YSPDB
“Youth worker training: Nordic approach” analysis of participant’s experience
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3 // disclaimer 4 // Learning during the youth worker training 5 // Understanding youth work 6 // My role as a youth worker 7 // Improving working practices 8 // Recommendations for professional Youth Workers trainings 9 // literature
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Disclaimer.
The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. The publication was produced in the frames of KA2 project “Youth worker training: Nordic approach” Project no. 2018-1-NO02-KA205-001233.
This is a short research report that was developed on the basis of focus groups conducted with participants of Erasmus+ KA2 Strategic partnership project “Youth worker training: Nordic approach” implemented by “Medvirkningsagentene” (Norway) in cooperation with international partners: “Politikos tyrimu ir analizes institutas” (Lithuania), “Youth Society for Peace and Development of the Balkans” (Bulgaria), “Creative minds for Culture” (Latvia). The 4 focus groups were conducted with participants of a training course under the Erasmus+ (KA2) project in January 2019. 24 people participated in the study. Focus groups involved some narratives of participants on their lived experiences as well as discussions between the participants who have undergone 7 days of living and learning together. Youth work is an educational activity with young people and youth groups in their leisure time, based on their needs and interests, aiming to create conditions for young people to integrate in to the society and empower them to responsible create their personal life, consciously and actively participate in the life of the society. Youth work supplements education and family institutions. (Lithuanian Youth worker activity description, 2013 Doc. No. A1-208). Youth work and non-formal education is an educational phenomenon that is becoming more and more important and broadly used all over the world, but especially in Europe. Youth work, non-formal education and youth policy are the prerogative of EU member states. The European commission does not direct these policies; the countries do it by themselves. Moreover, the member states get recommendation on these policies and also the method of open coordination creates unique peer learning opportunities. The KA2 project “Youth worker training: Nordic approach” also is an example of a peer learning project, were 4 countries were learning from each other in the field of youth worker training. Also, the European motto: “united in diversity” is strongly represented in the youth work practices and field as it takes many shapes and can be met in the contexts of popular education, extra-curricular education, social education, social work, sports, etc. In Europe a strong boost to youth work and the development of principles and educational attitudes of non-formal education lies in the Learning Mobility projects that are supported by the Erasmus+ program. Hard evidence is still lacking, but based on the hear-say, in the newer members of European Union, the programme was one of the main motivation to development of the “new” approach to learning and supplementing the programmes aiming for perfection or professionalism with the ones that are focused on holistic development of a person.
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Learning during the youth worker training The Erasmus + program seeks that the project funded by the program would have an impact on local level youth work activities and that the partner organizations implementing the projects would be active in daily youth work field. Moreover, the program provides its definition of core principles of non-formal education: “non-formal learning is learning which takes place through planned activities (in terms of learning objectives and learning time) where some form of learning support is present, but which is not part of the formal education and training system” (Erasmus+ programme guide). The participants of the training course explored a unique learning opportunity which had an impact personally and professionally: “I learned about principles of youth work, very good practices, how is youth work done in other countries. I got a lot of ideas for our youth centre thanks to the good information we had here. This TC tackled my brain to think more deeply about the bigger picture so I would see the whole situation in different situations” (F2). “I learned the same thing about myself. I learn a lot more when I am active, rather than when I am passive and just listen” (F4). “I learned to listen actively, to see the world form other perspectives, to be more open-minded” (F4). The participants of the study propose several other aspects to focus on mainly through stressing out the importance of different learning styles: “I confirmed for myself, that for me is very important to have the theories and classifications among the experiences and learning by doing activities” (F3). “I again confirmed, that I’m a visual learner. I need graphics, not only talking… Also I really liked the examples, the abstracts are difficult to process. Having some examples helps me to understand better” (F3). Another part of reflection from participants also speaks about holistic approach: “I’m like a child, I need to move and I learn better like this, and the active learning through NFL methods is better for getting and holding my attention” (F3). Finally, in all 4 focus groups participants were stressing the importance of using English language to participates in a quality way in international events and also highlighted the importance of continuation of the learning: reading additional materials provided by the trainers, also, knowing more about local youth work context.
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Understanding youth work From the focus groups, we see that although the participants had previous direct youth work experience and strong personal opinions on youth work structure, understanding of the system and seeing a bigger picture was a result of the training course: “It was very interesting to see those classifications and that they’re a product of European Union and Council of Europe. I had a solid base about youth work, but it wasn’t structured at all. Now I see the picture clear” (F3). I really understood how complex is youth work and if you want to get senior how deeper you have to go even in psychology, principles, etc (F2). The participants with less experience stressed the importance of understanding the complex role and tasks which the youth worker has to perform: «This is completely new for me. The most important however is the role of youth worker – principles, role, how he should work, act, etc. The main idea that his work is to support the young people and to use everything to do it (F1). “Super new information for me. I understood how very complex is youth work, youth centers, the different forms and the role of the youth worker. You need to be super supportive and really passionate like teachers – they’re very passionate. Youth work is asking for a little sacrifice to do it and it’s very connected to psychology as well” (F4). Finally, the participants were stressing on the importance of continues learning for quality of youth work: “I’ve been through a lot as well, but again I still see something new, and you analyse yourself a lot through this process. Mobile youth work it was new for me even it’ looked similar on the surface. It has so many layers. Also I had a new improvement point – I need to go back and study law a bit, because I spotted missing points. I need to get home and take some time to reflect properly, because here Is very intense and the majority of what I learnt will hit when I’m back home” (F4). Participants also understand that there it is not possible to be prepared for all possible cases and that you cannot prepare for all possible situation you might face in daily practices: “It’s a complex job because we work with individuals that all are different. That’s why when we learn what we learn on this course – there are new answers and not always one “right” answer” (F2).
