Youth work in Eastern and Southeast Europe

Youth work in Eastern and Southeast Europe: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Youth work in Eastern and Southeast Europe: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Dariusz:
Welcome to Under 30, the podcast series by the Youth Partnership that brings the research results, explores trends in young people's lives and themes relevant for youth policy and practice.

Dariusz:
How youth work is done? Who does it? Is it recognised? And if yes, how? How does one become a youth worker? What are the trends and developments in youth work and youth policy? How will the results of the latest European Youth Work Convention impact youth work and how youth work can contribute to the Bonn process? These are just a few questions we are discussing in this episode with the geographical focus on Eastern and Southeast Europe. In order to talk about the realities of youth work in these two regions, we have invited two researchers, Dunja Potočnik and Max Fras. They were both a part of teams researching youth work in Eastern and Southeast Europe. You will find the links to the publications they were co-authoring in the notes to this episode. My name is Dariusz Grzemny and I'm also joined by Tanya Basarab from the Youth Partnership in this episode. Enjoy listening!

Dariusz:
Let's start with a little bit of background to what we are going to talk about today, meaning youth work in Eastern and Southeast Europe. Tanya, can you tell us why Partnership decided to actually run this research on these two regions? Are there any regions that are covered or will be covered?

Tanya:
Thank you, Darek. Why the partnership has done research on youth work and specifically in Southeast Europe and in Eastern Europe is because the Youth Partnership covers 50 member states party to the European Cultural Convention. And it's one of our regional geographic focus priorities. And to be honest, there hasn't been much recorded in the way the situation of youth work, and as we know, knowledge is power, evidence is power, we need to build to start from somewhere. And this is the reason why we have asked Lana and Marko to contribute with describing the situation of youth work and quality development in Southeast Europe. And then together with Max and Alena, we have put together a first study on the perspectives and the realities of youth work in Eastern Europe and Caucasus.

Dariusz:
Max, Dunja, what are these realities then? What is the state of youth work in these two regions we are talking about today? Maybe we start with Dunja.

Dunja:
We can briefly say that youth work undergoes many struggles. First of all, we have to mention that young people are very high on the ladder of unemployment. They are not satisfied with the educational systems in the countries. They are not happy with the quality of life in their countries. Migration towards western and northern European countries is very high. And all of this presents challenges for the youth work. And youth work is actually underrated. There is a long tradition of youth work in Southeast Europe starting from late 90s, and all the countries have umbrella associations. All the countries are trying to engage in cross-sectoral cooperation, but they face challenges in the shape of political instability, economic adversity and very high government turnout. Quite often when the government changes or when the new officials come to the office, the entire legislation changes. And there are some countries that even do not have updated legislative framework. There is no national program for young people, and youth workers are faced with a situation where they are not recognised. So they are not recognised as professionals. And even there is no exact title for the youth workers, for instance, Serbia and Slovenia, to have title 'youth worker' while other countries have something like 'people who work with young people'.

Dariusz:
Ok, sounds familiar to many regions in Europe and maybe even beyond Europe. Max, what does it look like in Eastern Europe?

Max:
When it comes to state of youth work in Eastern Europe it's difficult to provide a sort of synthetic commentary or analysis because the situation is quite diverse within the region. This is why maybe instead of talking about the region, I can talk about the situation in particular countries.

Max:
And I would say that in most countries of the region and this situation is dynamic, at least in the sense of frameworks and policies and probably a little less so when it comes to resources.

Max:
So what struck us when we were researching for our publication on youth work in Eastern Europe was a certain normative optimism. And I know this is also quite a feature in Southeast Europe in a sense that many governments and many high level stakeholders are convinced that developing new normative frameworks that are usually the easiest step in supporting youth work, so for example, the strategy or an action plan or a piece of legislation are being developed and they don't or they are not always followed up with appropriate resources for implementation. We have quite a rapid growth of norms and regulations in some areas of youth policy, definitely in youth work a little less and in some cases really stellar growth of frameworks.

