Youth work / Knowledge / Policy

know what ?

AUGUST 2014

N. 21

Contents

Images provided by the European Youth Information and Counselling

Agency ERYICA in partnership with the Council of Europe.

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by

Mark E. Taylor

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On behalf of the Coyote editorial team

Hello readers!

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If youre reading this edition on paper that means youve printed it yourself. Welcome to the new
online-only edition. We are experimenting with the possibilities this time and you will see that this
edition is more active, with links to sounds and sites. Please let us know what your reactions are to
this change, including what we can do to make Coyote more interactive.
Our team attended the Zagreb symposium Youth policy co-operation in South-East Europe: the
role of information and counselling in fostering young peoples social inclusion and access to their
rights, which gave us the chance to meet many passionate advocators and practitioners in the field
of youth information and counselling. As Morana Makovec (Head of department for youth policies in
the Croatian Ministry of Social Policy and Youth), one of the main organisers, told me that in addition
to learning about new tools for their regional information centres, she was hoping one of the main
messages coming from the event would be:
Information for all with the same standards and the same opportunities.

Coyote is published by the Partnership between the European Commission

and the Council of Europe in the field of youth. The main activities of the
partnership are training courses, seminars, and network meetings involving
youth workers, youth leaders, trainers, researchers, policy makers, experts
and practitioners. Their results are disseminated through different channels
including this magazine.
Coyote is not responsible for the content and character of the activities announced
in this magazine. It cannot guarantee that the events take place and assumes no
responsibility for the terms of participation and organisation.
Coyote aims to use a form of English that is accessible to all. We aim to be
grammatically correct without losing the individuality or authenticity of the
original text. Our aim is that the language used in the magazine reflects that
used in the activities described.
Some articles are offered by contribution and others are commissioned
specifically by the editorial team in order to achieve a balance of style and
content. If you have an idea for an article then please feel free to contact the
editor.

Coyote editorial team:

Mark E. Taylor (editor)
Marlies Pschl
Davide Capecchi
Matina Magkou
Co-ordination and
administration
Marta Medlinska
Viktoria Karpatska
SPDP, Council of Europe
Design & layout
The Big Family
Photos
Shutterstock (throughout the magazine)
Portraits provided by the authors except
for Fiona McIntyre, Sonja Mitter and
Matina Magkou (photos by Marlies
Pschl); Photo of Marlies Pschl by
Manuel Riegler

So contributions here really dive into the issues:

How do national policies support youth information?
Listen
What role does it play in setting up a Youth Capital of Europe?
How do young people inform each other?
What tools are available to develop the competences necessary to provide youth information and
counselling and what kind of professional profile is necessary?
Where do regional SALTOs focus their efforts?
How does working on a one-to-one basis help facilitate the transfer and use of information?
In addition, being in Zagreb, we could not help but stumble upon the Museum of Broken Relationships
(http://brokenships.com) which led us into an affectionate look at what the Partnership between the
European Commission and the Council of Europe in the field of youth has meant for different actors
over the years.
Many thanks to the organisers of the symposium for allowing us full access to all areas!
Enjoy your reading!

by Vedrana Bilii and Ivan Medi

Images by Marlies Pschl

A key event in the development of organised youth information and counselling in Croatia was an
initiative of the Ministry of Family Affairs, War Veterans and Intergenerational Solidarity during
the 2006 National Conference on Youth, which established concrete collaboration with organisations
that could, according to the estimation of the ministry and based on experience, carry out pilot
programmes for youth information centres in the four largest cities of Croatia: Split, Rijeka, Zagreb
and Osijek. The official government document summarising all the measures for
improvement of the status of youth in our society, the National Programme
of Action for Youth, recognised the need to establish centres which would
increase the level of youth information and inclusion and which could
proactively counsel young people and help them to find adequate sources of
quality and complete information more easily.

