowledge and young people talent is being utilized.

In result, the need of youth is better represented and solutions are solved more effectively.

During cooperation it is important to understand each others objectives, expectations, the help that each other can provide, have a vision how cooperation will be conducted and evaluation of the impact created.

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Chart 2 ,,RMSOS viewpoints to youth participation “ (source: Z. Gozdzik-Ormel ,,Have your say“)

The Charter’s viewpoints on participation follow RMSOS model, which is based on 5 key aspects helping to secure youth participation: rights, means, space, opportunity and support.

Meaningful youth participation can only be achieved when all project participants have responsibilities. The 5 aspect are closely correlated and all of them are essential in order to attract youth to participate in activities which they are genuinely interested or in the decision making process which is relevant to them.

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Workshop advice:

RMSOS (Right, Means, Space, Opportunity, and Support) viewpoint can be a useful tool for the youth, youth workers and different institutions when they are trying to evaluate their activities, projects and measurements. This model helps to understand if suitable circumstances are created to involve youth into activities. The 6th chapter has defined RMSOS model. Utilizing the RMSOS model description and working questions you can analyze and critically asses your activities in order to improve them.

RIGHT OF YOUTH TO PARTICIPATE Youth holds the legal rights to participate in policy formulations and implementation processes initiate and realize youth initiatives, volunteer and get involved in civic activities. Besides, the right to participate in decision making, youth policy also claims that youth should be consulted on issues and actions that directly affect them. Young people should be encouraged to exercise their participation rights. Participation is defined not only as the right to vote or participation in the consultations, but addressing issues which are relevant, creation of means and initiation of activities. The participation in different spheres of public life not only civil and political but also cultural, economic, social,

Questions for analysis:

1.

What roles is designated to youth when in decision making process? (when matters relate to projects, organization or community) 2.

Is independence and responsibility, which are given to the youth in decision making and implementation of projects, actually necessary?

3.

Are your activities (projects) open to all the youth, without any discrimination on the performance at school, gender, economic situation, social class they belong to and etc.?

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MEANS, REQUIRED FOR YOUTH PARTICIPATION Elements of RMSOS model are two-fold: necessary resources and means must be provided. On one hand, structures which facilitate young people participation and support are required, for instance existence of NGO funding mechanism. Alternatively, not satisfying the main needs of the youth such as shelter, education, food and transportation makes their participation impossible, because the young person has to dedicate his/her time to make ends meet rather than participate in the process of formulating and implementing youth policy. In order to achieve a better reach, it is required that the basic needs of the youth would be satisfied such as social security, education, shelter, health, transportation and access to technology.

Questions for analysis:

1.

What are the most important means that youth could properly participate in the project or belong to organization or participate in community life? How did you identify these needs?

2.

What are the issues related to these means? Where does the need come from?

3.

How do these issues engage young person into activities?

4.

What resources do you possess or what resources you required in order to facilitate different youth group participation (e.g. transportation, space etc.,)? How can you get access to untapped resources?

SPACES FOR YOUTH PARTICIPATION Provide the space for youth to participate. On one hand it means that young people will have physical space, where they can meet up, spend their time and organize their activities. On the other hand, this element includes space in the broader sense, meaning, institutional mechanism creates possibility for youth to participate in decision making process. In practice this means to create conditions for youth where their opinions, recommendations and conclusions would be heard and would have direct impact on decisions.

Questions for analysis:

1.

What spaces could be devoted to youth within your community (physical, virtual or institutional)? In your opinion, is this space sufficient?

2.

In which ways can youth have an actual impact on decisions, related to their lives?

3.

How much does your project or organization assist the youth in increasing their influence on decision making relevant to them?

4.

Do you think that youth opinion has an actual impact?

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OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE TO PARTICIPATE Possibility to participate is given. First of all, in order to assure young person’s participation sufficient amount of information should be provided. For example, to have a good access to information on how they can get involved into decision making process, and where these opportunities are available. Secondly, decision making structures, consultation process and means should be adjusted to the needs of the youth. These processes are organized in the manner that young people could comprehend it and could get involved. For instance, youth related issues are solved at the time suitable for the youth: after classes, in order to improve young people participation rate. Electronic questionnaires distributed to young people through known social networks and enough time is given to complete the questionnaires and respond.

Questions for analysis:

1.

What are youth participation possibilities?

2.

How is youth informed about these possibilities? Do you think the information is sufficient?

3.

How can youth get involved into your activities or projects? Where would they find information about activities and projects? Are the activities, projects adjusted to youth needs?

4.

In what ways do your activities, projects provide the opportunity to youth to apply democratic or civic principles?

5.

In what ways do your activities, projects provide growth and development opportunities for youth?

6.

What kind of youth can participate in your projects? Are the targeted participants already defined as active youth? Do they hold leading roles?

SUPPORTING THE YOUTH Youth receives required support via consultation. Young people have opportunities and are very creative, yet to without the necessary support they cannot unleash their potential. Various forms of support should be available to youth, for example, existent institutional support at various levels, access to online information resources and consultation, financial support and positive molar support. Young people have access to moral support and consultation, which should be provided by unbiased adults such as youth worker, teacher or specialist possessing required qualification or knowledge. Especially important to provide young people opportunities to participate in workshops or other educational events where they could acquire the necessary skills. In the end institutions and the whole community should support and recognize the importance of youth participation and appreciate the benefit they provide to society.

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Questions for analysis:

1.

How does your community support youth participation?

2.

How can you increase support provided to youth?

3.

How youth friendly are structures and strategies of your organization or community?

4.

What institutional help exists? How relevant it is? How does this help is supporting the youth?

5.

What skills does the youth require in order to become an active participant in decision making, organizational activities and projects?

6.

Do the employees of organizations such as youth workers or volunteers hold the required competencies? Is their effort sufficient to promote youth involvement into activities or projects?

One could claim that the weak side of this model is absence of motivation element as important piece of the model. Yet RMSOS model is based on assumptions, that once the external elements are well set and the model is working efficiently, the young person will take part in decision making process.

Human resource management theory claims that personal decisions to participate or motivation emerges once 3 core aspects are ensured. Firstly, personal connection with the activities must be ensured. Person has to feel that he owns the idea and understand, that he has a say in the decision making process, and that decision will affect them directly. Secondly participation should be challenging for the youth person. This activity is new for them and constantly changing, therefore this task requires effort, which fascinates young person. Last aspect the task or activities should be within the competence area of the young person. If the challenge is too large active participation is impossible. Yet when all 3 aspects are present, the person is motivated to participate in the activity and complete the task. If decision makers listen to their opinion and take it into account, then young person is solving issues which relate to them. Participation in the activity does not exceed the competencies of the youth, besides they receive systematic support, while young person’s preparation for participation and taking part indecision making process is a challenge for the youth by default. If we would combine aspects of both models, we could claim, that young people will get actively involved in Crosssectorial cooperation in youth policy.

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Chart 4 “Participation Ladder“

▼

▲ Chart 3 „3 P Model” (source: Z. Gozdzik-Ormel „Have your say“)

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UPDATED PARTICIPATION LADDER MODEL (10 STEPS MODEL) In order to introduce the reader to different youth participation theories and provide relevant examples, which would facilitate their understanding on how in different situation youth participation is revealed we provide Roger Hart’s model. Hart’s “Ladder of Young People’s Participation” provides different levels of children and youth participation in organizations, activities, projects and communities.

You can find out more about original ideas of R. Hart in his publication “Have your say”

Roger Hart talks about 8 participation levels and assigns it to different rungs of the ladders. However, in this publication we will use extensive model - a 10 rung ladder.

1 rung Dictatorship – young people are not given freedom to choose if they want to participate.

The decisions, even youth related, are made by adults. Assumption is made that adults have better knowledge what is best for the young people. Opportunities and structures which could enable youth to have their say are not existent.

2 rung Manipulation – young people are not given a chance to understand the discussion topic and they do not actively take part in decision making process. Adults wing the situation in most suitable way for adults and young people do not object the demands of the adults.

3 rung Decoration – adults involve young people into activities, about which young people have limited understanding and cannot impact it. Young people could be wearing T-shirts with slogans and often get involved into entertainment activities. Youth is being used only for support purposes for activities which seem to be important for adults.

4 rung Tokenism – adults present information to the use in a manner, that youth thinks they have the decision making power, yet in reality they hold little saying and can barely propose their opinion or even impact the decision making. Adults plan the content and agenda and expect that youth will only nod their heads and agree to everything.

According to Hart rung 4 is the last level, where youth is non-participating but only are the means for adults to reach their objectives.

5 rung Youth is assigned but informed – adults create framework for activities or projects and young people voluntarily participate in them. At the same time young people are fully aware of the project/activity objectives and are willing to take a role assigned to them.

6 rung Youth is consulted and informed – project of activity is created and implemented by adults, however, young people understand the process and their role in it, and adults respect the opinion of the youth. The adults do not want that young people would just listen to the opinion or recommendations of adults, in fact, adults encourage the youth to express their suggestions, come up with their own creative ideas and that young people would get access to all necessary information and make decisions themselves.

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7 rung Adult-initiated, shared decisions with youth – adults together with young people create ideas, plan projects and make decision. The experience and knowledge of the youth are respected. The methods and forms are created in collaboration between youth and adults, while decisions are made by youth.

8 rung Young people-initiated and directed projects – young people take full responsibility and independently organize and manage the cooperation in work group and they receive support from the adults. Youth develops confidence and skill to take responsibility.

9 rung Youth initiated without help of adults – youth initiates, organizes, manages and evaluates workshops and learning. Young people indicated their activity directions and find opportunities themselves. This is mostly done in order to benefit the youth. Role of adults is absent in this rung.

10 rung Youth-initiated, shared decisions with adults – youth initiates ideas and offer their suggestions, identify opportunities and issues, create strategies for activities, yet involves adults into implementation processes.

Workshop advice:

1.

According to the theoretical ladder model we have prepared a relevant task. Yet before starting the analysis and introduction of the theoretical models, which are listed in this chapter, we suggest your participants to conduct the follwing task. Provide 10 situations from the examples from your countries context. The participants should find no difficultes in recognizing situation, in which most likely they have also taken part. This practical task should facilitate better understanding of the theory.

2.