Max:
But the growth of resources was not there. And actually, in many cases, resources are quite limited, either remain limited or even more so for different reasons because of public spending cuts or because of the situation of particular governments and political frameworks.

Max:
So I would say that it's a combination of a lot of positive development in the normative frameworks, and it's still a difficult situation regarding resources and what Dunja was already talking about recognition and the value of youth work and how it's perceived, especially outside the world of youth policy in youth work.

Max:
I think that we have a long way to go in making sure that youth work is duly recognised and its contribution and impact on people's lives is there.

Tanya:
But this external recognition, maybe I can just add, that it's not a feature of the region.

Tanya:
It's a challenge for the whole sector. So recognition of youth work outside what youth sector is quite a big I would take to task for the next five years. It's one of the conclusions of the convention as well. And that then what you are saying, Max, about rapid growth of regulation and less rapid growth of support, that is something that we have come across throughout research, not only in this regional perspective.

Dariusz:
I would like to come a little bit to the grounds, to how youth work is done. When they talk about coming to the grounds and to the basics - Are there any forms of youth work, practicalities of youth work that you see as predominant in this region?

Max:
Ok, if I can talk about the situation in Eastern Europe, again, it's difficult to talk about the region as such, but in most countries of Eastern Europe and South Caucasus, you have quite a vibrant youth organisation scene. And the very often the non-state or non-governmental actors, civil society organisations carry the weight of delivering youth work at local and regional level. So, if you talk about this frontline youth work or what is the situation at grassroots level, it's those youth organisations and youth NGOs that are very often informed and inspired by European practice and sometimes the source of it as well. So we have a lot of good examples in countries of the region, like in Armenia, the Youth Initiative Center is seen as a marker of quality and a source of inspiration for many others in the field. But it's something that came out of the sector. It's an initiative by young people for young people, something that's been set up through the perseverance and hard work of people locally and sometimes was aided by by policy frameworks, but sometimes was created and operated in spite of them.

Max:
So, things might have changed at national level in terms of national frameworks and resources as well. But the youth organisations have proven to be resourceful enough and that maybe is a bit of a trap and an illustration of how they are a victim of their own success, because youth organisations, the non-governmental ones, are very often expected to manage their own resources and to be able to secure funding and other resources for their operations.

Max:
And because they've been doing so, the government support for their operations was not always there. When it comes to state supported youth work, we see some examples where this is slightly more coherent and stronger so that in countries like Belarus and Azerbaijan, for example, there is stronger budgetary support for those activities. But this is often at the expense of participation. So those structures are then less participatory and more regulated by state providers.

Max:
And there is a little less space for young people to shape how it's being delivered.

Dunja:
In the Southeast Europe youth work is mainly performed through youth councils, youth centres, youth clubs and civil society organisations focused on young people. But while in large cities there is generally solid youth work infrastructure, so a place to perform youth work activities, this is almost completely absent in villages and smaller towns. And there are insufficient funds for increasing and maintaining organisational capacity, and it is coupled by youth sector coordination, which is actually mirrored by lack of political will and young people are still like a mere addition to the political processes. So, tokenism is still very much present and it is reflected in all areas of life. So often, even if there is a political framework and some kind of dialogue with youth organisations and young people, it quite often happens sporadically. And so, the youth organisations have to rely on unstable funding. And funding still comes to a large extent from international organisations. Then they're funded through project work, and only a small proportion comes from the... for instance, the ministries or from the national level and the local level funding is actually the least developed. And it is actually a tragedy because at the local level, experts can recognise what are actually the needs and the aspirations and the prospects of the young people. And it is the level where young people can or the youth organisations can have real impact and it is very often neglected. So, there is still much to do in this respect.