A youth information centre based on European

practices was a whole new challenge for Croatian
associations as they were only to starting to
build their recognisability and to earn credibility
in a society in which informing was still fairly
abstract and marginalised. In 2006, almost no
organisation, apart from the educational system,
was providing organised youth information.
Only a small number of organisations were
focused on informing and counselling, and
only in a small number of fields, while general
informing and developing media information
services were completely neglected. Accordingly,
the development of youth information centres
in Croatia is strongly connected with the
development of information channels and with
approaching young people. Unfortunately, nonprofit media (portals, TV and radio shows) are
significantly underestimated in Croatia. There
is no comprehensive and continuous strategy
for their development, which is additionally
constrained by bad legislation.
In 2013, some positive changes were made at
the national level in the context of legislative
amendments and funding for non-profit media.
It is also expected that the new national youth
programme, for 2014 to 2018, will pay adequate
attention to informing and counselling and thus
provide a better response to challenges regarding
the promotion of youth media. Their development
hitherto, in spite of recognised needs, has not
been encouraged adequately. The upcoming
Law on Youth, which will standardise and define
roles and terminology, should contribute to the
improvement of the situation in the youth sector.

It is imperative to ensure, through an adequate

financing system, the sustainability of youth
information centre programmes. They are still
being financed through annual tenders which are
not called on a regular basis; they are usually late
for more than six months every year.
The membership of Croatian youth information
centres in the European Youth Information and
Counselling Agency (ERYICA) has significantly
strengthened the status of youth information
centres, especially at the local level, where the
membership is perceived as proof of excellence.
Communication and meetings with government
and ERYICA representatives, as well as the
structured work of organisations to strengthen
the programmes of youth information centres
have improved the already good reputation of
these organisations.
By signing the European Youth Information
Charter in 2012 the current government
recognised the problems concerning youth
informing and counselling and at the same
time acknowledged ERYICA and its members.
Since the early stages of the youth information
centres programmes, each organisation has been
applying its knowledge and adapting its services
to local conditions. The experience of the PRONI
Centre for Social Education is very important
because PRONI has been applying the experience
of similar centres in Europe in its work from the
start. Although a significant level of diversity in
the means of informing and in paying attention to
certain subjects is present even today, the social
inclusion of youth is a mutual goal.

There is also an effort to conduct, through the

Croatian youth information centres, a strategy
at the national level, which focuses primarily
on consolidating the capacities of organisations
working in youth information, increasing work
quality and expanding the network of youth
information centres. This is why the membership
in ERYICA is very important. In addition to the
exchange of information and knowledge, this
membership also gives us the possibility for
capacity consolidation through licensed and
standardised education, which has led to the
establishment of a Croatian team of trainers. This
is essential when it comes to increasing the number
of workers educated for youth information.
Generally speaking, young people are mostly
interested in information regarding the fields of
education, mobility and employment. In some
youth information centres, the priority is to provide
individual youth informing and counselling. Others
pay more attention to public discussions, round
tables, lectures and other similar forms of group
informing. Activities of youth information centres,
outside the facilities of the centres, are focused
on web-portal maintenance, media appearances,
guest lectures in schools and presentations at
stands during public events, co-organisation of
lectures and participation in public discussions
and other similar events.
Some youth information centres have developed
their own, original ways of providing information.
For example, an event called Info kopa is
organised within the RICM (regional youth
information centre) of the city of Split. During
this event, professional speakers visit secondary
schools and inform young people about the fields
covered by the national youth programme through
a series of short and dynamic presentations. An
advisory committee, formed by representatives

