News

The “Growing Youth Work” SNAC held its third Project Lab on Wednesday 18th June 2025. These Labs are a space for the community of practice to come together and pitch ideas for youth work developments to other practitioners. It is also a space for forming alliances and partnerships. This Project Lab was themed on some initial reflections on the 4th European Youth Work Convention. These reflections were provided primarily by Miriam Teuma, one of the leading organisers and host of the Convention.

Key stakeholders responsible for implementing the European Youth Work Agenda in their countries are invited to the 4th "Exchange Forum on the European Youth Work Agenda: Boosting national processes for youth work development". It will take place from 1 to 4 December 2025 in Skopje. Interested persons can apply by 15 September 2025.

Growing Youth Work News met with Ajsa Hadzibegovic from Montenegro to talk about the creation of UPOR - Professional Association of Youth Workers (official wording in English). The establishment of this is a big step forward for the recognition of youth work in Montenegro, and equally important, it is a huge step towards supporting the people in Montenegro who are working with and supporting young people in a youth work context throughout the country.

ACTIVATE is an Erasmus+ Youth, Key Action 2 project that is addressing the underrepresentation of autistic young people in advocacy, policymaking, and civic engagement. The Growing Youth Work newsletter met with Tokyo Attard from Malta, who is one of the team working on the project. Together, we explored why the project came about, what its intentions are, and how the European Youth Work Agenda is supporting projects like this.

Estonia has a proud history of developing youth work, and while many other countries may aspire to achieve what Estonia has already accomplished in terms of recognition of youth work, such success stories do not mean the work is finished, nor do they imply that the youth sector in Estonia does not face any challenges. Martti Martinson from the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research shared with us some of the successes, future directions, and difficulties that the youth work sector in Estonia is facing.

Zoran Ilijeski from SEGA - the coalition of youth organisations in North Macedonia - shares some of the developments that are taking place in the Macedonian youth work sector. These include the recognition of youth work in law, and the study of youth work appearing in universities. He also shares a very powerful and yet simple vision for the future of youth work in North Macedonia – a vision that most countries would want to embrace.

On 28th April 2025 the 4th European Youth Work Convention Preparation Webinar offered an opportunity for all participants of the Convention to prepare together for this unique event.

From the 27 to 30 May 2025, about 500 members of the youth work community of practice met in Malta for the 4th European Youth Work Convention. The series of Conventions serves as the most important platform for youth work development across Europe, happening every five years since 2010.

On the 8th of April 2025, the “Youth Work Talks” held another in its series of webinars, titled “Xcelerating the recognition of youth work”. This webinar provided information about the 4th European Youth Work Convention and its themes. At the same time, it highlighted the topic of recognising youth work, which is the current focus of the event series “Youth Work Talks” by the cooperation project “Growing Youth Work”.

We invite you to the Growing Youth Work Project Lab that will happen on 18 June, from 10.00 to 12.00. Join us if you want to grow projects from ideas to realistic plans!

The Survey Report on national processes 2025 shows how the development of national processes has contributed to putting the European Youth Work Agenda into practice since the 3rd European Youth Work Convention. This article summarises the key insights of the survey findings by highlighting the current state of play of national processes, the progress, challenges and needs. It collects recommendations and expectations towards the 4th European Youth Work Convention by the National Contact Points of the European Youth Work Agenda implementation.

In March of 2025, the EU-Council of Europe Youth Partnership hosted the seminar “Youth mental health and well-being” at the European Youth Centre in Strasbourg. The purpose of the event was to bring together youth workers, researchers and policy makers to discuss how the youth sector is responding to the mental health and well-being needs of young people.