The objective of the project was to facilitate evidenced based youth policy and youth work practice in the Baltic States by developing the youth well-being monitoring system and promoting using its results regularly in youth policy and youth work at national, regional and local level, as well as to promote youth research practice of the Baltic States at international level.To achieve this objective, following intellectual outputs have be developed:(1) Youth researchers’ expert panel of the Baltic States;(2) Youth well-being monitoring system of the Baltic States;(3) Youth field resource and communication centre – web portal Baltic Youth Work Pit-Stop.Project direct target group – people involved in youth policy, youth work and youth research in the Baltic States. Project indirect target group – young people in the Baltic States.In total 2749 people of the project direct and indirect target groups were involved in the project activities.One of the main principals of the project implementation was to involve project target group (persons involved in youth policy, youth work, and youth research) in building content of the project results, by inviting to participate in all project activities and events.Project territory coverage – Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia.Thereby, the main result of the project is the facilitation of the evidence based youth policy and youth work in the Baltic States.Particularly, the most important practical results of the project are:- Developed youth researchers’ expert panel of the Baltic States (altogether 35 experts: 11 experts in Latvia, 13 experts in Estonia, 11 experts in Lithuania);- Elaborated youth well-being monitoring system (143 indicators in 8 thematic groups; indicators will be updated (if available) once a year);- Comparative international study of youth well-being in the Baltic States (analysis about quality of life of young people in Baltic states if compared to other countries);- In-depth national studies of youth well-being in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania (in national languages);- Methodological guidelines for applying youth well-being monitoring system at national, regional and local level (in national languages);- Developed youth field resource and communication centre – web portal Baltic Youth Work Pit-Stop (https://youthpitstop.com/) in national languages and in English; - Awareness raising among youth policy makers and youth workers about evidence-based youth policy and youth work practice (through seminars, conference, project`s publicity, dissemination activities);- Evaluation of project implementation and achieved results and possible recommendations for further usage of project results at national, regional and local levels and for further development of evidence-based youth policy and youth work.All in all the project’s impact resulted in promoting evidence-based youth policy and youth work, thus helping to increase competences of people involved in youth policy, youth work and youth research, and among other benefits the project allows clearly identify areas necessary to be improved in the youth field, as well as indirectly the project contributed in improving quality of life and well-being of young people in the Baltic States by raising awareness among society and policy makers about the critical aspects for youth wellbeing.

The project “VET for Employment” (VET4E), led by the Employers’ Confederation of Latvia (LDDK), aims at:- improving availability of qualified workforce through improving compliance of VET to the labour market needs;- facilitating and supporting organisation of qualitative traineeships and work based learning in vocational education and training (VET) system and- developing new tools for the use by the employers and VET institutions to promote work based learning in VET and to support employers, VET institutions and students in human resource development through traineeships. The motivation for the project lies in the problems identified in partner countries: rather low prestige of VET, limited opportunities for qualitative traineeships, low involvement of employers, low level of cooperation between VET institutions and employers, high youth unemployment, problematic transition from education institutions to labour market. In order to address these problems, project will carry out a number of activities aimed at improving availability of qualitative traineeship opportunities and to strengthen employers’ involvement in VET. The main activities planned to reach these goals are:- Carrying out a study on availability, quality and costs and benefits of traineeships in Latvia;- Organising learning visits to Austria and Germany to learn from well-established dual VET systems;- Developing an action plan for improvement of traineeships in Latvia;- Carrying out feasibility study on vocational education in Lithuania; and mutually learning between Latvia and Lithuania in the process of implementing VET reforms;- Developing IT tool on career portal prakse.lv (traineeship.lv) which would ensure opportunity to organise and implement traineeships and work based learning in easy and comfortable way, as well as to collect and analyse data on traineeships- To implement work based learning programmes in two sectors – metalworking sector and pharmacy sector. - To implement a number of initiatives/ mini pilotprojects to promote new IT tool, traineeships and work based learning in different sectors such as facilitating traineeships, namely, combining traineeships in several companies, career support activities, organising training for trainers in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Science, developing mobility projects, organising professional skills competition, certification of traineeship places, organising seminars, organising site visits of pupils or VET trainers in companies, examining work safety during traineeships, piloting examination developed and organised by employers.The main result of the project will be increased number of qualitative traineeship opportunities. The consortium is made of partners from Latvia, Lithuania, Austria and Germany. Partners include the national and sectorial employer organisations, trade union organisation, VET institutions, research and training institution, as well as private companies. Project is also endorsed by the Ministry of Education and Science of Latvia, National Centre for Education and the Municipality of Riga.