After the introduction of „Particiaption ladder“ model, you can discuss the following participation aspects: • On which rung does your project, initiative, activity which you are participating in stands?

• On which rung woudl your project be most effective and why?

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YOUTH PARTICIPATION IN DECISION MAKING-STRUCTURES Analyzing youth participation in decision making process in the context of Cross-sectorial cooperation in youth policy it is important to mentioned youth participation structure such as municipality youth affair councils on local and National youth councils operating national level. Similar structures exist on international levels too. Other forms of youth participation in decision making are consultation, which nations or even the EU utilizes in order to listen to the voice of the youth and better understand the youth relevant issues. Presences of youth participation in decision making structures create assumptions about cooperation. It is crucial that system would not only possess structures, but also that those structures would actually work and would be attractive to young person. There is possibility that structures could exist and operate, however, youth can simply ignore it. This chapter will indicate assumptions for successful youth participation in decision making processes.

Cross-sectorial work group is a renown and broadly used structure of youth participation in decision making. Cross-sectorial work groups are created in order to tackle different issues or to share information, coordinate activities in a specific area. Relevant issues are effectively addressed by this form, also it helps to gain experience in cooperation with other sectors.

Nonformal cooperation is another popular form of youth participation in decision making. It can be defined as strong personal connection with representatives of other organizations. In practice, we often see evidence of active cooperation between representatives of NGOs and representatives of public sector. Reasons behind it is that usually their relations where build over time. Furthermore, there could be a possibility that public sector employees, working on youth policy used to work from YNOGs prior to joining the public sector.

Cross-sectorial cooperation mean at European level is structural dialogue with young people.

It is the consultations conducted by the European Commission on certain youth policy issues.

These consultations take place every 6 months. This form of consultation is implemented by using mixed research methodology which includes both the qualitative and quantitative research. This mean is very useful in order to identify what is actually happening at the local context and for discovery of the actual youth opinion.

Finally, the Charter distinguishes 3 main groups which are essential in order to ensure that youth participation structures are operating efficiently: youth, youth organizations and local governmental structures.

youth s

youth organization

local governmental structures 33

Youth Youth is one of the most important groups of local communities, yet their role and opportunities to impact the local affairs is limited. Charter offers many specific ideas how to increase importance of youth in decision making processes on local level.

Youth has to be prepared for active participation in structures. It is necessary for young people to develop different skills and opinions form their viewpoints and obtain additional knowledge.

It is important for young people to understand that their voice matters, that other society groups respect it and listen to it and that made decisions match their expressed views. If youth is not given this possibility, they could find difficulties in the future to participate in structures, local community life and would not contribute to improving it.

Organizations All organizations, be it youth or organizations working with youth, have opportunities and the right space to involve youth into activities and decision making processes. Taking into account that youth organizations represent youth and essentially are a communication channel linking youth and representatives of local government, the organizations have to find a way to influence the government and that the government would take into account the interests and needs of young people. This is an effective way especially at municipal level, when government has close communication with citizens.

Organizations also have to apply youth participation principles in their daily activities, in this manner they will become more transparent for cooperation with youth and will be able to take into account their needs and opinion better. This is partnership, where roles, tasks and responsibilities are shared among young people and people working with youth. Young people not only criticize and offer their solutions, but also take responsibilities and actively participate.

Local governmental institutions Local governmental institutions, municipalities form local policies. They also manage local resources and seek for ways how to improve quality of life of the local communities. Thus they are extremely important in creating conditions for the young people to participate in decision making process and organizational activities. In a way local government are “closest to the youth�, thus the government has to provide opportunity to young people to be active citizens and participate in local life in a democratic way. Besides, governments being familiar with local situation and holding the required connections can support youth participation in various activities through various means. Municipalities should be obliged to support youth participation in public governance processes at the local level, but also in social environment such as school, youth centers and organizations. Therefore, local governmental institutions have the power to create actual youth participation opportunities.

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V. Identifying Potential Partners from Institutions, Agencies and Organizations within Municipality Often youth and representatives of youth organizations, young people and representatives or specialists from governmental institutions are not aware about each other even though for many years they operate next to each other, have regular events which are covered in the media. Yet if these institutions have not met in a common activity or event or do not hold a common interest it could be the case they do not know about each other’s existence.

In the 3rd chapter The Theoretical Principles of Cross-sectorial Cooperation has provided numerous reasons to support the benefits of cooperation. In this chapter we want review different organizations and institutions with which you could seek cooperation at municipal level. We will briefly describe the main activities of these organizations and how youth and youth organizations can benefit from cooperating with them, how to utilize each other’s resources, infrastructure and identify common interests.

Higher Education (colleges and universities and their departments) – we will spare your time on introduction of higher education institutions, which provide specific knowledge and qualification, as their activities are widely known. These institutions have broad infrastructure, which could be utilized by organizations and agencies. Furthermore, higher education institutions are perfect information partners, because in their venues they have information stands, institutional newsletters, they hold digital conferences and have alumni clubs. The alumni clubs could actually have a broad interest in activities of your institutions. The benefit for educational institutions to cooperate with you is the possibility to visit your events or workshops and introduce their curricular programs and potentially recruit future students.

Community House – usually a building or part of the building in the rural location, which is adjusted to the needs of the community, for example, has the space for gatherings and certain infrastructure such as projects an etc. You could utilize the space of community house and hold your activities there present your activities to the community and invite neighbors for discussions. The purpose of this house or venue is to hold various events, which potentially could help you to reach young people, which are difficult to reach in normal circumstances (i.e. rural youth).

Library – it is important to mention that in recent years the activities of libraries are changing across the world. Libraries started to provide new services such as audio (podcasts), focus more on local publications, provide the access to the web and have table games. We have even met few librarians who hold a youth worker’s qualifications and work with youth. For instance, in

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the library of the Lazdijai Town and open youth space exists, where on the weekends youth workers finish they work past midnight. Thus libraries could be your information partner and even could contribute to organization of certain events.

Firegihter Station – this institution is very eager to cooperate with youth organizations and do not mind to show up in your events with firefighters and their special equipment, participate in sports events. You could invite this institution to your events where they could promote their profession. While in social activities employees of fire stations or even the firefighters could volunteer in the children day centers, which often lack male volunteers. In the cold season firefighters could help to establish a public ice rink in the schools’ station or city square as they have the necessary equipment for that.

Open youth centers and open youth spaces – these are the spaces where open youth work takes place, and where youth could receive social, pedagogical and psychological assistance.

These spaces are usually dedicated for youth aged 13 to 25 (30); however, they are also open to different groups of community and are particullary important link between “passive” and “active” young people. Yet the main focus of these spaces is given to less opportunities and less motivated youth, which due to various reasons do not have opportunities or even will to get involved into youth activities. We would like to distinguish the role of the youth worker in this space. The youth workers have a good understanding about youth participation and youth policy can consult and assist young people in the implementation of their ideas. In these spaces young people can learn more about participation opportunities or get information which institution could assist them in solving the issues relevant to them. Besides youth centers possess infrastructure and various tools and means to facilitate youth leisure time activities and development of their skills. Moreover, youth centers often participate in international activities.

Carrier specialists and job centers – territorial labor exchange units, responsible for work of the youth group. Job centers assist youth in finding employment, organize workshops for the youth, conduct professional orientation courses, and organize field trips to higher education institutions.

These institutions have the reach to youth defined as NEETS (Not in Education, Employment, or Training). On top of that, the accommodation of job centers is of a high quality, besides you could benefit from their information channels as they can disseminate information about your event and projects.

Youth information centers – these centers are dedicated to provide youth relevant information to young people on youth mobility, participation opportunities, housing, money, health, volunteering possibilities, learning, work, leisure, sports, culture and travel. This is the right institution where you could direct young people to seek information relevant to them. These centers have their information sharing channels, thus you could provide information about your organization and this information will reach the young people. You could invite them to your events or even organize common activities.

Youth organization – organizations unite young people according to their interest and activities. Their specific activities or skills could benefit you during your projects or events.

Besides, youth organizations are eager to unite in meaningful activities. They possess human resources and have vast idea banks, which could be implemented. Often they represent

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youth when politicians want to consult with youth. Youth organizations often cooperate in international projects.

Military service / Youth guard – this organization can be attractive to youth not only as potential career option, but also a cooperation partner. Military services organizes educational activities such as military camps and these disciplinary camps are attractive to certain youth groups.

Representatives of military are eager to participate in activities where they can market their activities. Besides they have interesting infrastructure which your projects could utilize, for instance, ropes and tents.

Culture centers – these organizations possess not only infrastructure and space, but also have good human resources as numerous specialists tend to work in youth centers. Thus these specialists could conduct various dance, art or theatre workshops and contribute to project implementation. You could benefit from cooperation with culture center especially if you plan and want to implement large scale events for communities as these centers possess extensive knowledge about relevant needs of youth leisure activities such as dances, arts, theater and etc.

Art / music / sport school – these schools have the specific equipment, be it arts, music or sports, and also have the venues were they can conduct their activities. Thus specialist from these schools could contribute in teaching specific skills. These institutions could assist in reaching out famous sports stars, musicians or artists to attend your events.

Police – this institution is glad to cooperate with the youth and is often welcome to attend youth events, where police can deliver their presentations about road safety, drug use prevention and other social issues. They also tend to participate in youth sports events. Furthermore, you can invite police to your events where they can promote their occupation. Besides, police officers could also volunteer in children day center. Sometimes police can help to ensure security during your events.

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Student Agency – your organization can try to learn from these organizations how to build cooperation with businesses and business people in order to search for financial support.

Besides, student agencies are good information partners as they can facilitate your search of volunteers.

Education centers – they tend to have conference halls and possess numerous equipment and tools, organizes training courses. If they organize training course about youth policy or Cross-sectorial cooperation, they could issue training or qualification certificates, which usually boosts motivation of participants taking part in educational event.

Educational institutions (schools, including vocational schools) – possess special equipment.

Also schools have relevant infrastructure because numerous young people attend it. Besides, the schools have cattering service and you could contract them for your projects in order to seek cheaper meal deals for your participants.

Children day care centers – these institutions work with children from families at risk and provide leisure activities and social services, catering. These institutions have infrastructure, which could be utilized by institutions during the projects, for example, washing machine, and kitchen equipment to produce food. There are also children that you can involve into your projects or activities.

