YouthImpact+

Background We undertook this project as we wanted to promote quality, innovation and recognition of youth work through the developed platform and outputs, as this is an overarching theme and strategic objective of the 2019-2027 Youth Goals. Increasing and maintaining the quality of Youth work across Europe is key to achieving the Youth Goals. We wanted to contribute to this by ensuring youth organisations and youth workers are able to learn from each other by recognising and sharing good practices of other European youth projects, increasing the quality of youth work, the skills, competences and understanding of youth workers and in turn, facilitating high quality opportunities and support for the youths engaged with them. To address these priorities, the project has strengthened and supported the mandate of the EU Youth Coordinator through the use of an innovative tool (within the YI+ digital platform), which has increased transnational collaboration between youth organisations, promoted “sister project” collaboration and engagement and sharing of lessons learned. Objectives The project aimed to promote quality, innovation and recognition of youth work through the developed platform and outputs, as this was an overarching theme and strategic objective of the 2019-2027 Youth Goals. Increasing and maintaining the quality of Youth work across Europe has been key to achieving the Youth Goals, and this was done by ensuring youth organisations and youth workers are able to learn from each other by recognising and sharing good practices of other European youth projects, increasing the quality of youth work, the skills, competences and understanding of youth workers and in turn, facilitating high quality opportunities and support for the youths engaged with them. The key objectives of Youth Impact+ were: 1. Enhance recognition of Youth Work through European funded programmes across Europe at national and EU level 2. Improve sectoral cooperation, including through the EU Youth Coordinator's mandate, to give youth a voice in shaping EU policies 3. Support the capacity building of youth workers and youth work practices 4. Reinforce links between policy, research and practice and promote better knowledge about the situation of young people and youth policies Implementation The activities implemented were in-line with those presented in the project proposal. Most activities were in pursuit of the attainment of the intellectual outputs, including research, preparation, development, piloting and adaptation before activities associated with promotion and dissemination of the final results were undertaken (although the concept of the project was promoted from the outset of the project). Other activities led to the realisation of the five project meetings (the first one done remotely, the other four in person) and the multiplier events that took place in each country. Unfortunately, the TR partner was unable to realise a multiplier event within the lifetime of the project, but was keen to maintain the sustainability of the outcomes, so has implemented one post the project end - but we appreciate that this cannot be claimed for as it was outside of the eligibility period. As mentioned, piloting and responding to the resultant feedback were consistently a key part of the project processes, which is why a total of three piloting phases took place, both internal and external. In addition, Stakeholder Consultation events took place in each participating country. Achievements The main concrete outputs created were: IO1: YouthImpact+ Digital Tool and Platform IO2: YouthImpact+ Training e-Course IO2 featured a total of 8 modules, developed by all partners and outlined below: 1) planning - TR 2) implementation - TR (overlaps with M5) 3) stakeholder identification - RO 4) collective and individual impacts on stakeholders - IT 5) monitoring and measuring impacts - BG 6) data collection and data sources - CZ 7) recommended activities to maximise impact - UK 8) how project impact relates to EU policy objectives - GR