of institutions and organisations that work with

young people, is a successful model of collaboration,
development and information exchange between
different sectors. This model came to life in 2009
at the RICM in Osijek and other youth information
centres are accepting it gradually. In order to
establish an even closer contact with young people
at the RICM of Osijek, a youth information fair
called Informiranje mladih Osijek (IMOS, Youth
Information Osijek) is held every year. During the
fair, institutions and organisations present their
services to young people.
Info zona started its work in 2006 as a nonformal coalition of associations. Since then, it has
been constantly developing in the field of youth
information and youth policy. Info zona bases
its work on sociological research into the need
for youth information, which the organisation
conducted in the area of Split in 2011. The
research confirmed that young people today
can be informed, counselled and encouraged to
actively participate in social life while using means
and services which are interesting to them. It is
important to emphasise that printed brochures
and flyers, as well as public discussions, which are
the most common means of youth information
and inclusion in different activities within many
associations, are considered dull by young people.
Info zona pays a considerable amount of attention
to informing through different types of media,
such as the Internet, radio shows and TV reports
on local networks and uploaded on Internet
channels. The diversity of information channels is
extremely significant when you consider that many
young people live in isolated areas, especially on
the islands, where young people in general are
constrained in many ways, including from the lack
of services which could strengthen their personal
growth.

Since the very start, the ministry insisted on the

inclusion of local authorities in the programme
implementation. However, their engagement
is often reduced to conducting tenders and
sometimes to confrontations with opposing
political parties at the state level. Institutions
perceive the role of youth information centres,
and the possibility to make their services more
available to youth, very differently. However, in
general, the possibilities for collaboration have
not yet been recognised. The city of Split has
collaborated extremely well with Info zona. On the
local level, Info zona is perceived as an excellent
partner when it comes to projects focused on the
social inclusion of youth. The city of Split and
Info zona are working together towards creating
a youth centre and thus using the potential of
all institutions and youth associations in the
surrounding region.
Croatias membership in the European Union
brings many new challenges. This is why it is
imperative for Croatia to become more actively
involved in European strategies in all fields. In
recent years the Croatian Agency for Mobility and
EU Programmes has been trying to implement a
Eurodesk service in partnership with civil society
organisations. Progress has already been made
in youth information centres, but it is necessary
to standardise the work of all the centres as soon
as possible. Standardisation would facilitate all
mutual actions, comparisons and evaluations. It is
important to underline the need for the expansion
and strengthening of the network of local youth
information centres, especially in rural parts
of the country and on the islands, where young
people are significantly limited when it comes to
their personal growth. Government authorities on
all levels must assume their role in this process,
which is why we hope that the new national
youth programme will provide a more adequate
response to current challenges.

What is it like to be a teenager in need of information in Zagreb? I put on

my sneakers and set out to find the answer at the Youth Info Centre Zagreb,
which is a project of the association Zamisli. This might already show you
that Im not that young at heart anymore, because as I will find out later on,
most requests are actually happening online via e-mail or Facebook. This
seems understandable since the youth info centre is located in the south of
the city, 20 minutes by tram from the central square. The office of Zamisli is
a small but friendly space, packed with books, folders and leaflets. The six
women who work there are like living books: they have lots of information
and experience to share and like in youth information, each of them
joined in the conversation to give her views and expertise.
Zamisli (Imagine) could be called an octopus in the youth
field: it is not only one of the four regional youth info centres in
Croatia (covering Zagreb and the provinces in the north), but the
organisation also provides counselling and support to teenagers
with disabilities. Being a professional youth counsellor, Ivana tells
me doesnt mean that we know everything. But we do research
and contact people who know the answer, so we can gather all the
necessary information or connect the young people with them.
The organisation tries to react in very flexible ways to the needs of the
young people that come to consult them for example they invented a
special typewriting service for deaf students, as Svjetlana Marijon (president
of Zamisli) told me. One of the deaf students told us: I would like to
study, but I am not able to participate in class so what can you do? We
remembered that at a conference in Innsbruck, we saw that someone was
typing for a deaf participant. We thought: thats an example of good practice;
we could try that.
One of their aims for the future is to spread out, says Ivana Kuzmanic: We
are hoping to have a bigger youth centre not just a youth info centre, but a
real youth centre. This is an ambitious project since youth info centres and
youth clubs, for example, usually have to be in separate spaces in Croatia.
Were now in the starting phase, but eventually we have to talk to the city
about the space we would like. The problem is that you need constant money
if you want to maintain the quality of your work. The fact that their funding
is always project based makes it difficult for Zamisli to plan for the future.
But the organisation wouldnt be called Imagine if they hadnt already
got an idea on how to make their plan possible. Maja Dragojevic imagines
the future like this: Now that Croatia is entering the European Union, the
structure fund will be open for us and we would like to apply for it. Like this
we will have more chances for our ideas to be recognised.

