The School of Social Work ,Department of the Rotterdam University of Applied Science prepared a Proposal for a KEY-ACTION 1( Mobility of youth workers) SOCIAL WORK ALL INCLUSIVE (SWAI) Context/background of the project What is the current situation? • More than 5.5 million young people are unemployed in the EU-28 area today. • This represents an unemployment rate of 23.4% (24.0% in the euro area). More than one in five young Europeans on the labour market cannot find a job; in Greece and Spain it is one in two. • 7.5 million young Europeans between 15 and 24 are not employed, not in education and not in training (NEETs). • In the last four years, the overall employment rates for young people fell three times as much as for adults. • The gap between the countries with the highest and the lowest jobless rates for young people remains extremely high. There is a gap of over 50 percentage points between the Member State with the lowest rate of youth unemployment (Germany at 7.7% in December 2013) and the Member State with the highest rate, Greece (58.3% in December 2013). Greece is followed by Spain (54.6%), Croatia (49.8%), Italy (41.7%), Cyprus (40.3%) and Portugal (34.4%). • The unleashed potential of job mobility to help tackle youth unemployment remains to be further developed: the workforce in employment in the EU is around 216.1 million persons of which only 7.5 million (3.1%) are working in another Member State. EU surveys show that young people are the group most likely to be mobile. The situation reflects a serious and structural problem: this is why the Commission has been taking direct action on youth employment. To increase available EU financial support to the regions and individuals struggling most with youth employment and inactivity, the European Council agreed in February 2013 to create a dedicated Youth Employment Initiative (YEI). The YEI will exclusively target NEETs aged up to 25 years, and where the Member State considers relevant, also those aged up to 30 years (European Commission factsheet on youth unemployment, 2014). In the background of European programmes like YEI it is clear that unemployment as a reason for exclusion is an important topic to adress for Social workers. Non formal education as a methodology to decrease the number of unemployed youth needs to be explored at a professional level Objectives of the seminar To Articulate a manifest of criteria for improving the quality of activities focused on youth employment and access to formal education. Practical collaboration with participating organizations to implement criteria in activities Increasing awareness of potential methodology in non formal education Reflection on European good practices and converting this experience in new initiatives Pariticipants 40 participants from 6 European countries will participate in a 5 day seminar in january 2015, The participants are youth workers who are working with different target groups challenged to adress youth unemployment and lack of education The seminar will take place at the Rotterdam University of Applied Science ,School of Social Work in RotterdamNetherlands) Participants will exchange good practices and articulate criteria for succesfull activities The seminar will use different forms of non formal methodology like open space meetings,maieutic dialogue, theatre ,discussion sessions etc. Results Participants will be provided with key competences like knowledge of formats for Analysis ,communication skills, knowledge of new methodology ,increased knowledge of the Erasmus+ program Participants will be able to evaluate their own projects in relation to the manifest of criteria established during the seminar. Criteria will be implemented in 4 experimental educational activities and will be tried out between march and june 2015, The outcomes en evaluations will be shared with the participants of the seminar Apart from the added value of discussing these issues face to face, all participants will depart for home with a selection of specific tools and methodologies that proved their value in the past. Long term benefits Criteria which can be used on an international level to improve the quality of activities Transfer of innovation and transfer of knowledge of non formal education methodology on a local and regional and European level The establishment of new partnerships between organizations involved with youth work Collaboration on an international level to initiate new programmes and develop new methodologies European network will make it possible to share resources and methodologies. Transnational job opportunities for youth workers Multiplication of the final results of the seminar for a wider range of professionals in youth work Decrease of youth unemployment in Europe Increase of youth with a qualification .