Tanya:
There is a feature of youth work that is much more visible in Southeast Europe and in Eastern Europe, and that is it's much more politically imbued because it takes an agenda that tries to bring out the voice of young people. So, it's less visible or less initiated with the purpose of personal development or giving space for young people to to experiment. But it's much more with the political or with a social objective in mind. And whether it's in a small community or it's in the city, you always have that in the background.

Tanya:
And related to what Dunja was saying before in terms of this big disparity of forms and reach out or our outreach of work for sure, COVID will make a big difference.

Tanya:
We already see that there is an interest to invest in skills development, capacity building of all these infrastructures, youth centres and people who run them and who are active there to become more digitally savvy. But also there is interest to develop outreach youth work, which may be in the past, was much more opportunistic initiatives. Now, maybe there will be more structured approaches to it.

Dariusz:
Do you see any trends when it comes to supporting youth work? Where is it going in terms of policy, in terms of funding, in terms of building partnerships and so on?

Max:
What I can say is definitely what's happening in Eastern Europe.You would see it across many countries that the national policy support structures are definitely there and each and every country of the region would have the legislation, the strategy and action plan. What is very characteristic of it still is its fluidity. So in a sense, it's permanent in a sense that there are always some, there's always a legislative element to it. There is always a strategic element to it. There's always some sort of an action plan to it or, in most cases at national level. Some countries, including, for example, now Georgia and Ukraine, increasingly go into providing the support at regional and local level more and more regional action plans. But what is fluid and what is not stable is the fact that it's obviously like most policy frameworks at this level, very politically dependent, and those support structures can change very rapidly. I was actually working on Ukraine just very recently and I've looked at how youth policy was anchored institutionally and where it belonged since nineteen ninety one, so since Ukraine's independence. Over the last 30 years, there's been 13 institutional changes in that process, in the sense that the line ministries have changed or the policy briefs were merged. So, it was either a social policy or youth work belonged with youth policy and sport or it belonged with education and science or it belonged with culture. So in that sense, it was not very stable. On the ground, things always happened because of the resilience and the resourcefulness mostly of youth organisations and people in the sector. But the very top layer of the support structures was was very unstable. We came to a situation earlier this year in Ukraine where a new support structure was put in place and almost completed and then abolished before it became operational. So, a specialised agency was developed and set up and it was actually disbanded before it became operational.

Max:
So, in that sense, youth work is hostage to those big policy cycles. And I think it brings me to another conclusion, which is that youth policy and youth work support is very much on its own and it relies on very specialised support framework. So, the support and the resources for youth work very often come out of this narrow field of youth policy and rarely out of other budgets or support frameworks, which again gives policymakers the flexibility to change them as they see fit. Educational policy is rarely subject to such frequent reforms because it's a bigger organism and it's a more complex governance structure. When it comes to youth policy and especially youth work Policy makers allow themselves to make those changes more frequently and sometimes change things overnight. So that's, I think, one of the characteristics of support structures for youth work in Eastern Europe.

Tanya:
I would add that international organisations play a huge role in this context. So, if we are to take, for example, maybe you would not see associations of youth workers as support structures easily created, but you would see networks of youth centres and a lot of investment and dynamic around those. Or you would see this kind of part of the decentralisation policies, new initiatives that are about local participatory youth structures, youth policy and youth work evolves around it as well. So that's definitely something that has worked. And in a way, maybe the youth sector decision makers have adapted and used quite well.

Dunja:
I would agree with Tanya and international organisations actually present a very important factor of influence in this region. For instance, when youth partnership organises seminars, they're always trying to engage policymakers, researchers, young people and youth workers in one place. And they're trying to raise awareness of the policy processes, of the needs of young people. And it is although majority of the documents issued by the Council of Europe are on the level of recommendations they present, non-formal pressure on the national institutions to adapt to the changes, to embrace new policies and so on. And good feature of the youth organisations in this region is that they have a strong tradition of youth work emerging from traditional peace building. They have effective established networks and they have skilled and committed youth workers, and they're very adaptable to the changes. And they're willing to cooperate with stakeholders from the public and private sector, but of course, there is a very high need to enhance this cross-sectoral cooperation and to make the institutions at the national, regional and local level, to include youth workers and young people in the policymaking, in reviews of the policies and of course, in evaluation of the policies. And it is something that doesn't always work.