You dont become a European Youth Capital every day.

Having this young but still prestigious title is of a great
importance for a city and a unique opportunity to invest in
youth. How is the issue of youth information and counselling
treated by a youth capital? Thessaloniki has the title in 2014
and Coyote interviewed Babis Papaioannou, Co-ordinator of
Thessaloniki 2014, to find out what the city plans in this direction.

An interview with Babis Papaioannou by Matina Magkou

Images provided by Babis Papaioannou and Yiannis Boutaris

The European Youth Capital (EYC) is the title awarded to a European

city for the period of one year, during which it will be given the chance
to showcase, through a multi-faceted programme, its youth-related
cultural, social, political and economic life and development. The EYC
initiative encourages the implementation of new ideas and innovative
projects, with regard to active participation of young people in society,
and seeks to present a role model for the further development of youth
policies in other European municipalities.1

10

Allow me to start by giving you some historical background of youth

policy in Greece. The first time that the government and the public
sector in general paid any attention to youth policy was in 1982,
which brought in the same year the establishment of the General
Secretariat for Youth. Since then, several structures for youth
information and counselling were developed (under the title of
youth information centres); first in Athens and Thessaloniki (during
the 1980s) and then to the rest of the country (during the 1990s).
The youth information centres achieved very impressive results in
certain cases concerning youth information, youth mobility and
support for local action, while also successfully connecting their work
with that of the local NGOs. These centres methodically encouraged
hundreds if not thousands of young people to be active in projects
with the EU, the Council of Europe or other organisations. Today,
the centres still exist, but in my opinion, in a different form which
is not really connected with the modern times and challenges. For
example, some of these centres arent up-to-date on the Internet,
they dont use social media, they dont follow or constructively
support youth NGOs and they cannot help young people to respond
to the recent crisis. It is easier for a young person in Athens, in
Thessaloniki or in Greece in general, to find the information he or
she seeks on the Internet and social networks or through a student
or youth NGO than through some of the existing centres.

11
1. To learn more: http://europeanyouthcapital.org
(date accessed 17.07.2013)

Again we should start by providing some information on how the

municipality of Thessaloniki won the title of European Youth
Capital. I believe it is interesting since it coincides with a very bad
moment in Greek history. In January 2011, the country was in
the eye of the storm; Greece was not considered as a trustworthy
country and was at its nadir in terms of international prestige. This
was the result of the negative news and images of the country in
European and global media. This was when we decided to apply for
the title for 2014. Moreover, we agreed from the beginning that we
were going to be open and democratic. We agreed that this was an
opportunity for social innovation and mitigation of youth exclusion.
So instead of consulting experts and private companies specialised
in the development of proposals, we invited the citys youth, youth
NGOs and people involved in youth issues to an open dialogue. The
dialogue concerned the city and youth problems and dreams, and
provided the space for proposing and exploring possible future, local
youth projects.
The results of this process were amazing: for four months,
Thessaloniki became an open social laboratory. We applied nonformal education methods which allowed the deployment of fresh
suggestions for Thessalonikis youth, while recognising the local
actions in which the municipality of Thessaloniki had to invest
resources for the upcoming period and offered almost all the
material which was required for the European Youth Capital
candidacy. Moreover, apart from the applications
material, the municipality started to formulate a
new local youth policy which focused on youth
information and support. The European Youth
Capital programme ensures the strengthening
of existing youth structures and the enhancement
of networking (local, national and international levels). In
addition, it is improving the co-operation between the European
Youth Capital 2014 team and local youth NGOs and initiatives,
while supporting the development of youth structures. We are
trying to build and support youth structures in a way that can be
sustainable for the municipality of Thessaloniki and the rest of the
local municipalities from 2015 onwards.