Businesses – these entities could be interested to take part in your events especially if they relate to their professional activities. These institutions constantly search for employees and could offer easy job to members of your organization or youth such as leaflet distribution or organizing corporate events. Besides, businesses can support your activities and projects. Yet more often business tends to support events by providing their memorabilia, their service or products rather than direct financial support.

Business incubators and Young enterprise programs – Business incubator is a company that helps new and startup companies to develop by providing services such as management training or office space. Young enterprise programs work with local businesses and organizations to deliver experiential programs on the topics of financial literacy, work readiness, and entrepreneurship to students in kindergarten through high school. Cooperation with these organizations can serve to strengthen the role of youth entrepreneurship and youth initiatives implementation tool and instrument for the realization of business ideas.

Public Health Agencies – organize numerous health related events, especially promoting healthy lifestyle, unites the community has the required infrastructure. You could actively cooperate with this institution especially on health related topics. Also you could consult with them about various health and safety issues (such as hygienic norms, permits and etc.) while organizing camps.

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mples of VI. Best Practice exa peration Cross-sectorial coo from Europe Cross-sectorial cooperation examples: Flanders, Belgium is a one of the older members of the EU and has well established youth policy. The country is a federal state, which has 3 administrative units, characterized by its ethnical culture. Each of the 3 administrative units has their own youth policies. Belgium has a common parliament, but the education, youth, social affairs and other ministries are governed separately by the 3 administrative. For this case we chose to analyze Flemish youth policy and Cross-sectorial cooperation methodology.

In order to make fit youth policy to Cross-sectorial framework Flemings have established the Ministry of Youth. The ministry is in charge of youth policy coordination which is based on youth strategy plan preparation and implementation. This plan is implemented by the Ministry of Youth in cooperation with the Flemish government. From 2011 the 3rd Youth plan came into power.

Another mean used by the Minister of Youth - an annual report to Parliament, which provides a report on youth plan implementation. This mean gives higher political weight to youth policy.

In 2012 a strategic youth policy document “Youth 2020� prepared and its implementation started. The document outlines all Belgian youth policy priorities and development directions for the next 8 years.

The Flemish public sector understands Cross-sectorial cooperation as interaction between different ministries dealing with youth issues according to the basis of the youth plan.

This cooperation is especially used in areas where ministry acting on its own is not able to solve a specific problem or issue. The legislation covers different Cross-sectorial cooperation means.

This guide provides several examples which could be applied in your country.

Since 1993 the Flanders state enacted legislations which established the principle that municipalities prepare local youth policy plan. According to this plan the state provides the budget for local youth policy implementation. Since the legislation was enacted it was reviewed and improved several times. Currently the legislations require that the youth plan would focus on two areas 1) how the Flemish state supports the organizations working with youth; 2) how the cross-sectoral work with organizations is conducted and compliance with other municipal, provincial and national priorities. Thus youth policy funding by the Flemish government depends on this plan.

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Besides attention to problems faced the young people are ensured by other means such as JOKER, a compulsory analysis of the impact of the legislation on children and young people. In order to enact a law related with children or youth a mandatory assessment of the impact to these target groups would be conducted. This mean has existed for a long time, however only in the last decade it has started addressing youth issues. Yet this mean gives a good insight into various aspects of public administration from the perspective of young people.

Public policy areas, which are governed by different administrative units of Belgium, are formulated and implemented by separate ministries. Each ministry has a designated youth policy representative or coordinator. The youth policy coordinator has to collect and share information about the work and actions of ministry related to youth. This person ensures information collection and it also makes it clear who organizations need to contact if they have a specific youth related questions. The coordinators from different ministry meet every few weeks and coordinate their actions. These coordinators are mid-level managers. The Ministry of Youth is responsible for the work coordination of these specialists as well as preparation of their meeting agenda.

In order to monitor youth policy Flemish use of Youth Policy progress report (JOP). There is a youth research platform, where monitoring is conducted on regular basis. The platform consists from 3 Belgian Universities and 3 research group which analyze the youth policy from three different perspectives, for example, sociological, criminological and social work. A regular assessment of the young people situation is conducted regularly. In 2011, a report on youth situation in Brussels was issued. The report claimed that youth situation in Brussels significantly differs from the rest of Belgium. There were 3 youth situation analysis conducted, these researches are conducted every 5 years. Research reports are publicly available. The periodic monitoring helps to reveal trends and developments and identify changes.

The Flemish youth plan implementation is based on cooperation between 2 or 3 ministries and their set objectives. By 2013 the Flemish prepared two plans- youth policy and work with youth.

Their means are efficient, yet the Minister of Youth has no influence on other ministries and cannot enforce them to fulfil the defined obligations.

When Flemish were preparing youth policy program they referred to European youth policy strategic documents and priorities, yet tailored it to the specificities of the local context. The main challenge for the Flemish is to balance the time cycles since the strategic documents at municipal level are prepared for 3 years, while youth document for 5 years. Yet the EU youth strategy is prepared for 9 years period.

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Cross-sectorial cooperation example: Numerous Cross-sectorial work groups are present in Norway and their work is closely monitored in order to ensure that different ministries would be on the same page and would have a good understanding of the actual youth policy strategy. Otherwise there is a risk that Cross-sectorial cooperation will only focus narrow issues rather than broad Cross-sectorial cooperation issues.

It is important to have a platform when youth policy is being formed, where government, youth specialists, youth researchers and youth workers could meet up. This platform is present in Norway. The youth researchers are willing to facilitate Cross-sectorial cooperation as their work specific is to delve into the issues and not to limit themselves to the public sector. They also have an alternative to the platform- annual Cross-sectorial conferences on youth policy and youth issues.

An effective example of Cross-sectorial cooperation in youth policy in Norway is the annual publication, which provides information on how much and in which way different ministries invest into youth. The publication also covers cooperation. This publication ensures that state funding is following the required procedures and priorities. Furthermore, the other benefit of this publication is that youth can obtain relevant information about different programs and financing possibilities that exist in Norway. This mean has been applied for the past 16 years and it serves well to keep the youth issues on the ministries agendas. The publication also reviews the relation between the national and local youth policies. Therefore, this mean can be called as one of the best means of Cross-sectorial co-operation across Europe.

In 2011 the Prime Minister of Norway proposed a new project. Now in the state budget, on a separate annex, government report data which indicates how much the state in different public management areas (social, youth, education, national defense and so on.) intends to allocate funds for youth and children.

The ministries can contribute to better understanding of youth policy situation, planning the means and actions, emphasize tendencies and increasing the political weight of the youth policy issues, by financing youth policy implementation, allocating resources and facilitating information sharing.

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Local crime prevention model: Norway (SLT – samordning av lokale kriminalitetforebyggende tiltak) SLT are preventive measures against drugs and crime at the local level. SLT ensure that municipal and police resources are well coordinated with each other. The SLT model is delivered by the crime prevention council in order to assist Norwegian municipalities with youth problems and effectively use its capabilities and resources. The SLT model was introduced in early 1990s by KRÅD (the Crime Prevention Council) it was based on the Danish SSP model. In 1995 SLT model was scientifically evaluated for the first time and also thoroughly tested across 200 Norwegian municipalities.

SLT model ensures cooperation between police and local government in an area of drug and crime prevention. SLT mainly focuses on children, youth and their parents or caregivers. The goal of the program is to provide the required help at required time to children and youth of the municipality. The STL is based on support system that works well between institutions. Numerous private and public institutions contribute to the program. The model allows the coordination of expertise and resources between the police and the relevant municipal institutions, private sector and NGOs. In order to effectively tackle the problem, one thing is crucial: each group of the influence must have a common understanding about the problems and potential solutions.

The institutions meet on regular basis and share their information, experiences, and best practices and learn about different methods and work cultures. It becomes easier to purposefully and effectively implement prevention. Cooperation helps to notice negative signals and take action at an early stage, thereby avoiding work duplication and overlap of risk.

One of the STL application examples is SAMBUS (Samarbeid om Barn og Unge i Skedesmo) project- cooperation for the benefit of children and youth in Lillestrom, Skedsmo Municipality. The objective of the project is to ensure that children and youth (up to 18 years old), which require help, would receive it through coordinated interdisciplinary cooperation. The project worked with crime prevention in the community in order to ensure constructive and effective cooperation between preventive services and municipal institutions.

The project covers these sectors:

Health and social services sector has granted the key role to the Department of Family and Children. Education sector: key role to 20 nurseries, 16 schools and the Department of Music and Culture. Culture sector: key role to Department of Youth and Leisure.

For more information, follow the links: www.krad.no/slt, www.skedsmo.kommune.no

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Cross-sectorial cooperation example: To ensure the coordination of national youth policy, from the 1th january of 2009, the Youth Policy Advisory council was established. Aim of the Youth Advisory council is to promote a coherent youth policy development and implementation, as well as to promote youth participation in decision-making and public life.

Objectives of Youth Policy Advisory council is to evaluate the situation of youth policy and to make recommendations to the Ministry of Education and Science on priorities of the youth policy. Make recommendations to public authorities in youth policy to ensure effective implementation, advising the need to implement actions, projects and programs in the field of youth and the need to make amendments to the legislation and policy documents. The Council may encourage the development of new regulations and policy planning documents related to the implementation of youth policy. To make recommendations to the local authorities for the implementation of youth policy at local level. Youth Advisory Council has the right to establish working groups to prepare the reccomendations, to request and recieve the information about he youth policy implementation from the youth policy stakeholders through the Ministry, as well as invite to the sessions experts and officials with an advisory rights.

The Council is consisting of representatives from national government, local government and youth organizations delegated of seven representatives, which make up half of the panel.

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Other national level cooperation tool was establised in 4th june of 2015, in order to facilitate the implementation of youth policy cooperation between stakeholders to ensure support for youth work in municipalities and encourage the common understanding of youth work, within the framework of Latvian Association of Local Governments is established Latvian municipalities youth affairs support network (hereafter Network), which covers all 119 Latvian municipalities.

For coordination of Network activities there is established “Latvian municipalities youth affairs network coordinating work group� which meets regularly. The working group consists of 26 municipality specialists involved in youth work, 5 representatives of planning regions, 1 representative of Ministry of Education and Science and 1 Latvian Association of local governments representative.

