Digital Youth Work, means proactively using or addressing digital media and technology in youth work. Digital Youth work is not a youth work method but instead it can be included in any youth work setting (open youth work, youth information and counselling,youth clubs, detached youth work, ect.) and they both share the same goals.This definition is given by the EC Publication: “Developing Digital Youth Work - Expert Group Set Up under the European Union Work Plan for Youth 2016-2018” that also highlights the importance in this new digital era, to upskill youth workers’ digital competences, in particular in these specific fields (to be added/combined to the most traditional key competences already set for youth work,such as non-formal learning, management of mobility and volunteering projects, facilitation skills, etc): •Using Social Media in Sharing Information•Online Youth Counselling•Support Digital Literacy•Enabling Participation with Digital Tools•Supporting Cultural Youth Work online•Supporting the development of technological skills•Using Digital Games in Youth WorkThe project DIGITAL YOUTH WORKER: “Open education and innovative practices for the capacity building of Youth Workers in the digital era” is intend to be the follow-up (phase 2) of the previously implemented Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership project: EU-NET:“Enhancing a Universal Guide and Network for the Youth Workers of the Future” that was coordinated by GoEurope and had the main objective of sharing good practices and helping define the state of the art of Youth Work in Europe, including the development of different useful digital tools for youth workers and the creation of a solid network, still active to date (www.eu-network.net and its social media).Thus, building on the foundations of the previous EU-NET project, DIGITAL YOUTH WORKER aims to:c)Map and develop a dedicated Competency Framework for Digital Youth Workers d)Develop a dedicated e-learning platform for Digital Youth Workers and its Testing (e-Training and Modules, based on the previously developed Competency Framework).DIGITAL YOUTH WORKER also addresses the recommendation of “developing tools and methods that allow a better match to the needs of the local community[ies]” (EC, 2017), besides supporting the following Erasmus+ KA2 objectives:•Building capacity and modernising youth work;•New methods and training opportunities to build young people’s key competences;•More strategic and integrated use of ICTs and open educational resources (OER) in education, training and youth systems; •Sharing best practices, promoting high quality youth work and build on the competencies of youth workers; •Increasing the opportunities for youth workers’ professional development by building on the staff competencies, validating learning, encouraging active citizenship of young people•Better understanding and recognition of skills and qualifications about youth work in Europe•Increased quality of education and training and youth work in Europe and beyond: combining higher levels of excellence and attractiveness with increased opportunities for all.The partnership is composed by 3 organizations active in the field of youth work, mobility, volunteering and non-formal learning, representing 3 different Programme Countries: Spain,Bulgaria and Italy, that share different practices and understandings about youth work, so this will add an international dimension to the project and will help create a better understanding about the diversities and similarities of youth workers and the use of digital skills.Each partner will be involved in a different set of tasks according to their specific expertise (i.e. they will be responsible for the mapping and development of a valid competency framework for Digital Youth Workers, applicable in each European Country;developing the e-learning platform with online training modules specific for digital youth work,to be pilot tested on min. 60 people). Main Target groups of the project are:• Youth workers/facilitators/trainers and young leaders who are in general working in the youth and digital fields,organizing seminars,training courses,youth exchanges,workshops as well as managing the EVS (now European Solidarity Corps) programme. •NGOs,Associations,Foundations,Informal Groups of Youth,Municipalities,Development agencies and Universities working in the aforementioned sectors. •Old and future volunteers and “wannabe” youth workers among other interested parties; •Policy Makers, Public & Private Stakeholders. Furthermore,the indirect beneficiaries of this project will be the participants of future mobility/training and volunteering projects, as they will benefit of a higher quality standard experience and they will receive a better first-hand mentoring as well as an improved follow-up from remote by using upgraded digital skills.Additional beneficiaries will be identified by each partner at local,regional,national and European level.

