Youth in Urban Space - Developments pre and post Corona, how municipalities and youth work could deal with them

Background Already in the years before the Covid19 pandemic, youth workers in Vienna observed a change in the use of public space by young people. While exposure to male youth in street work and outreach work declined, demographics indicated that numbers in these age groups were stable and even increasing slightly. At the same time, contact with girls and women in public places had increased. One had the impression that the big cliques that dominated some places were getting smaller. Expert exchanges at international level at least confirmed that these observations had been a phenomenon in many areas of several cities in Europe. When the Association of Vienna Youth Centers began to develop a strategic partnership within the framework of the EU funding program Erasmus+, Covid19 changed everyone's life sustainably. Despite all the adverse circumstances, this partnership was able to start in February 2021. Objectives The following key questions were asked at the beginning of the project: - What changes in the use and perception of public space by young people can be observed? - Which general developments, political decisions and local strategies influence this topic? - To what extent are the observations of the last year influenced by the effects of the Corona crisis? - What possible European and local strategic approaches are possible to influence these factors? - What are the consequences of our lobbying for the interest of young people? - What is the right, structural and methodological answer that open youth work can offer? - In what form do their offers have to be adapted in relation to the urban public space? Implementation A variety of different methods and activities were used. The project management group and a sub-group "Research" developed and supported this. - Quantitative surveys of young people and youth workers - Focus groups with young people and youth workers - Training for youth workers - Training including observations - A training for the evaluation of the observations - Brochures with the results - Videos with the results - National and international multiplier meetings - Evaluation The quantitative surveys carried out have an impressive database, 2199 young people were interviewed, 79 young people took part in 16 focus group discussions. Equally impressive are the numbers for youth workers: 394 respondents in the quantitative survey, 4 focus group discussions with a total of 30 participants. In total, over 40 youth workers were directly involved in the project for over two years. Achievements In addition to the present brochures with the project results, nine videos were also made that present the project and its results. Additional youth workers and other youth groups were involved in these video productions in particular. Each city produced two videos: Public space from the perspective of young people and from the perspective of youth workers. The ninth video is a short documentation of the project. All nine videos are available on YouTube. The expectations placed on the project have been more than fulfilled. The database is - albeit different in the participating cities - much larger than initially expected. Above all, however, the experiences made by the practitioners directly involved and the organizations involved are invaluable and cannot be expressed in numbers.