Objectives of the Coordinating work group is to organize a variety of video conferences on topics that are set as essential from the coordinating working group members, there are established youth work schemes from the represented municipalities. Network distribute information related to various training courses, seminars, conferences, as well as the coordinating work group provide their comments, views, if necessary on youth affairs for Latvian Association of Local Governments.

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One of the best examples from Latvia on cross-sectorial cooperation is Jelgava city. Jelgava is 4th biggest city in Latvia. Totally in Jelgava lives and studies 13 939 young people. Due to the fact that in Jelgava city is located Latvian University of Agriculturea and two professional schools, whose students are consisting 38% of the total number of young people, Jelgava is known as the city of students.

The youth work in Jelgava has existed since 2008. The cooperation between institutions of Jelgava existed before Youth affair specialist, Jelena Grisle was recruited, but it wasn’t coordinated.

Since Jelgava city Youth affair specialist was recruited there has been implemented successful youth coordination scheme:

Organizes and coordinates govrnmental processe on integraton of society, volunteering and youth policy, well as implements local government support for associations and foundations.

Does the youth work in cooperation with persons and institutions involved in youth policy field, implements and coordinates informal and educational activities, provides youth civic education, promotes volunteering and youth participation on decision-making procceses and social life, advises youth on youth policy field, manage events to involve youth associations and foundations in urban public life, cultivates cooperation of local, national and Jelgava city NGO’s ,organizes the local government cooperation with youth associations and foundations of the city, participate in meetings and work group meetings related to the direct performance of their duties, provide explanations about work tasks and activities, analyze the situation in the local field of youth policy.

Supports and provides meaningful leisure time activities opportinities for youth, offers one-stop information agencie, thematical events, participation in implementation of youth projects, premises for youth organization meetings, events, support for realization of youth initiatives. Facilitates the neccesary knowledge and skills for young people outside the formal and interest education, promotes the youh participation in youth organizations, initiative groups, volunteering, decision-makeing processes and social life.

(12 members)

Provides Jelgava city government institutios, departments an youth NGO’’s, Latvian Agricultural University student council, Jelgava city Student council and youth cooperation on issues relevant to young people, collects and analyzes information on youth issues, their needs and interests, develops proposals for youth work implementation on Jelgava city government and the national youth policy improvement, develops proposals for youth participation in social, political, economical and cultural life activities.

Manages events, implements projects

-education institutions, ZR KAC, national and municipal policy, LLU, NVA, Social affairs department, a.o.

organize municipal functions to the field of education

Working on Jelgava Students and city government interest coordination on issues, that are releated to students youth council actions, education and youth skills development.

Interest education activities

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Cross-sectorial cooperation example: Gorj Youth Forum

The rapid development of the Romanian national youth policy started after 2000, when country started negotiations on European Union membership. In 2001, Romania enacted the National Youth Action Plan, together with a measurement package, which consists of four core documents in the youth field: the National Youth Law, the Romanian National Youth Council Law, the Law on Volunteering and the Youth Information and Youth Consultation Centers Act. According to the structure provided National Youth Council Act provided structure and carefully integrated European youth policy and priorities, Gorj Youth Forum can be regarded as a good example of youth participation and promotion of organized structural dialogue.

After acknowledging that the interest of youth can be represented the best by the youth, in 2005 a new platform for cooperation was created by 12 NGOs. They named it Gorj Youth Forum. Legally, this structure is a federation of organizations and its main task is to represent the interests of young people at local, national and international levels. The main achievement of Gorj Youth Forum is creation of structured dialogue with local government. The forum also supports local youth initiatives and has entered into specific cooperation protocols with local schools and students from Constantin Brancusi University in Tirgu Ziu town.

Gorj Youth Forum started as a movement trying to increase youth participation and caught attention of the governmental institutions. Since the establishment of the forum the structure and its members are constantly involved in development of local youth policy. Youth forum is also represented in youth projects subsidizing methodology in the municipality of Targu Jiu town and closely cooperates with the National Department of Youth and Sports Affairs. The main achievement of the forum was that it was able to increase youth participation at the local level and managed to create a mechanism for dialogue between youth organizations in the region.

This example illustrates importance of representation of youth interest in the implementation of Cross-sectorial cooperation. Effective Cross-sectorial cooperation is possible only when young people are involved in discussion and process.

#youth

#Right #education

#POLICY #PROCESS #STRATEGIC #CROSS-SECTORIAL

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VII. Methods for crosssectorial cooperation HOW TO CHOOSE THE BEST METHOD? The first part of this chapter describes potential workshop programs, approaches and provides training examples on the topic of cross-ministry cooperation. In order to further enhance understanding of cross-ministry cooperation and youth policy, this section will review various methods, we hope that you will utilize it and will be able to implement it for the activities mentioned earlier on.

You can learn more about training methodology application from the Journal T-Kit.6. “Training Essentials” http://pjp-eu.coe.int/documents/1017981/1667921/tkit6.pdf/459e262b-11f9-4af8834f-c10c4cf4d30a The next image suggests what should one focus on when planning activities and choosing the methods.

Chart 5. “Method Application Fish”

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If you are planning to conduct long term training seminars and workshops, the methods introduce in this book will give you a hand specifically on youth policy and cross-ministry cooperation topics, however, the introduced methods will not be sufficient. You would require further material on group introduction and group building, evaluation and other tasks.

In order to facilitate your learning, the methods are split according to the topics: Situation survey/analysis methods, youth policy, opportunities for youth and youth participation, methods for cooperation skills enhancement and group interest representation skills development. This publication has tasks which are complex hence take time to read the instructions and prepare for the task, especially taking into account that you will need to adapt them to the needs of your workshop participants and their circumstances. It is essential to devote time for appraisal after the tasks, to discuss what happened during the task, reflect on what participants have learned and understood, and finally identify discoveries and how can they be applied on the day to day activities of participant’s agency or institution.

SITUATIONAL SURVEY / ANALYSIS METHODS 1. Youth photo report 2. Youth friendly municipality 3. Social Map

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Objectives This method is used to introduce young person’s opinion or to initiate a discussion on youth concerns, search for new youth project ideas, facilitate the young person in identifying community issues.

Group Size Unlimited Required Digital Camera, projector or any other picture presentation tool Equipment Duration Half day, several exercises Workshop Young people often find it difficult to speak out on issues of adult matter, for example, process issues concerning town development and tackling these issues.

This method can help young people to express their views and opinions in an appealing manner for the youth. For instance, initiate a debate about the problems of the town.

Then task the youth to capture the following: a) What I like in town (Positive) b) What I dislike/hate in town (Negative) After the task review the pictures together and select the ones which were identified as the most important.

Meet with the community representatives and present the pictures to them and discuss.

Hang the pictures on two separate section one representing “a) What I like in town” and “b) What I dislike/hate in town”

Comments This method was found when we visited Lanchuti town in Georgia, back in 2012, when

we consulted local municipalities on development of youth policies at the municipal level. This method can be applied even omitting the discussion part. Just present youth opinion through photography as it was done in Lanchuti town municaplity. Where pictures were displayed at the municipal lobby without prior notice. The towns “positive” aspects (a) What I like in town) were displayed on one wall, while the “negative” aspects were displayed on the opposite walls of the lobby. Results were fascinating: after one year the Youth Photo Report method was conducted again and certain pictures from the “negative” wall was moved to the “positive” wall, because the administration staff of municipal noticed these problems and solved it.

Evaluation What was easier to notice? Positive or negative aspect of town? questions Did I discover something new about my town or the topic of our analysis?

What has surprised me during the task?

What would I change?

What necessitates a change What is most important thing that requires changes / improves the community as a whole? Different community groups (senior citizens, young families, etc.).?

What’s Follow-up activities: next?

Discussion about the problems identified by young people; Planning of activities tackling these problems and offering solutions.

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YOUTH FRIENDLY MUNICIPALITY Objectives Encourage participants (young people together with youth workers and decision-

makers) to think what is the actual meaning of "youth friendly", also to understand the needs of youth and to offer different measures which could improve the situation in the municipality.

Group Size 7-30 people Required Desks (can use the floor or walls), large sheets of paper, markers (markers, to meet the Equipment number of participants), soft background music.

Duration Half an hour to 1 hour Workshop Firstly, participants are presented with the task objectives. This task utilized all the venueprocess desks, walls and floor, where the large paper sheets with listed different activities of

municipality are being placed. The objective is to make these municipal activities more “youth friendly”. Depending on the size of the group and the number of questions, participants are given 20-30 minutes to roam around the room and in the meanwhile they are asked to develop ideas record them on the sheets (or post-its and place them on the sheet with a question).

Possible municipal activities: • public spaces, their application • public transport • development of residential areas • leisure space and opportunities • activities of youth organizations and their place in town • cultural life • health and lifestyle • Business / Business Environment • “urban myths”: what would or could the residents be proud of (history? landscape?

Industry? snow arena?) etc.

Comments The groups are given time to get into the issue. There are few options: 1) ask participants whether their city / municipality is youth friendly? We propose to use the “mission statements” framework. Once you discuss the issue, you can propose a method; 2) give 5-7 minutes to individually dream, what should be our city / municipality after 3 years in order to be more youth friendly.

3) give the participants 5-7 minutes to think individually and imagine what their town/ municipality should be in the next 3 years in order to become more “youth friendly”

Evaluation Which ideas have surprised you? questions Which ideas could be easily realized?

Who should initiate the implementation of these ideas?

What’s If some of the developed ideas receive universal support, we would suggest organizing next? a planning group meeting. The meeting could significantly improve feasibility of those ideas and of the implementation plan.

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SOCIAL MAP Objectives Analyze activities of institutions and organizations in a given territory.

Identify potential cooperation partners.

Analyze existing problems.

Group Size 8–30 people.

Participants work in groups of 4-7 members

Required Conference leaves with writing and drawing tools.

Equipment In addition, the collage technique can be used. In this case you will also need magazines, scissors and glue.

Duration 30-40 minutes. Conduct analysis and prepare the posters.

30 min. presentations and discussions.