"Digital Social Innovation (DSI) is an emerging field, and little is known about innovators, organisations, and activities that support them and the use of digital tools for social change. There has been a recent big effort by the European Commission to sustain platforms and initiatives related to social innovation through the usage of open data, open-source programmes, hackathon initiatives, and more in general education programmes because it is critical to developing a culture of innovation, not only inside schools, colleges or universities but also within communities and educators, as local realities are drivers of change for real needs. One of the growing sectors for DSI is referred to as open data. Despite the fact that data-driven business intelligence has been implemented with success to address business innovation, open data have not revealed yet their full potential in solving social problems, even though there are numerous initiatives brought up at the local level. In particular, the E-learning youth platform for civic monitoring and open data learning and making [Public Makers] tackle a number of elements to build up the basis of DS: -Ways of thinking: Creativity and innovation/Critical thinking/problem solving/decision making/Learning to learn -Ways of working: Communication/Collaboration -Tools for working: Open data Information literacy/ ICT literacy -Living in the world: Citizenship—local and global/Life and career/Personal & social responsibilityPublic Makers aims at empowering young people in open data learning with a focus on DSI, supporting them in being more active at the social level, enabling them to be social changes through the usage of digital tools and open data, promoting open data hackathon as a tool for networking, knowledge sharing, and inspiring moments, as well as to develop investigations at the local level and make data as a service. Overall, the project wants to raise awareness on open data tools/possibilities and create resources for youth to access the opportunities created by open data policies (especially for active citizenship and youth). The project offers the possibilities to: - Promote open data with concrete tools to address open data work for youth workers and learn concrete techniques (QGIS) through an EDUCATIONAL OPEN DATA CAPACITY-BUILDING HANDBOOK FOR NGOs that contain the Public Makers framework and the proposed methodology to be reused by different organisations, even schools or institutions. - Incubate/support local projects in open-data investigation and aggregation through blended educational training, concretely supporting youth in building transversal digital competencies, encouraging them to understand how democracies work, how public money is invested, or how to get deeper into local issues (environment, immigration, cultural investments etc.) and how citizens can influence decision-making which leads to a COMPLETE E-TRAINING PROGRAMME FOR YOUNG PEOPLE IN OPEN-DATA (activities and scenario) - access an E-LEARNING PLATFORM with interactive online tools to guide in a simplified way youth in learning all the basics regarding open data and how to use it.The core of the project is the e-learning platform which contains learning materials, webinars, existing resources and toolkits freely accessible. On this platform can be found a self-assessment questionnaire to self-assess the user's knowledge about open data. The ""Courses"" section is also gathering the training materials developed for trainers/youth organisations, educational materials targeting young people, guidelines and instructions as well as additional toolkits regarding democratic participation and the organisation of a hackathon with open data thematic. Following the 4 areas of our framework (Ways of thinking; Ways of working; Tools for work; Living in your community), we developed materials for young people that are in form of lessons, videos, articles, webinars, graphical content and contain a final quiz to get Open Badges after completion. The platform also offers to join a Public Makers Telegram group running as a Public Makers Community for users to ask questions and exchange around the thematic of open data. We are also providing videos/teasers for each unit to engage with youth and to enhance the learning/communication purposes of Public Makers.Public Makers aims to broaden target group ICT competencies creating sustainable and needs-focused learning patterns, enabling youth NGOs/informal youth/young citizens to act at the local level through open data interpretation and management. The project partners, combining their different expertise, want to ultimately empower different strata of society in becoming their own watchdogs of democracy."

"In the current years, the labor market as well as the nature of work are radically changing. Due to this aspect, future jobs will require a wide and cross-sector set of soft and collateral skills that current VET education systems are not providing today. Future VET workers must be prepared in facing emerging needs coming from competitiveness. Several reports and studies highlighted that there are many gaps in levels of competences and certification of workers. In VET sectors the critical point lies in the fact that it is not clear which will be competences required in the next years or even which will be the job profiles needed by companies. While general studies and HR reports state that there is a need of VET employees with abilities surpassing the level provided by the schooling system, the information provided are still at a general and undefined level that doesn’t allow to specifically identify the soft skills needed and by consequence, the training contents. As a result, the Rural+ project aim to satisfy two simultaneous needs:- To know in details key-soft skills needed from companies in order to create awareness on those skills;- To deliver a set of skills directly to a target group of VET learners and also, in order to amplify and perpetuate the ripple effect of those courses, to deliver them to a target group of VET educators. In order to do that, the project has devised the following outcomes: - One Needs Mapping of the VET study - developed and translated in all partnership languages;. - Three courses, one of Business Etiquette, one of Learning How to Learn and one in Professional Digital Literacy, together with their Trainer's Kits, developed and translated in all partnership languages;- One learning platform, in which the first two outcomes will be integrated together with a set of Open Badges that can be attached to the person's online profile and will attest on their obtaining of the competence;- Short term joint staff training event on the three soft skills dedicated to VET educators in which they will study the documentation and learn to teach it to their pupils either as a stand-alone course or as additional material integrated with other disciplines;- Blended mobility ""Good things come in three"" event, in which the selected participants will benefit from direct exercises on the training materials developed, and the professional expertise of multiple employers regarding their real life capacity. - 5 ""Infocamps""/ Multiplier events in which the results of the project will be disseminated to various representatives of the VET industries.The 5 main outcomes will be supported by the partnership through the implementation of a comprehensive Project Management Plan, which will include all the planning necessary to successfully deliver the project as well as to properly justify its implementation to the National Agency Project target group is comprised of 200 stakeholders:- 80 VET learners in the online Pilot courses (20 persons from the rural area /country)- 20 VET educators and/or administrators in the blended mobility in Cyprus (5 persons/country)- at least 1000 (250 per country) Decision makers, Experts, specialists, professionals informed/involved about the project - as results of the dissemination activities.The target group will find out about the project and will be invited to participate through the implementation of a dissemination plan which will include the development and distribution of a website, 2 social media accounts, a brochure, 3 newsletters, 3 press articles per country, 40 posters, 4 video presentations The project will be implemented by a strategic partnership involving:- an NGO actively involved in the development of the Romanian rural area, including the human resources of the respective area (ACoR Romania Calarasi Branch);- a consultancy and VET training providing company managed by experienced personnel in VET training and European Projects (Mixt Source Management);- an NGO, actively involved in the development of the Italian rural area and its inhabitants (Polygonal NGO);- a training provider from Cyprus with expertise in VET competences growth and human capitals (Stando);- a VET school from the rural area of Portugal (Previform)."