Dariusz:
Let's maybe talk a bit about youth work as a profession or as an occupation in these two regions. We have been talking about recognition in almost all episodes of our podcast. What are your thoughts about it after your research?

Max:
So, here again, I would have to say that it's difficult to provide a regional perspective because things are quite different between the different countries and it's even difficult to group them because they are differences at different levels. So, I think, by large, youth work remains a poorly regulated profession or occupation.

Max:
So, for example, when it comes to educational pathways and structures, there are few formal training programs for youth workers. It's Belarus and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan, most recently actually, that have developed formal training programs for youth workers. And in countries like Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, those structures are not in place. But this does not stop youth workers from actually getting education. So they either get it abroad, they get it through non-formal programs. They are very often self-taught as well. So there's a lot of initiative and resourcefulness that you see on the part of youth workers. You have countries such as Ukraine where some groups within the youth sector have decided to, in anticipation of legal and policy changes, to organise those educational processes ahead of the rest before it falls into place. And you have sometimes national programs for for youth workers that started even without due accreditation from formal bodies. But they are just a reflection of the fact that youth workers are out in the field, especially in the non-formal sector, and are independent of the policy changes at national level. They do deliver youth work. They do need skills, and they find all sorts of ways, very creative ones, educating themselves online, educating themselves through non-formal programs such as within European platforms, such... some provided by the Council of Europe, some provided by the partnerships, some provided by the Erasmus Plus programme.

Max:
And they do this without waiting for the formal recognition. And there is little formal recognition of youth work as a professional, occupation in the region. With some exceptions, that there Armenia and Moldova, there's a definition of youth work and definition of youth workers in legal and policy documents. But actually this is not to say that Armenia and Moldova are shining examples of resourcing and supporting youth work. So I would say that we have quite a long way to go in terms of recognising youth work as a profession, as an occupation. And this is a good place for us to refer to the Bonn process and the actions that can be taken for youth work across Europe in the follow up to the very recent European Youth Work Convention and the fact that supporting quality development and supporting recognition of youth work and supporting those educational pathways should take place and should be more intense in order to give a better platform and provide better support to to professional development of youth work.

Dunja:
The lack of recognition of youth actually leads to high turnover of youth workers because they don't have qualifications in most countries, they're not recognised and they're usually not able to find a stable job.

Dunja:
So, they're leaving the sector after a while and also even if they do have a contract, they're very often employed under precarious conditions. They're actually various ways of becoming youth worker in the region. So, through informal education, through working with young people and sometimes through formal education. For instance, in Novi Sad in Serbia, there is university study for youth workers and youth leaders. And in Croatia, there is a lifelong learning program in English jointly performed by University Rijeka, Institute of Social Research in Zagreb and University of Ljubljana. And, also in Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro Proni Association is holding courses for youth workers. So, there are some structures, but the situation is quite different when it comes to recognition of youth workers. I already said in the beginning of our discussion that only Serbia and Slovenia actually do recognise youth workers and youth worker profession to some extent. In other countries, this profession and youth work as such is still under-valued.

Dariusz:
Thank you for this. We can talk for hours, but but we will also, of course, direct our listeners to the publications that you were co-authoring. I would like to end up with, with thinking about what the future looks like for youth work in these two regions, I was wondering if you see any developments or new trends that are appearing or something that needs to be taken care of when it comes to youth work, practice and youth policy. Maybe also connecting it a little bit with with how these developments can be actually supported by the European Youth Work Agenda and the Bonn process. Max already started to talk a little bit about it, but maybe we can connect it, if possible of course.