Workshop Participants are given a task to create a social map of a town or municipality. Groups process draw a map which displays:

a) infrastructure devoted for young people (schools, sports fields, parks and etc.); b) organizations and institutions, working with young people, people, who initiate gatherings of young people; c) gray areas-areas which are labeled negative or controversial by the community of the public (lakeside, back alleys and etc.).

Comments Often participants focus on infrastructure, because it is the easiest to identify in this

task. Participants may access the creation of a map and draw attention to two other aspects. Therefore, when participants are conducting the task, we suggest checking their progress, and hinting them to spend more time on the parts b) and c).

If all the participants are from same community, the task could be divided into aspects and questions.

Evaluation What has surprised you, when you analyzed your town/ district? questions What have you discovered?

What would you like to change in your community?

Have you identified cooperation opportunities? Who with?

With institutions and organizations you might have conflict of interest?

What’s Further analyses the issues, and plan how to solve it. next? Power map- analyze who holds the most power and has ability to influence the current situation in the municipality.

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YOUTH POLICY/YOUTH OPPORTUNITIES AND PARTICIPATION 1. Participation ladder 2. Youth Policy Implementation Principles 3. Municipality’s simulation 4. Disclosure of cross-ministry characteristics: Power-brainstorming

PARTICIPATION LADDER Objectives To introduce participants to the principles of active participation.

To give participants the opportunity to analyze everyday situations in which young people are often involved.

To introduce participants to different situations and levels of participation To let participants know where they can participate.

Group Size Unlimited group size, participants work in groups of 4-6 members Required Each group receives a situation print out and writing tools.

Equipment The host prepares to introduce the participation ladder.

The task sheets are attached. Participation process is described in this book

Duration 45 minutes Workshop Groups receive sheets with tasks (the sheets are in mixed order). Then participants have process to rank the sheets – from low participation by young people up to high intensity.

Once the groups complete the task, the sheets are placed side by side, in order to better compare the work of different groups and facilitate discussion on situation rankings.

Afterwards participants are presented with the model of participation ladder.

After the presentation, participants are asked to point out their level of involvement within their organization (school project).

Comments Participants find it difficult to rant their participation, their evaluation tends to be based

on the number of young participants or the benefit to the organisation. The host has to devote time for expalnataion what is particiaption.

Evaluation What did you understand about young people participation? questions On what level would you like to participate yourself?

What’s Once this task is completed, you can introduce more complicated theoretical frameworks next? of youth participation, plan or conduct other practical activities.

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- - - - - - WORKSHEETS FOR PARTICIPANTS - - - - - DICTATORSHIP Youth worker selects a group of young people to participate in the activity initiated by a cultural centre “Community of Arts” (Menų bendruomenė). Youth worker wants a successful performance of young participants, as good performance guarantees municipal support for the purchase of equipment and facilities. Afterwards the equipment could facilitate community’s artistic activities during summers. Thus young people receive clear instructions on where to meet, what and how to do, because youth workers are especially concerned about the quality of the results.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MANIPULATION Youth workers and young people participate in a meeting with the teachers, the meeting objective is to discuss about sex education in school and propose ideas how to deliver it. Young people came up with an idea to organize an international youth project on sex education. During the meeting the teachers divert the discussion and suggest organizing poster contest instead. Due to the sensitivity of the sex education topic teachers manipulate the young people’s ideas by giving clear and specific reference, which pursues young people to implement ideas proposed by teachers’ rather than their own.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - DECORATION A group of young people, who took part in international project, are invited to participate in the conference for young leaders organized by the municipality. During the conference young people receive recognition awards. The objective of the awards it to promote young people’s active participation. Conference organizers invited local journalists, lecturer from university and organized hip-hop gig as a part of evening program.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - SYMBOLIC PARTICIPATION Youth center invited youth representatives and officers from the municipality to discuss establishment of skateboard park in the city. The meeting organizers already decided the layout and location of the skate park. The purpose to invite young people is to consult on color design and park name.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - APPOINTED, BUT INFORMED A young basketball team is looking for a new gym for practice and new team members. Therefore, a youth worker and coach reserved a gym, organized a friendly game schedule and prepared an invitation for the students of the city to attend the games. Hereafter, they started to look for volunteer who could take over the planning activities and organize future events. Thus freed from the planning activities, during the matches the coach will be able to concentrate on monitoring and discovering talents and inviting new members, while the youth team will have an opportunity to raise awareness about the team and their need of new gym.

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- - - - - - WORKSHEETS FOR PARTICIPANTS - - - - - INITIATED BY ADULTS, YET DECISIONS ARE MADE TOGETHER WITH YOUTH Music School’s teachers initiated an annual festival “Urban Music Days”. Young people attending the music school right away supported the idea of the festival and got involved voluntary.

Unanimously it was decided that the music festival will promote music innovation and local talents.

Students started promotion of the event in their schools and within their circles of friends. Their responsibility was to invite young bands to the festival. While the music school teachers took responsibility of event promotion within the community and invite the adult bands to the festival. It is expected that music day festival will facilitate better understanding between young people and the community and also promote musical diversity.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - INITIATED AND LED BY THE YOUNG PEOPLE Youth group, interested in different kinds of extreme sports, successfully took the initiative to issue a newsletter promoting their ideas and activities. They already came up with the concept and design of the newsletter, yet are still looking for help and support in finding printing and funding opportunities. They connected with the youth worker employed by a business incubator who has agreed to assist them on their issues when required.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - INITIATED BY YOUTH AND DELIVERED WITHOUT THE SUPPORT OF THE ADULTS Young people who have just graduated, and have project implementation experience, have formed an organization which aims to spread the ideas and information about youth participation. Together they created a film which highlighted young people’s needs, concerns, rights and opportunities of active citizenship. They organized a film viewing sessions and interviews with youth and community representatives in order to motivate and inspire other young people to active participation in the community.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - INITIATED AND IMPLEMENTED BY YOUTH INVOLVING ADULTS Group of young people come together with a common objective to promote a variety of options for youth to travel. The group already has travel experience through participation in international youth exchanges, hitchhiking, travel with “InterRail” trains across Europe, and organize various hikes. Young people establish their organization and share their experience and information about travel options online. In the implementation stage the group of young people involves adults, who seek to familiarize with the travel culture of young people, shares with them information and propose options to travel together (if there is a mutual demand).

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YOUTH POLICY IMPLEMENTATION PRINCIPLES Objectives Encourage participants (young people, youth workers and decision-makers) to

remember the principles and contemplate how their activities are based on them principles, encourage cooperation among actors.

Group Size Unlimited Required On separate sheets of paper write or print youth policy implementation principles, you Equipment can use different colored paper sheets.

Duration 30–45 minutes Workshop Taking into account the size of the event and the participants the objects of the workshop process are presented. Several workflow options:

1) In a group discussion, present each principle and inquire how participants understand the meaning of the principle and how it can be applied and used. At the end of this task develop recommendations, which elements should be focused on or enhanced; 2) Divide participants into smaller groups, and give them several principals to analyze in greater detail (for example, three groups have to analyze three principles). Afterwards, the groups present their findings and all participants together discuss and propose recommendations.

3) In small groups arrange principles according to their importance from the least important to the most important. This ensures an effective debate as the opinion of young people, politicians, teachers and others will differ most certainly. However, it will help to understand, what is important for which group and lay down the foundation for cooperation.

Youth Policy Implementation Principles: 1) parity- state and municipal institutions and agencies and youth organizations are represented equally; 2) subsidiary- decisions related to youth, must be taken at the level where they are most effective; 3) cross-ministry coordination- when state and municipal institutions and agencies deal with youth issues, communicate and cooperate with each other; 4) participation- young people and representatives of youth organizations are involved in dealing with youth-related issues.

5) information- state and municipal institutions and agencies and youth organizations inform young people on youth related issues in effective manner; 6) independence- young people select the scope of activity and formulate objectives, also actively participate in it and take responsibility for achieving objectives; 7) voluntary- young people participate in youth activities of their interest, chosen by themselves with their own will and without compulsion; 8) self-management- young people in their activities determine means of implementation, format, responsibilities and evaluation.

9) communication and cooperation- youth organizations communicate and collaborate with foreign youth organizations, state and municipal institutions and agencies, and other individuals.

Comments Since this method helps to understand the youth policy foundations and encourages critical self-reflection, it can be used in different situations. For example, during the first meeting of the new term of the new youth council; youth organizations conducting selfanalysis of their activities; presenting results of the youth projects and etc.

Evaluation How much the principles of youth policy are applicable in reality? questions Which principle is the hardest to follow?

How can we help other youth policy actors?

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CROSS-DEPARTAMENTAL COOPERATION SIMULATION IN MUNICIPALITY Objectives To experience cross-departamental cooperation in practice.

To analyze youth policy actors cooperation opportunities and possible cooperation impediments.

To get acquainted with youth policy actors at municipal level.

Group Size 20–30 persons.

Participants work in groups of 4-7 members.

Required Printed task which are applied for this exercise.

Equipment 4-5 bard game units. Writing tools, printers, PCs with internet access.

Duration Half a day to one day, approximately 6 hours. We recommend to dedicate a day to this workshop.

Workshop Participants are split in groups ranging from 4-7 members. Each group receives a process paper sheet with the task. The task leader cross checks each group if they have clearly

understood the task. Participants have 90- 120 minutes to complete the task and reach the given objectives.

Comments Participants are split in groups in the manner where their role in simulation would be as far from the actual role of participants as possible.

Participants receive secret roles. Their roles can be given to them in pressence of others or in secret. Task leader is observing and notes down phrazes describing the process and pointing out certain aspects to participants.

Evaluation How do I feel after the task? / What is your mood after the task? Why? questions It is important that the participants would express their emotion / mood (depending on

group’s ability to reflect the task). Ask for the reasons (which group members made them feel this way).

Do not focus on the process and do not allow to blame others, because after the coffee break everything will be revealed.

During the coffee break allow participants to share their impressions and feelings.

However, ask the participants not to disclose their secret role and not to analyze the process.

Structural process discussion Participants return to the groups which they were allocated for the simulation game.

The groups are required to draw the task process curve from their groups perspective on the given sheet of paper. In their groups they have to conduct breaking point analyzis, afterwards depict the breaking points and afterwards present their experience to other groups: • What happened during the simulation game? (process from your group perspective) • Which activities, interventions, participants, actors had impacted the change in their groups process curve?

