Media and Information Literacy (MIL) are essential skills in the digital age. Young people, and all other generations, have to evaluate the authenticity of every piece of information they access, across multiple channels and through all different kinds of sources. The need for such skills has become even more apparent with the flourishing of disinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and has only reinforced the project consortium’s certitude that this kind of project is needed more than ever. The ultimate aim of this project is to provide youth (information) workers with resources and tools to carry out MIL related activities with young people, to equip them with the necessary skills to navigate the information that they come into contact with every day. MedYIa will be need-based, as it will focus on the needs of the youth sector and of young people themselves; this will be more detailed in Intellectual Output 1 (IO1 state of play: survey on young people’s MIL needs and an Open Dialogue Day with professionals based on the needs identified in the survey). This first phase will lead to a deeper understanding of the subject, an identification of missing skills and gaps in the sector, an identification of existing tools and practices, and what types of tools would be most useful for those working with young people. The survey will be widely disseminated in at least the three languages ​​of the project partners (French, German and English). The final report will provide recommendations to decision-makers, institutional bodies and professionals in youth work and youth information work.Once the results of the state of play have been analysed, the project consortium will work on creating an interactive online toolbox (IO2), which will be full of MIL resources and tools, grouped and sorted by theme for a simple and easy navigation. This interactive toolbox will be publicly available, and regularly updated. It will gather resources in French, German and English for a wider outreach, and it will be unique as it will not just have all kinds of resources and activities listed; they will be carefully selected, standardised and grouped by theme. 3 partners will organise a training day in their region / country / community intended for youth information professionals and educators. In one day, the participants will discover the toolbox in a fun and participative way that leads to open and constructive discussions, compiles feedback to improve it, and facilitates its use among professionals working in the field. Participants will then be able to deliver the training, which will ensure a multiplier effect. This activity is aimed at professionals who work in the field directly with young people. A day will also be organised for young people, to ensure that the resources are useful and relevant to them, and to compile their feedback to better adapt the tools. Their feedback will also help to begin creating the next part of the project. The project partners will create a video tutorial that will cover some MIL theory and basics (IO3). It will introduce the topic to youth information professionals and demonstrate how to use the tools and resources available on the platform. The online toolbox will showcase existing tools and adapt them to the needs of the target group. The idea will be to optimise on what has already been created in this domain, while providing a theoretical and deeper understanding of the topic. Where possible, resources will provide options for carrying out activities through digital youth work. Finally, a multiplier event will be organised in Brussels at the end of the project targeted at youth information professionals, youth workers, educators, youth organisations, young people, professional youth networks, political bodies, organisations working in the MIL field, and any other interested party. It will showcase what has been produced in the framework of the project to the target group and other stakeholders outside of the project partnership (e.g. other countries, other organisations). It will highlight the importance of media and information literacy and youth information, as well as the need to support youth professionals through training, and access to tools and resources in these fields. Equipping professionals and multipliers, such as youth organisations, will help to ensure that young people can develop the critical thinking and skills necessary to navigate the information landscape, and contribute to producing and sharing digital content responsibly.

Youth information and counselling services provide high-quality guidance to young people and help them make decisions to lead their lives constructively. These services have also a remarkable preventive function that constitutes a great added value to society. Despite the importance of youth information (YI) in supporting young people to achieve their full potential and to access their rights, it is still difficult for many youth information and counselling providers to effectively promote and reach the vast majority of young people that do not take advantage of these services. The purpose of service design thinking is to conceive or re-think services according to the needs of the user, so that it is user-friendly, needs-based, competitive and relevant to the target group.The consortium re-thought youth information provision through the application of this innovative methodology, which will ensure a youth-centred and empowering approach. The tools and resources created in the project are based on evidence, consultations with young people and stakeholders, and research. The toolkit on service design in youth information provision includes both theory and practice, tools, quality measures, and is based on a methodology widely tested in other fields. The project involved YI providers, young people, and experts in training, innovative communication and service design. Using desk research and focus groups to ensure the project results are evidence-based and reflect the needs and trends of young people, the expected results were:- To produce an online course on service design in youth information delivery (using webinars, contributions from external experts, videos and other digital tools, particularly those used by young people) to be incorporated into the ERYICA training system;- To create a toolkit on service design in youth information provision aiming to conceive more youth-friendly and effective YI services; and - To test and pilot the resources developed at different stages and in order for the partners to produce their own YI strategy (7 strategies) based on service design methodologies. These will be used as good practice examples for other youth information services across Europe. The ultimate objective of the project was to enable young people to become well-informed citizens and autonomous decision-makers through quality information and guidance. Access to information is unprecedented and brings with it a previously unseen tendency to also want to create media content, often in a biased and uncontrolled manner. Despite the abundance of information sources available to young people, it is not always easy for them to process and understand the information accessed. Youth information services provide assistance to young people, helping them to make to understand the information they access and to take informed decisions adapted to their personal needs. Educating young people on media and information literacy have also become key task of youth information and counselling services. Youth information services are fully equipped to advise young people on how to research, evaluate and appreciate information and how reliable it is. YI services are available to every single young person, free of charge, and have a real impact on shaping their future. However, not all young people are aware that these services are available to them. The aim of this project was to create strategies, tools and resources to allow youth information providers to reach out to a maximum number of young people, especially those at risk of social exclusion, and to let them know that these services exist and are centred on their needs. In order to do this, professionals need to be trained on new channels and tools, and services need to be user-centred, appealing, relevant and visible. The target group is youth information providers who wish to discover new outreach tools and to re-think service delivery. This project explored new avenues for youth work, through its use of evidence-based research and innovative service design methodologies. The focus was also on the active participation of young people throughout every stage of the project, using a user-centred service design approach to actively listen to and involve them in the service conception. It aimed to ensure that all young people, regardless of their situation, benefit from youth information and counselling services, and are therefore aware of the multitude of opportunities that are available to them. The resulting tools and strategies were created, piloted and evaluated by young people, youth workers and service design experts. The results of the desk research, the toolkit and the online course are ready to be used and exploited by youth information providers across Europe.