For the European Youth Capital 2014 the issue of

youth information and counselling is a top priority.
In this direction, we have started to circulate a
monthly e-newsletter informing the local, national
and international communities about activities on
youth policy and its implementation and about
the activities of the European Youth Capital 2014
programme. On our Facebook page (that counts
more than 22 500 friends), we are publishing daily
info posts and answers to questions put forward by
young people. There one can also find our online
helpdesk.
The municipality of Thessaloniki, taking the
opportunity of the European Youth Capital
programme, is continuing a social experiment in
the city with the aim to establish this dialogue in
a continuous way; it has created youth counselling
and youth support structures with the active
participation of young people and youth NGOs.
From the experience until now, we can see that
people who are engaged with the youth movement
field and youth NGOs, and are aware of current
European youth policies, can provide more
effective youth solutions and proposals. Moreover,
the people that work at the youth centres should be
able to understand the EU and Council of Europe
communications and actions, while being able to
adapt European youth policies to the local level
by using open consultation methods and tools (as
they derive from non-formal education practices).
The European Youth Capital 2014 team members,
who deal with these issues, have the characteristics
described above and have been or still are active
members of civil society in Thessaloniki.

Concerning the type of questions submitted to

the European Youth Capital 2014 until now, the
statistics show that the dominant (45%) interest
lies in proposals for local projects. Most people
have good ideas but they dont know how to finance
them. The second type of question (30%) concerns
youth employment, youth entrepreneurship,
the social economy and even requests for a job.
The third type (20%) concerns establishing
international co-operation and international
good practices exchange. Also, some want just to
communicate their experience of programmes
which have already taken place in some other parts
of the world. Finally, a small percent (5%) is what
we call building youth policy which includes
institutional issues. This type tries to establish an
interactive relationship between young people and
the municipality of Thessaloniki that embraces
participation and co-decision taking for young
people.
On one hand, we aim to be consistent and to
answer all the questions and proposals from the
young people or older people who are concerned
about youth. On the other hand, we try to extract
conclusions on the trends in Thessaloniki and what
the main problems are, while having in our minds
that the crisis is still present in the city and the
country. By using this prism, we work to respond
to questions that address the most crucial current
youth problems.

effort of the Greek youth to survive this socioeconomic crisis all provide an amazing, creative
and challenging environment.

In the last three years, we have travelled a lot

across Europe and elsewhere in order to study
good examples and practices in the youth field,
including procedures for constructive co-operation
between NGOs and municipalities. I should say
that we found a lot in Europe. They come from
cities that survived periods of de-industrialisation
which negatively affected their societies, from
cities which were in transition from one social
system to another or from cities which were led by
an inspired mayor who had a vision and made a
difference. I will avoid naming these cities, but I
will not avoid saying that we will try to adapt and
implement as many good examples as possible.
Our goal is to develop a new youth support model,
conceived with the Greek reality in mind and
which has as its foundations EU and Council of
Europe youth policies.

The legacy of European Youth Capital 2014 in the

city is what concerns us the most. All the people
working or volunteering for the European Youth
Capital in 2014, from the mayor himself to the
local NGOs, are confident that 2014 will be a
very interesting year for youth in Thessaloniki
and Greece. The coincidence of the Greek EU
Presidency in the first semester of 2014, the
European Parliament elections in the middle of
the year, the EU programming period 2014-2020,
the ongoing debate on the future of Europe and
the European Agenda 2020 but also the anxious