• Was your group scattered or split into several micro groups?

• How did the emotions of the group members change during the task?

The group members which had secret roles have to reveal them at the end of the presentation.

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40 minutes for group discussion and drowing the curve on the conference sheet.

4–5 presentations.

Duration up to 10 minutes for each presentation including question session and discussion.

Allow the auditorium to ask questions, comments and cross check certain aspects. It is especially important not to allow participants to attack each other, accuse or get involved into arguments.

Linking simulation with real life Where can you lead participants and what can you ask them: • Was the youth passive during the simulation task? (in its definition board games do not have passive members) • What is passive youth? (the kind of youth, which is not doing things that society wants them to do) • What as similar in the simulation game and real life? What has repeated?

• Certain roles have strong stereotypes, where do they come from? (Participants can empathize too much into the role and become categorical. Especially in musicality and working with youth) • Why all the groups were so desperate to reach their objectives?

• Did you seek for common objectives with other groups?

• What has impeded communication and cooperation?

• What did you learn/ understand?

What’s After this task, principles of cross-departamental cooperation can be presented. next? Introduce regional youth policy implementation model.

Discuss how different organizations and institutions can cooperate, discover common interests and identify what could facilitate their cooperation.

- - - - - - - - TASKS FOR PARTICIPANTS - - - - - - - Group 1. YOUNG PEOPLE A lovely group, This paper is very important for this task completion. You are one of five groups participating in this task.

The rest of this page describes how you must to behave during task. Read it carefully and try to put yourself into your role.

You are a group of young people living in ________________ (name of location), studying in a high school and living an ordinary life of a young person. You do not belong to any youth club, neither to youth organizations, because you are not aware about where and how you can participate in youth activities and neither whom to join. Perhaps you would be interested in participating in youth activities; however, because you are not aware about participating possibilities, you don’t even put an effort to search for it. Your main hobby and main spare time activity is board games. Recently you purchased new board games and you want to complete them before the coffee break starts.

You have to learn the rules of the board games and play each of the games at least 3 times.

You should try to support and motivate each other.

Your work space (where your group gathers) -________________. Do not get surprised if other groups visit you.

You have to finish the games before ________ At ________ group has to come back to the hall for task evaluation.

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- - - - - - - - TASKS FOR PARTICIPANTS - - - - - - - Group 2. YOUNG PEOPLE A lovely group, This paper is very important for this task completion. You are one of five groups participating in this task.

The rest of this page describes how you must to behave during task. Read it carefully and try to put yourself into your role.

The age range of your group is from 18-19. You have just graduate from your high school and in fall you will start university, however, a whole summer is ahead of you. You are conscious community member of ___________ (name of location). You care about the well-being of your town as well as existing social issues. After your last meeting you have decided to help your community to solve a prevalent issue. You have an idea to initiate and implement a local youth project.

YOUR TASK: to identify a prevalent issue in ______ (name of location) and initiated local youth project which aims to solve issue mentioned before. The youth project has to meet the following criterias: - Your proposed solution has to be original and innovative; - All of the group members must be active and get involved in project activities; - Your project should have a positive impact on the local community; - The awareness about your project should be high; - The final outcome will be presented to our community (participants of the training seminar).

Your working space is ____________________. Do not get surprised if other groups visit you.

You have to finish the games before ________ At ________ group has to come back to the hall for task evaluation.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Group 3. YOUTH CENTRE A lovely group, This paper is very important for this task completion. You are one of five groups participating in this task.

The rest of this page describes how you must to behave during task. Read it carefully and try to put yourself into your role.

Your group represents an institution which was reorganized one and a half year ago (it consist of employees on the payroll and volunteers).

Your competence allows your group to support young people in development and implementation of their ideas. Your weak spot – integration of young people with fewer opportunities into curricular activities.

Therefore for this year (today) you have introduced a new priority for this year- integration of at least one unmotivated youth group into open youth center curricular activities and help that group to understand their needs as well as assist them in developing an idea to a project level (perhaps even to assist them in project application) Your working space is ____________________.

You have to finish the task before ________ At ________ group has to come back to the hall for task evaluation.

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- - - - - - - - TASKS FOR PARTICIPANTS - - - - - - - Group 4. MUNICIPALITY A lovely group, This paper is very important for this task completion. You are one of five groups participating in this task.

The rest of this page describes how you must to behave during task. Read it carefully and try to put yourself into your role.

During elections which took place last week, the council of ___________ (name of the location) was elected. The council rapidly initiated creation of Youth Affairs Council (prior to this it did not exist). The municipality has Euros 20 000 budget allocated to youth affairs. It’s not a lot, yet better than nothing.

Besides that, the municipality has other resources which could be devoted to youth affairs (equipment, writing tools, transportation and publication facilities). You are willing and ought to help young people, however, the municipal resources can only be issued by the regulation of the country and have to comply with the country law. Every single Euro spent has to be backed up by an invoice.

Your task is to establish Youth Affair Council of Municipality and a system, which would be able to allocate Municipalities resources to youth affairs: a) When establishing Youth Affairs Council, you have to comply with the country’s official Youth Policy law (latest version) b) Municipality selects which youth activities to finance based on applications from organizationsyou might need to create them. Before the funds are transferred to organization accounts (the ones which you have selected to sponsor), you are required to sign a contract based on execution of activities.

Do not forget that youth organization have to provide invoices for the money they spend.

The opportunity that you create must be visible and utilized. At least one informal group / organization must apply for funding of their activities / idea realization. By the end of the year all the young people have to spend the budget heading for the money, otherwise the money will be allocated to other areas, and next year’s budget will be provided for young people in a smaller amount.

By the end of the year you are required to spend the entire budget allocated for youth, otherwise the remaining funds devoted to youth will be transferred to other departments of Municipality. As a consequence, next year’s youth budget will be decreased.

Your working space is ____________________. Do not get surprised if other groups visit you.

You have to finish the games before ________ At ________ group has to come back to the hall for task evaluation.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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- - - - - - - - TASKS FOR PARTICIPANTS - - - - - - - Group 5. NATIONAL YOUTH ORGANIZATION REGIONAL UNIT A lovely group, This paper is very important for this task completion. You are one of five groups participating in this task.

The rest of this page describes how you must to behave during task. Read it carefully and try to put yourself into your role.

Your group represents ACTIVE YOUTH, a National Youth Organization Regional Unit based in __________ (name of location). The local community is well aware about your organization due to civic and leisure events. Yet you still did not manage to build a connection with the Municipality.

The National Youth Organization ACTIVE YOUTH build a new strategy and have set an objective to contribute to the development of regional youth policy in your country. Your department has been delegated the function to contribute to regional youth policy development in the Municipality.

A week ago during the training provided by the National Youth Organization you have found out about the “round table” and decided that _______________ (name of location) needs it too.

During the task your group has to contribute to the development of _________’s (name of location) Municipality’s Youth Policy and you are required to initiate major changes.

Your working space is ____________________.

You have to finish the games before ________ At ________ group has to come back to the hall for task evaluation.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Secret Roles MUNICIPALITY GROUP Hi;) This post note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: You are one of the elected representatives of the Municipality. You’re a former teacher who after 27 years of service in a school is tired of young people and do not believe that youth can do anything meaningful. You are looking for areas where you could save some of the funds from the Youth Affairs budget allocated by the municipality. Afterwards the saved budget can be used for the renovation of schools.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hi;) This post note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: you are an employee of Municipality’s administration unit. Your work load is very heavy and you are constantly searching who could help you out to cope with the workload. A new employee recently joined the Municipality, however, neither his/hers schedule nor his responsibilities are cleared to you. The designation of this employee is Youth Affairs Coordinator, which leaves you wandering. Some of your workload your pass on to the Youth Affairs Coordinator because it seems to you that he is doing nothing at work.

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- - - - - - - - TASKS FOR PARTICIPANTS - - - - - - - Hi;) This post note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: you are a Council Member of Municipality, which has a strong believe that young people can initiate a positive change. You are interested in young people opinion and their affairs, you also listen to their issues and try to help them out.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hi;) This post note means that you have additional role. Everyone is aware about your role. Good luck!

Role: you are a Youth Affairs Coordinator. Your core objective – to ensure that Municipality’s Youth Affair budget would be spent in a proper way (i.e. youth educational activities) and that the Youth Affair Council would operate according to the implementation principles of youth policy.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hi;) This post note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: you are an employee of Municipality’s administration – a real bureaucrat. Every single Euro spent has to be backed up by an invoice and transaction receipts. The youth initiatives/ projects receive the funds from the Youth budget only if there is official project application, it meets all the required criteria’s and it approved and the activity execution contract is signed.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Secret Roles 1 YOUNG PEOPLE (BOARD GAMES) Hi;) This post note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: You are bored playing the boards games. You want to do something meaningful for yourself and others.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hi;) This post note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: You adore playing board games. You are completely satisfied with current situation and do not want any changes.

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- - - - - - - - TASKS FOR PARTICIPANTS - - - - - - - Secret Roles ORANIZATION WORKING WITH YOUTH Hi;) This post note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: You are sports coach and you focus on sports competitions and professional education. Young people have to get involved into serious activities, sports in particular, which would facilitate their spiritual and physical development.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hi;) This post note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: You are a folk dance teacher a patriot of your country. In your opinion folk dances and cherishing national traditions is the only way to preserve your country’s national identity.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Secret Roles ACTIVE YOUTH, A NATIONAL YOUTH ORGANIZATION REGIONAL UNIT Hi;) This post note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: You are party beast. Your social life and social life of young people is very important to you. It is always important to you to have fun and provide possibility for other young people to have fun too. From time to time you start singing famous POP songs or hum their melodies.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hi;) This post note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: You are seeking a career in your organization. Task completion is important for you as you believe that you collect credits for it (political capital), which you see as an advantage as in the future you can utilize while reaching your career goals.

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CROSS-SECTORIAL ASPECT DISCLOSURE: POWER-BRAINSTORMING Objectives Method aims to encourage creativity and to break the traditional cooperation boundaries of institutions. Also to find different ways to initiate cooperation and its improvement.

Group Size 14-28 people.