At the moment, when we applied project in Europe there were different initiatives coming from the banks, from OECD discussions and papers that should encourage migrants and minorities on financial and digital literacy. However, little had been done in terms of education attached to financial service, in creating simple access material that could build the basis for empowerment both in terms of digital skills and of financial household management. Therefore, creating tools for financial and digital literacy for people who works with fewer opportunity participants. This was the result of the need from grassroots activities that we collected from focus groups. Therefore, SELF-MATE [Sharing and learning Platform in financial management and literacy for migrants and people with fewer opportunities] aimed to create knowledge/competence foundation of adult migrant households (25+) and train migrants’ educators in a number of themes. The main themes changed slightly during the project implementation such as 1. Financial Literacy and vocabulary 2. Personal Finances 3. Technology 4. Consumer rights 5. Financial security focusing on transversal competences. Furthermore, SELF-MATE aimed to empower migrant women and raise awareness about their concrete contribution in terms of family economy as well as in those uncountable values of safety and protection. Concrete results of the project were - an e-learning platform to acquire digital and financial through ad-hoc material for migrants and people with fewer opportunities; - a double learning/teaching booklet, both for educators and for learners; - a self-assessment tool to test digital financial knowledge one has on the web platform.Project had also one training activity for staff to test the material that we produced. 15 staff/volunteer had joined the training In Ankara Turkey. Project had affected by Covid in few aspects however the project team managed to able to decrease the risk to minimum and completed the project successfully. it is easy to access the platform through selfmate.eu

The project Yeuthpact! started with the consideration that Youth work and projects involving young people, including the ones working in European funding framework (international camps, European volunteering projects, etc.), have a tremendous value to foster better societies. On the one hand, throughout events, exchanges, camps, community work and transnational volunteering, youth work increases young people’s educational and training opportunities. On the other hand, it can improve life conditions of people from local communities where projects take place. Both dimensions encompass the impact, which can be defined as “the changes resulting from organisation’s activities” (Charities Evaluation Service’s quote, mentioned at “How do we know it’s working?”-Conference organised by National Youth Council of Ireland, 2011)Whilst European Commission (2017) has recently considered European Voluntary Service a highly valuable programme with a significant impact on volunteers and organisations involved, such impact is mitigated on local communities where projects take place due to different reasons. One of the reasons is the “lack of tools to measure impact on local community”. As a result, plenty of studies and papers show the difficulties to find data or evidence about youth work’s social impact: Pwell and Bratović (2007), Lough, Moore McBride and Sherraden (2009), European Youth Forum-YFJ (2016), European Commission (2016; 2017), among others.A gap thus exists when assessing the social impact of youth work so youth practitioners, in terms of local community-wise, struggle to answer the question “What difference does my work make?” (Dr. Bamber, Centre for Effective Services, “How do we know it’s working?”-Conference, National Youth Council of Ireland, 2011). There is current a need to promote evidence-based practice when assessing the impact of youth work on local communities (“Study on the impact of transnational volunteering through the European Voluntary Service” -EC, 2014). Thus, youth workers needed:-To develop tailor-made methods and tools to assess the impact of their work on local communities, thereby providing evidences of their influences-To build their capacity of evaluate how their actions work at local communities so they can design and implement more effective projectsY-EUTH-PACT! had the aim to contribute to increase the quality of youth work by improving the capacity of youth practitioners to assess the impact of youth work on local communities, through the creation of new tools and the improvement of youth practitioners’ competences. The specific objectives were: -To standardise good practices for assessing impact on local communities of youth work and volunteering projects;-To create a methodology, guidelines and tools for youth workers to assess the impact of youth work on local communities-To develop a framework of competences for youth practitioners to become impact assessors;-To develop a training programme with e-modules to train youth practitioners on impact assessment practices; and-To equip organisations’ staff with tailor-made methodologies to improve the way they assess the impact on local communitiesMain project target group: youth workers.Indirect target groups were (among others): young people, teachers, high school educators, HEI staff, adults, local organisations/institutions involved in youth sector, NGOs and other third sector entities.Y-EUTH-PACT! was aligned with Erasmus+ objective of fostering quality improvements in youth work, in particular through enhanced cooperation between organisations in the youth field and/or other stakeholders. Moreover the project results can become very useful when assessing the impact of new ESC projects on local communities, thereby increasing the transferability of project’s outputs. Even beyond Erasmus+, the project addressed the recommendation adopted by European countries, represented in this project as well (NL, ES, IT, UK, and BG), of “supporting the development of appropriate forms of review and evaluation of the impact and outcomes of youth work” (Recommendation CM/Rec(2017)4, Council of Europe, 2017).Finally, given the difficulties and restriction brought in by the Covid-19 Pandemic, it is worth mentioning that Partners during the 2nd half of project implementation, have constantly adapted ongoing to the situation, by intensifying and improving the general online communication, dissemination and also online training activities, in order to overcome such situation. This resulted in an additional (and unforeseeable) capacity building for the partners and staff involved, when it comes to work and communicate effective online and general upgrade of digital skills.