Max:
If I can focus maybe on one area, because I would say in broad terms, if I were to look at trends are interesting things happening pretty much in all aspects, in all areas of youth work, because I think what really characterises youth work sector in Eastern Europe now, but I think over the last three decades really is its dynamism. So, things changed a lot and a lot of them for the better, sometimes for the worse as well. So I think frequent changes everywhere and new trends emerging. But I think one area that we should pay particular attention to and I think that that links in well with the European youth work agenda is that of quality assurance. And in most countries at least of the region that I was looking at, that's Eastern Europe, there is not a long track record of quality assurance frameworks for youth workers. There's a lot of quality youth work. There's a lot of framework to support youth work. But quality assurance, both internal and external, has not been a very prominent feature of those systems. And I think this is where developing standards for youth work and linking them to the policy and linking it to increased professionalisation of youth workers is first of all a need, secondly, a trend.

Max:
And this is the one where international organisations have actually had a lot of impact. And you could see how a lot of the international expertise and good practice collected by either international framework. So, the EU, Council of Europe and the Youth Partnership, for example, or programs supported by such institutions, national level programs implemented by UN organisations in Moldova or some U.N. organisations in Georgia. There is a need for quality assurance. There is a lot that the international community and the international organisations can offer. And this is also a good entry point for for the countries of the region to join in the Bonn process and to show that they have a keen interest in implementing the agenda, the European youth work agenda on the ground in terms of developing quality assurance frameworks. There's a lot of good practice out there already. And I think all countries in the region from Moldova all the way towards Azerbaijan could benefit from strengthening quality assurance, including international instruments, but also developing their own once, and especially with the aim of increasing youth participation and making sure that young people have a role and a say in what is quality youth work. And it's not only coming from the top.

Dunja:
I would like to talk about the recognition, the needs of the young people on the local level, which I already mentioned in the beginning. And due to the COVID pandemic, all stakeholders have recognised that they have to put more resources into the local level and also that young people have to be taken care in sense of mental health. So, if you have young people on the local level without any reliable infrastructure and any youth centre where they could get reliable information and where they could be provided help and advice, then their mental health is really in danger. Also, there is a need to develop cross-sectoral inter-sectoral cooperation and to include not only youth workers, but also the research community in order to create reliable, applicable and evidence-based policy. And, also talking about the Bonn process, we need to provide space for dialogue where voices of young people could be heard, where they can feel safe. So, we have to invent new ways how to engage young people and how to raise awareness that their voice actually matters, that they can make an influence. And we have to provide them with the tools and with the mechanisms to make the impact on the society.

Tanya:
Maybe I can add. Yeah, I was thinking actually in terms of trends or what we could expect for sure, there is a need to focus on keeping the steady course forward, that a lot has happened, but a lot has happened because of the energy and enthusiasm of some groups.

Tanya:
And all this needs to be... This energy has to be pulled together. And of course, for that you need to have functioning parts of the whole system. Another area that maybe we don't know much about and it will be really interesting to observe will be will we still have, for example, young people in these regions having other priorities than the young people across Europe? So, for example, of course, the environmental movement, the sustainability, the climate change movements that have been global movements, and you find young people in all the countries wanting to be part of that, wanting to do something for that. But that they have not been the main concerns of needs of young people in these regions. Unemployment, precariousness, poverty, social exclusion, health care, education, for example, good quality education. All of these things have been much more prioritised, understandably so, by young people, as their needs in these regions. And then when you when you are in the European context, then you see these dichotomies. And at some point there is divergence, because, of course, if you cannot come to common interest, then you start to work on your own interests. That will be very interesting to observe because youth workers have this role of bridge builders and they often bring this agenda into their local reality through this international exchange.

Dariusz:
Thank you very much. I know that we are not able to talk about everything because we only have less than 30 minutes.

Dariusz:
But I think is a lot of important information to know about the youth work in in Eastern Europe and also Southeast Europe. Thank you, Dunja. Thank you, Max. And thank you Tanya for participating. That's it for today.

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