Required Desks, large paper sheets, markers (as many as participants), music.

Equipment Duration 90 minute Workshop Desks are aligned in a big que, lage paper sheets are placed on the desks. Participants process surround the desks and stand at opposite sides of the sheets. Each participants receives

a marker. They are given 90-120 seconds to think about the questions which is written in front of them on the big sheets of paper. Loud and intense music is played on the background, this ensures that the participants will not disturb each other. Afterwards the participants switch.The must be twice as many participants as there are questions.

Possible questions: 1. In which areas would you like to collaborate with other institutions?

2. Which youth related issue you/ your organization could not solve alone?

3. Elections are due next month, and you want to receive more support for youth project.

How do you put pressure on municipality?

4. You collect signatures for a petition on youth involvement in decision-making. Where would you go first?

5. You need to meet the City Mayor and discuss certain issues. Where would you search him/her?

6. What are the strengths of your institution? What insights could you share with others?

7. You want local media coverage on young people? What would you do?

8. You participate in an open Municipal Council meeting. How would you present youth opinion, interest, point of view and their suggestions without voicing your comments out loud during the meeting?

9. How can you find out young people’s views and opinions, needs and suggestions?

10. If you want to encourage Municipal Youth Council to be more active and transparent.

What will you do?

Comments The brainstorming session can take up to 30 minutes. Afterwards the group would require

some time to get to know the results better, walk around, relax and have a better read on results.

Depending on time there are two alternatives: a. Participants walk around and read the results. In each of the paper sheets they can mark up to two ideas which they find the most appealing. Afterwards they come back to the paper where they finished the brainstorming session. They review the results and identify which ideas were the most popular. They prepare to present 7 most popular ideas to their group. Afterwards presentation takes place and each listed question is shortly discussed, numerous alternatives are revealed. b. right away start work in pairs. The pairs without “voting” select the most appealing suggestions.

Evaluation Which ideas have surprised you the most? questions Which ideas can you realize in your workplace?

Who should take initiative in order to improve cooperation among institutions?

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METHODS OF COOPERATION FOR SKILLS DEVELOPMENT 1. Statement task: Agree/ disagree 2. Bridge 3. X and Y cooperation task

STATEMENT TASK: AGREE/DISAGREE Objectives Find out more about the participants’ viewpoints and confines while examining the issues

of cooperation.

Expanding the viewpoint of participants while solving the cooperation and youth participation issues.

Application and improvement of discussion skills.

Group Size 10 or more Required Screen projector or a board with large sheets of papers which can be torn off. On each Equipment of the large paper sheets write down a statement. Markers Duration 30-45 minutes Workshop 1. Start with a short introduction on youth participation, the importance of cooperation process between the different participants and with the difficulties associated with participation in everyday life.

2. Explain that now you will read out loud a sequence of statements, which participants encounter to a larger or lesser extend in their lifes.

3. Explain that they can take only extreme positions- Agree or Disagree. Ask the participants to stand on either side of the line. Indecisive participants remain standing in the center.

4. Read the statements one by one. After each statement give participants some time to decide their position.

5. Ask several participants to explain why have they chosen this position and what is their viewpoint on the statement. Explain them that during the discussion they can change their position. Keep an eye on the time in order to involve all the participants into the discussion.

6. After few minutes read the next statement.

7. Once all statements are read, conduct a discussion involving all participants.

Evaluation Ask the participants to answer the following questions: questions • How did you feel during this task?

• Was it difficult to choose your position? Why? • What were your arguments? Was it based on facts or emotions?

• Can you compare the way people behaved and what they said during this task, with some of their actual activities in real life?

• Do you think these statements are verified/ backed up by facts?

• Was this task helpful? Why?

Suggested • Cooperation with other institutions impedes your main activities; Statements • Lack of knowledge hampers cooperation;

• Local authorities support youth participation only when authorities can politically benefit from it;

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• All young people have the right to participate in decision-making processes; • Authorities should be responsible for the participation of youth, providing financial support to politicians who are fond of active youth.

The arguments can be chosen according to the objectives and the context.

BRIDGE

Objectives Focus on the important features of team work.

The task focuses on cooperation and partnership.

Creation of a common vision and mutual understanding among the partners.

Group Size 15–30 participants. Groups size 5-8 people Required From 2 to 3 different venues, depending on the number of groups (group size can vary Equipment from 5-8 people).

2 cardboard sheets, 6 sheets of A4, 1 sheet A3, 1 glue, 1 pair of scissors, 1 thread ball, 1 magazine, 2 markers, 1 pencil

Duration 60 minutes – action.

30 minutes – evaluation.

Workshop Group is divided into smaller groups. Each group receives a tool (groups receive different process tools) and instructions.

Instructions: Three teams are building a bridge. Each team must build one part of the bridge so that when three parts are combined, the bridge would be suitable for use, i.e. the thread ball must roll across the bridge. The teams can only use the given tools and materials for construction of the bridge.

Bridge parameters: • The length of the bridge must be 9 cm, height - not shorter than a bottle; • Bridge should be as creative as possible, a stable and aesthetic; The bridge can only be built in one of the three venues where groups work.

Teams can communicate: 1) Send a letters - each team is required to send at least 6 letters (workshop leader works as a postman, letters can only be posted through them); 2) During the meetings - one representative of each team will have the opportunity to meet in the preparatory meeting. The meeting has to take place in the venue where the bridge will be built. The meeting duration - 3 minutes, languages of conduct- English, German, Russian or French. The participants are not allowed to bring parts of the bridge or a model to the meetings.

There are 50 minutes given for planning and preparation (including preparatory meetings). Additional 5 minutes are given for connection of three parts of the bridge and finalizing the construction of the bridge.

Comments If the groups have participants, who already have conducted this task before, we

recommend asking them to take the role of observers, rather than participate in it. They could observe the task and once the task evaluation starts they will be asked what they have seen.

Evaluation How did you feel? questions How did the group work go?

How did the communication and cooperation with partners go?

The conclusions, recommendations for the future.

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- - - - - TASK SHEET FOR PARTICIPANTS - - - - Three teams are building a bridge. Each team must build one part of the bridge so that when three parts are combined, the bridge would be suitable for use, i.e. the thread ball must roll across the bridge.

The teams can only use the given tools and materials for construction of the bridge.

Bridge parameters: • The length of the bridge must be 9 cm, height - not shorter than a bottle; • Bridge should be as creative as possible, a stable and aesthetic; The bridge can only be built in one of the three venues where groups work.

Teams can communicate: 1) Send a letters - each team is required to send at least 6 letters (workshop leader works as a postman, letters can only be posted through them); 2) During the meetings - one representative of each team will have the opportunity to meet in the preparatory meeting. The meeting has to take place in the venue where the bridge will be built.

The meeting duration - 3 minutes, languages of conduct- English, German, Russian or French. The participants are not allowed to bring parts of the bridge or a model to the meetings.

There are 50 minutes given for planning and preparation (including preparatory meetings). Additional 5 minutes are given for connection of three parts of the bridge and finalizing the construction of the bridge.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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X AND Y COOPERATION TASK Objectives Introduce participants to cooperation topic Discuss the important of agreements.

Group Size 12–30 people Required Pens, paper, stickers printed and task sheet.

Equipment Duration 20–45 minutes Workshop 1) The participants are split into 4 groups, Each group has the same number of group process members;

2) The participants receive instruction sheets. Each group has to read the isnturciton carefully, presenter devotes time to thoroughly explain the task; 3) Each group has decide what to choose for each stage - X or Y. The score depends and the choice of each group; 4) Groups have to decide what to select X or Y. Complete 2 -3 rounds so that participants would have a better grasp on scoring system. Each group has to count their own points.

The workshop host counts scores of each group separatelly, however, does not reveal them till the end of the task; 5) Conduct a 2 minute meeting where one representative of each group shuld meet with other groups in order to decide cooperation strategy. Representatives returns to their groups and tell the decision that took place in the meetings; 6) Additional 2-3 rounds are played; 7) Then repeat point 5.

Task solution: If all groups write the Y, you can score the most, because only when all groups select Y the total score is greater than 0. The main idea of the task- the groups start to compete with each other in order to get a higher score. The overall benefit of cooperation is often ignored and agreements tend to be broken.

Comments In order to provoke the participants, the leader can increase the round number after the results of 3 round and making public that 4 round is special. The results of 4th round will be multiplied by 10. If there are participants who have experience in participating in this task before they are asked to become observers.

Evaluation How did you feel after the task? questions Was it easy to cooperate?

Was it easy to reach a common group decision? Reach agreements during meetings?

Was it easy to follow agreements?

Did you cheat?

What’s After this task you can introduce the participants to the theoretical aspects of crossnext? ministry cooperation, identify the main bottlenecks of cooperation.

Possibly, discuss the importance of agreements.

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- - - - - TASK SHEET FOR PARTICIPANTS - - - - Rules: 1. Objective: You have to earn as much as possible 2. We are working in 4 groups.

3. The game will last from 8 to 12 rounds.

4. Groups have to make decision for each round and write it down on a post it. Pass the post it to the trainers.

5. Your choice has to be either X or Y. 6. Each group can win or lose at the end of each round.

7. After each round the results are calculated. The results depend on choices of all 4 groups as presented in the table below.

Score table 4 groups decision, possible options

Score table X

Y

4X

-10

3X+1Y

+10

-30

2X+2Y

+20

-20

1X+3Y

+30

-10

4Y

+10

8. After some of the rounds you receive additional information. The additional information doesn’t have any impact for the structure of the game, but will have an impact on the score.

9. Each group has to make notes on their score balance after each round (how much you gained or lost). This will help to see the final result at the end of the game.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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REPRESENTATION OF INTERESTS SKILL DEVELOPMENT 1. Simulation of idea presentation 2. Power Map

SIMULATION OF IDEA PRESENTATION Objectives To identify the quality of preparation and representation plan.

To build confidence for presentation of ideas to representatives of the institution.

Learn public speaking and argumentation.

Group Size 6–10 people. Participants work in a group Required Paper sheets and pens.

Equipment Duration 120 minutes Workshop Participants are assigned roles – 1 presenter, 2 observers and 3 representatives of process institutions or partners. If there is excess number of participants, then the number of observers and representatives/partners can be increased.

