Our Young Service Steward program is aimed to prevent the growing competence gap between activation programs and the digital and soft skills needs of the labour market and to mature employment within welfare and environmental services.
Thanks to the “European Year of Youth 2022” the role and support opportunities of youth come in the spotlight at all decision-making level in whole Europe. We strongly believe the “Think globally, act locally” principle related to the involvement on NEETs to local communities, that’s why YSS strive to make impact for the NEETs and communities by developing and using a very new toolset to reach our project goals.
Solid experience from the Scandinavian countries have proven, that the strongest positive impact on youth unemployment and negative exclusion, appears when all main stakeholders (public/private/NGO) in a local community contribute to solutions, and to join efforts to increase the pathways and attention towards the NEET 25-29 target group. This cooperation between stakeholders can have various formats.
The developed tools of the program – such as – digital competence training, life skills trainigs, guide for counsellors and mentors – will be based on the results of the need description of the local implementation.
A special Norwegian developed “Mapping Tool” will be introduced. The mapping tool will be a tool for trainers/consultants working with the NEETs in orders to better find the connection between the individual youth and the possibilities for job/training and education. The tools can be used both as self-assessement and under guiding of consultant. Approaches are:
- Mapping of the NEETs individual preferences
- Mapping of the NEETs work interests
- Mapping of the NEETs story and actual life challenges
The engaged NEETs impact
The Young Service Steward program cannot be successful without the commitment of involved young people, so we place particular emphasis on their satisfaction. To reach this, we plan to:
- Deliver counselling activities that are specifically targeted at improving young people’s mental and physical wellbeing.
- Involve multidisciplinary experts in counselling and training activities: psychologist, coach, pedagogue etc.
- Organise project activities in a way where it is possible gradually to create relations and links to include the target group of NEETS (individually or in smaller groups) into other network/relations active in the local community.
- Prepare a viable format where each of the participating NEET can measure/experience their individual improvements and visualize it according to own needs.
The involved stakeholders’ impact
If we do our job as good as we planned the local stakeholders will follow the progress and it may make them open to taking the results forward independently after the project finished:
- Stakeholders will speak positively with their collaborators and local areas about the project and the tools developed in the project.
- Stakeholders will continue to work with the target group after the YSS project, as it is a win-win situation for them. (Some of them are currently working with the target group members, and participation in the YSS project will allow them to increase both knowledge and exponentially improvements in their goals.)
Stakeholders will build relation to other providers of public work schemes and basic skills training for youth to develop relevance and participant motivation of education and employment offers in the local community. Often in targeted communities (rural areas) of our Young Service Steward Program having less opportunities for maintaining the necessary structure and competence needed to support the NEETs. Having impact for local communities in mind, project will work for reducing poverty, contribute to more sustainable cities and communities and reduce the inequalities. To help the local communities our goals are:
- To prepare the NEETs to be able to to think on their own how to find a job, or start their own business (by improving their personal and digital skills)
- To provide a toolset to heighten the effectiveness and successfulness of local activation programs (best practices, guidance) and to keep improving their quality by further usage of the project results.
All the developed tools of the YSS Project will be available from the project website of the Young Service Steward Program. Follow us, to stay informed: https://yssproject.eu/