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My role as a youth worker The roles and functions of the youth workers that are acknowledged by participants are the following: “You have to show example - walk your talk.” (F2), “…legal obligation to the youngsters” (F3), “…collaboration between different institutions” (F1), “Advocate youngsters” (F1). Even though after a discussion with experts of youth work, we are comfortable saying that creating a setting and an environment where the individual and group become independent learners, is the greatest achievement of youth worker. There is a big inner struggle between the functions of organizing activities and events and being open for the needs of the young people: “It`s very important that you lose some control and give some freedom to young people to make their own decisions. You can guide them but you have to make them their own decisions (F3). “For us in Norway it is not common to have activities. Isn’t youth work just being around?” (F4). The choices that are made by the youth workers (not) getting involved and allowing the group to make decisions and solve any issues that arise, giving up the power etc. is an art no less. Youth worker is often accompanied with the feeling of powerlessness: “each time you will meet with new challenges and it’s the most scary not to know what to do in this situations” (F2). Dealing with ambiguity is an exhausting process, therefore based on the focus group discussions we have drawn some recommendations for the youth workers: • Ambiguous learning environment to support personal development of young people. As we found in the focus group discussions, it was important for the participants to learn from each other, to experience the stepping back of the youth worker. • Giving time and space for the young people to allow more personal development and not to push. It might be difficult to grasp the result. • Diversity of methods – use methods and approaches interesting for youth and remind ourselves to not overuse the methods that we like or the ones that proved to be successful with other groups. • Raising awareness of one’s own learning is important, as the young people tend to take more and more responsibility of ones learning: “My role is to be a “cheerleader”, to encourage young people to be themselves, to allow them to be themselves in a way they understand it, which I am good at. I didn’t expect to learn here that I am actually allowed to do that. I thought that I have to lead activities. But as it turns out, all I need to do is cheer them up.” (F2) • Ease into reflection. Reflecting is not something that people take for granted and especially in daily youth work activities. Participants are acknowledging that keeping a learning diary helps them track their learning and the differences in how explicit their reflection is at the beginning and the end of the project.
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Improving working practices The knowledge gained in the youth worker trainings has to be practically applicable. In the focus groups we asked the participants what they plan to improve in their daily working practices: “I will improve the way of reflections, I love that they do the reflections in many levels - personal, small groups, the big groups - very deep reflections” (F1). “I will put even more emphasis on finding out what youth needs, what are their interests, what kind of support they need, help them generate ideas instead of offering activities, avoid giving advice. Try to create a little bit more distance between my personal and professional life as well educate myself about coaching and counselling methods more” (F3). The professional distance is a big challenge which the young youth workers are facing in the beginning of their carrier. Mentoring by an older colleague or professional supervision can help to deal with this challenge. Applying methods learned in the training course was one of the most often answers, we can sum up that methods are easy to apply in youth work activities: “I will try all the methods, I will honestly try. I wrote down even some ideas what to do with my audience because we will have some projects in the future so it is a good experience and I will definitely try everything I heard. Also I will share my experience and methods with my colleagues” (F4). The participants also understood more about the context of youth workers work, that youth work does not happen in vacuum and other players at local level are dealing with youth issues. The youth worker has to help young people to find communication channels with institutions: “…you’re the person between youngsters and institutions” (F2).
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Recommendations for professional Youth Workers trainings The participants of the KA2 project experienced a unique learning experience. They went through a training program based on different practices from the 4 countries involved in the projects and using European youth worker training frameworks. During the focus groups participants highlighted what in their opinion is essential for youth worker training. These was a big stress on practical aspect and learning from experience: “I also think it should be a dual approach – theory and real practice at the same time. In kind of formal or official institution in order to have that public recognition” (F3). “Not only training but beside that work in youth center, direct work like inter ship, and after this advocacy and municipality connections. This course is good picture for a wider one” (F2). Participants were stressing that you can be trained as a youth worker in international training courses, but more recognition would be reached if it would be an academic subject. It is essential, that youth worker training would help to know more about the target group (the young people): “My masters was to be teacher and now I’m doing youth work in order to understand better my students and now I like this field even more. It is very important (F3). The experience of the youth work trainer is highlighted as most important factor: “I think youth workers benefits of being trained by other youth workers who have more experience and professional method trainers” (F4).”…give more examples how to deal with situations, even maybe also extreme ones” (F2). The important content or the topics which should be included in the youth training based on the focus groups discussions are: “I think on the principles of Youth work, ethics, the models and improving the communication skills, especially good listening and handling conflicts, learning more group exercises and how to take the reflection from such exercises” (F4). “I agree with good listening and how to give feedback, also for me is important emotional support, because we talk about the future to don’t stop to keep up to date. Self development first” (F2). Finally, the participants highlighted the importance of international dimension. The international context can help to understand your own working practices, the way how you use resources and event propose ideas and solutions for future activities:”I believe that intercultural, practical way – getting into the deep water – that works” (F1). “This is how I would like to be, and especially the international because you go out of your comfort zone and see different approaches, and it opens you view, your way of thinking and you make new connections” (F3).
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Literature Erasmus+ Programme Guide (2019). European Commission. Available online at https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/resources/documents/erasmus-programme-guide-2019_en KA2 project “Youth worker training: Nordic approach�, Project no. 2018-1-NO02KA205-001233 training materials and publications (2019).
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