Persons having a specific ideas about representation have to present them to the audience (representative and partners). If the group does not have a specific ideas about representation, trainers assigns the theme / idea, and give at least 30 minutes. for the presenters to learn about it greater detail, create a representation plan and deliver presentation.

After the roles are assigned begins preparation for presentation. According to the given task sheet presenter prepares his/her speech. Representatives of institutions or partners come up with questions they will be asking the presenter.

Simulation starts after preparation, which can last for 10-30 minutes. Presenter begins to deliver presentation, discussion about the idea takes place. Observers cannot take part in the discussion. Evaluation starts after discussion.

Comments Participants should be split in a manner that when the task is being repeated, each

person would have tried all the roles. If there is a time contraint, we would suggest to assign presenters role to someone who in real life conditions would present their own ideas to other persons or institutions.

Representatives of institutions or partners should not be aware about the presented idea, or at least be not well familair with it, however, they should be aware to some extend about the context of implementation (eg. If the purpose of the proposed idea is to increase funding from municipal budget for youth organizations, the representative of institutions should understand the principles of municipal activities and opportunities to some extend).

In order to maximize the benefits we would prefer to assing the role of potential partners or representative of institutions to people who do not work directly with your existing idea or alumni of organizations with experience in interest representation.

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Evaluation Questions for everyone: Questions • How do you feel after the task? / What is your mood after the task? Why? • Was the project presented well?

• Were you well prepared to answer the questions?

• What have you learned /understood?

• Was the problem similar to the real life problems? What was similar?

Questions for presenter: • How did you feel when you were speaking in front of other people? What needs to be changed/ improved?

• How do you feel after presenting the idea?

• How well do you think you presented the idea? Did you miss some key points?

• Were you well prepared to answer the questions?

Questions for representative of institutions and partner: • Was it easy to understand the idea?

• Was it easy to come up with questions?

• How did you feel criticizing the ideas which were presented to you?

• Were you well prepared to answer the questions?

Questions for observers: • You have observed the presentation. Can you reveal several positive aspect about the presenter that you have noticed? What did s/he do well? Was there a clear logic and structure in his presentation?

• From your point of view, did the presenter answer the questions? Or they could have been answered better?

What’s After this task you can continue to improve presentation of ideas, review the idea next? representation plan and adjust it according to the suggestions.

POWER MAP

Objectives Name the groups of interest, organizations and institutions which can support various interests or oppose them.

Enhance the analytical skills of the participants.

Group Size Several groups of 4–6 people Required Conference sheets, colored paper, scissors, magazines, glue, sticky tape and drawing Equipment tools Duration 45–60 minutes Workshop This method should be the second task analyzing a specific topic. process

Groups receive the required tools. Each group should have their own tools and separate venue for task competion, paper sheets and drawing tools are required too.

Participants in their groups have to create maps, which would portrait various actors, who would support their ideas and help to solve their issue. Also they have to picture who could oppose to their ideas. How these actors are linked together, which external people and actions do affect the people pictured in the power map.

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Discuss what you could offer to the actors supporting your ideas. Which people take neutral stance on you issue? What needs to be done in order to appeal them and to receive their support?

On the middle of the conference sheet (rather it could be a wall) a symbol is attached, which represents your topic, questions or issue. Around this symbol place all the mentioned actors, their arguments and motives.

The method is completed by highlighting the steps you need to do in order to incorporate people with power, appeal to the neutral audience and avoid the opposition.

Evaluation Was it easy to analyze power relations? questions Why did you choose these persons or organizations that will support your objective or help solving the issue?

Who are your potential opponents?

Comments We recommend using this method after situation and problem analysis. This method is

suitable as an intermediate task after the situation analysis, when you need to devote additional time to investigate a topic and gather information which can be utilized while preparing the action plan or solution plan.

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VIII. Conclusions and recommendations Youth policy which by its definition is cross-sectorial (horizontal and integrated) public policy is a good systematic example on how the cross-sectorial policy should be conducted. Crosssectorial cooperation, structures of cooperation and youth policy principles are empowered by law, however, it is not sufficient. Many challenges and issue for effective cooperation emerge.

Cross-sectorialcooperation on youth policy and public policy integration is effective only when different agencies, their experts and young people and their representatives work together.

Agencies often do not realize that cooperation is an effective way in achieving their objective.

Awareness of broader context is the core expertise of the specialist of the agency, which helps to create an added value and assist to clearly understand their field of activity and aspects. Features of other parties participating in cross-sectorialcooperation are motivation and expertise in representation of interest and position of their agency or institution.

A common feature of public sector is rigid subordination, which originates from the hierarchical structure and strictly regulated operation procedures and requirements in the legislation.

Meanwhile, the NGO has a flexible structure and work methods. Hence these different organizational cultures find it difficult to cooperate. Therefore, the human factor - the willingness to cooperate is especially important to ensure effective cooperation. Other essential requirements for the development of effective cross-sectorial cooperation are competency development of individuals, involved in cooperation processes, and understanding of the added value and the broader context that cooperation has to offer.

Cross-sectorial cooperation on youth policy without the participation of youth NGOs (intersectoral cooperation) is legally impossible. Efficient public administration is possible only when it brings together the representatives of public and other sectors - it is a cornerstone of civil society and democracy. Therefore, the participation of representatives of different agencies, youth workers and young people is important in cross-sectorial cooperation. National authorities must ensure that the voice of organized young people and opinion, has to be heard, and in the case of municipalities this is the responsibility of the youth affairs specialists and youth workers.

Effective cooperation and policy foundation is the assessment of the impact of implementation measurement. In order to assess the measures, it is important to collect information on how successful were the agencies in implementation of the projects/ideas devoted to youth.

This would allow not only to assess what has been done, but it will be a great tool to share experiences and learn about each other. There are effective measurements - for example all of

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the Norwegian Ministries prepare an annual investment and youth effort report, moreover, the Norwegians have annual youth announcement in their Parliament or in the youth conference in the municipality.

In order to make this tools work it is necessary to constantly work with the main challenge faced by cross-sectorial cooperation - high turnover rate of both young people and representative of institutions. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that the accumulated experience in areas such as organization of youth policy workshops, representation interest and cross-sectorial cooperation would be smoothly transferred.

IN CONCLUSION, WE WANT TO ASK THE QUESTION: HAVE YOU TRIED USING THESE TOOLS? • Have you tried to develop common visions and plans with other organizations and agencies? Did you organize networking events?

• Do you have a publication which contains all the information about the opportunities offered to young people in your municipality or city?

• Did you share best practices with other organizations and agencies?

• Have you participated in events organized by other organizations or agencies?

• Have you signed a co-operation or a joint venture agreement with other organizations or agencies?

• Do you have information-sharing channels which enable you to share and receive important information related to youth, youth organizations and institutions?

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• Do you organize events on regular basis where the actors involved in the youth work can share information, experiences and challenges?

• Do you organize and participate in joint educational events on topics such as youth policies and cross-depataental cooperation together with representatives of organizations or institutions and young people?

• Do you know where is the nearest youth information center, job shop, open youth center and other youth spaces to your location?

• Have you ever engaged with Youth Affair Coordinator from your Municipality, Municipality’s Student Self- governance Coordinator, Youth Workers, Child Rights Specialist, Youth Affair Inspector and etc.?

• Can you name at least 6 youth organization in your Municipality? What is their field of work?

• Do you know who are delegated in Municipality’s Youth Affair Council, Child Welfare Commission?

• Have you organized a meeting with Youth Affair Coordinator in unofficial environment? Did you have a lunch with a politician?

• Does the municipality organize municipal day when one day in a year young people work together with municipal specialists, get to know better the municipal activities and the work of a youth expert?

• Do you participate in your town or district community meetings?

• Have you ever volunteer in a festival, social project or in a public event?

• Does your municipality organize annual youth policy implementation announcement/ presentations?

• Have you ever organized/ participate in Youth Affair Council meeting?

• Did you organize youth project movie clip presentation or a review session at the beginning of the Municipality’s Council meeting?

You can continue the list yourself…

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REFERENCES

1. Boukobza, E., Keys to participation. A practitioners’ guide. Strasbūras: Europos Tarybos leidykla, 1998.

2. Buldioski, G., Grimaldi, C., Mitter, S., Titley, G., Wagner, G., T-kit Nr. 6. Mokymo pagrindai.

Strasbūras: Europos Tarybos leidykla, 2003.

3. Coussée, F., Williamson, H., The history of youth work in Europe – Relevance for today’s youth work policy. Strasbūras: Europos Tarybos leidykla, 2009.

4. Denstad, F. Y. Youth Policy Manual, How to develop a national youth strategy. Strasbūras: Europos Tarybos leidykla,2009.

5. Gailius, Ž., Malinauskas, A., Petkauskas, D., Ragauskas, L., Darbo su jaunimo grupėmis vadovas: neformaliojo ugdymo praktika Lietuvoje. Vilnius, 2013.

6. Gozdzik-Ormel, Z., Tark savo žodį! Strasbūras: Europos Tarybos leidykla, 2008.

7. Hart, R., Children’s Participation from Tokenism to Citizenship. Florencija: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 1992.

8. Howard, J., Berzin, S., Never too old: Achieving permanency and sustaining connections for older youth in fostercare. Policy and practice perspective. New York: Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, 2011.

9. Lauritzen, P., 11 Indicators of a National Youth Policy. Strasbūras: Europos Tarybos leidykla, 2001.

10. Lindblom, Ch. E., Woodhouse, E. J., Politikos formavimo procesas. Vilnius: Algarvė, 1999.

11. Parsons, W., Viešoji politika. Politikos analizės teorijos ir praktikos įvadas. Vilnius: Eugrimas, 2001.

12. Rhodes, R., „The new governance: governing without government“. Political Studies, (XLIV), 1996, 652-667.

13. Robbins, S., Organizacinės elgsenos pagrindai. Kaunas: Poligrafija ir informatika, 2003.

14. Training material Advocacy: Building Skills for NGO Leaders, Vašingtonas: CEDPA, 1999.

15. Ulozas, M., Miginis, N., Tarpžinybinio bendradarbiavimo jaunimo politikos srityje nacionaliniu lygmeniu analizė. Vilnius, 2011.

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