Our goal for 2015 and onwards takes into

consideration all the efforts and huge resources
invested by the municipality from 2011 to 2014 and
has three axes. The first axis is the development of
a permanent structure for local youth information
and support. This structure can be the conversion
to a complex youth information centre which
will take advantage of the local experience and
conserve interactive youth spaces (there is no
such structure currently in Thessaloniki). The
second axis is the establishment and maintenance
of open, effective and democratic permanent
youth consultation processes for the municipality
of Thessaloniki. This process will start by the
development of a local youth action plan which
takes into consideration the proposals of the
Council of Europe on local youth participation
and on the Local Youth Council Foundation, as it
is a good tool for ensuring tangible positive effects
for young people. The third axis is the repetition
and institutionalisation of the best actions of the
European Youth Capital 2014 programme. The
crucial criterion for selecting the best actions is
going to be their acceptance by local young people.
The European Youth Capital 2014 is a big bet.
We are taking the bet and we have to prove both
to the European Youth Forum, which trusted us
with the title, and to the local youth that we can
respond to their expectations. We are obliged to
win the bet, especially for the local youth. They
have believed in the municipality and in the city
and they have supported our actions from the very
beginning. And so did the rest of the citizens who
celebrated with us when Thessaloniki was declared
the next European Youth Capital. We believe that
the legacy of Thessaloniki as capital will be only
positive, not only for the youth of Thessaloniki, but
for the entire city.

Youth participation and volunteerism were the core values

at the heart of our candidacy in 2011 for the European
Youth Capital 2014, which was prepared and submitted
in collaboration with 150 youth organisations of the city
and more than 250 volunteers. Hosting the European
Youth Capital is a unique opportunity for us to create a
communication platform for our youth to openly discuss and
exchange ideas.
Additionally, it gave us the chance to re-activate the Youth
Information Centre Network, in collaboration with the
General Secretariat for Youth. The main offices of the youth
information centre are now at the city hall and this allows
us to considerably improve the information and counselling
services provided to young people. We see the European
Youth Capital 2014 as an opportunity to build long-lasting
infrastructure in the service of our youth.
Yiannis Boutaris
Mayor of Thessaloniki

Babis Papaioannou is a youth worker and is

currently the Co-ordinator of the European Youth
Capital Thessaloniki 2014. He has been active in
the civil society of his city for more than 25 years
and has a lot of experience on youth issues in
South-East Europe. He is a founding member of
the Network of Voluntary Organisations of the
city of Thessaloniki and has been a member of the
board of the European Youth Forum.

by Matina Magkou
Images by Marlies Pschl

The setting: Youth policy co-operation in South-East Europe,

Symposium on the role of information and counselling in fostering
young peoples social inclusion and access to their rights organised
by the Partnership between the European Commission and the
Council of Europe in the field of youth, the Ministry of Social Policy
and Youth of Croatia, ERYICA and SALTO RC SEE
Dates: 19 and 20 June 2013
Interviewees: Ante Martic (policy), Sladjana Petkovic (research),
Zoran Ilieski and Jan Kulenovic (practice)
Duration of interviews: 30 min to 90 min
Interview locations: coffee shop outside the symposium hotel/
corridor outside plenary room/hotel restaurant
Photo opportunity location: white chairs on 1st floor lobby
I should start by saying that what you will read below is not a typical
interview. It is actually four different conversations driven by curiosity:
if we are in a symposium on youth information and counselling in
South-Eastern Europe, what makes this region so special and what
are the common (if there are any) challenges, wishes or opportunities
regarding youth information and counselling among countries in this
region? This curiosity pushed me to look for free moments during the
symposium to talk with four different people representing what we call
the golden triangle of youth work.
If you are also curious, read below to see what I found out.

If the first thing that comes to your mind when you

think about a triangle is geometry or a (special)
love affair, you are not too wrong, but you might
be missing something there. Using the term
golden triangle in youth work is a reference to
the interrelationship that exists (or should exist)
between youth policy, practice and research. The
geometrical form of a triangle designates the
way these three aspects of youth work are linked
to each other and represents what I would call a
holistic approach to youth issues. There is of
course debate concerning the accuracy of the
term, since some argue that this golden triangle
needs to be enlarged to a square incorporating
youth organisations and young people.1 But this
is another conversation. Lets concentrate on our
triangle.

for Youth at the Ministry of Social Policy and Youth

in Croatia. But my experience comes from my
NGO work and the European Youth Forum, he
said. Coming back to Croatia from Brussels, Ante
worked for the youth information centre in Rijeka
and then joined the public administration and
worked in the co-ordinating institution for civil
society. When in 2011 there was a political decision
to create a strong youth sector, they proposed me
to take this position given my experience on the
local, national and international level. When I was
working for the youth NGO sector I never thought
I would do this, but, as you understand, I couldnt
say no.

Curiosity conversation #1:

from practice to policy?

I then asked Ante what was the situation of youth

policy in his country. In Croatia, for the last 20
years the youth sector was somehow neglected and
most of the developments have been the result of
grass-roots initiatives or financed through tenders
for projects coming from EU funds and embassies.
In the mid-2000s the scene developed but still
youth policy was not articulated in an inclusive
or sustainable way. There was no commitment
to developing a proper legislative framework
what was there was more of a strategy than a real
policy. While youth organisations and activities
were developing in many directions at the same
time, the main priority of the institutional support
in recent years went around the creation of a
legislative framework (a law for youth) that could
be translated into a sustainable and evidencebased approach to youth policy.

The first person I talked to was Ante Martic in a

coffee shop outside the symposium hotel. It is quite
an untypical interview since I knew Ante from the
past when he was working for the European Youth
Forum in Brussels. Ante is today Head of the Sector

I wondered how his practical experience had

helped him in his current role. He answered with
a smile that for years I was on the other side of
the equation and this has helped me to learn the
processes.

The principle behind the symposium held in

Zagreb was actually to bring actors from all three
fields (remember the triangle corners) together.
Even if youth policy makers, practitioners and
researchers work in the same field, they rarely have
the opportunity to sit at the same table, exchange
views or nurture each others work. This becomes
even more complicated at the international level.
Accepting this reality, just the fact of being at this
symposium seems to be a kind of a privilege and
triggers even more my curiosity conversations.

1. http://youth-partnership-eu.coe.int/youth-partnership/documents/Publications/Coyote/16/arriving.pdf (date accessed 31.07.2013)

Curiosity conversation #2:

I need an example of what happens
in practice
I joined Zoran Ilieski for lunch on the second day of
the symposium. Zoran is Executive Director of the
National Coalition of Youth Organisations (SEGA)
in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
During the last four years, we have been trying
to develop a youth information system and
mechanisms that will provide opportunities for
young people to be in touch with the information
they need. We need to take into consideration that
in the country there was no previous experience nor
any memory of this compared to other European
countries, he explained.
By becoming a partner of EYRICA they tried to
use different tools from information centres in
other European countries and to negotiate with
the government. But the first steps were very
difficult, he said, as nobody knew what you
were talking about, and they couldnt understand
the value of information systems. Today, the
issue of youth information is still unknown by the
stakeholders, the government, as well as young
people themselves, he explained. In 2010 they
opened the first youth information and counselling
centre in Prilep. The local government has provided
the facilities but the financial support from the
central government was only guaranteed for a
year. Although there is a political commitment
to open youth information, there is no financial
implication in the governments budget, he said.

Curiosity conversation #3:

one more example from practice,
please
I approached Jan Kulenovi because my curiosity
drove me to ask for another example from a
practice perspective. Jan made a presentation
during the symposium on good practices in the field
of employment and entrepreneurship and allow
me to be subjective at this point what he said was
quite motivating. Jan is the Executive Director and
Founder of the Youth Information Agency (OIA)
in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which works for the
improvement of the position of young people and
their participation in society. I need to put it into
context, he said when I asked him to explain me
how the agency was founded. Twelve years ago,
when the agency was founded, the key players in
the youth sector were international organisations
because of the post-conflict and transition period.
Therefore, the Open Society Fund, as part of their
youth strategy, established a year-long strategy
that afterwards evolved into an NGO with youth
information as one of its pillars of work. There
was no and there is still no government support;
funding comes from international organisations,
he explained. Jan mentioned that since the
beginning we are trend-setters for a lot of different
tools and approaches, he explained and added that
all our activities are improving the situation of
youth officers, teachers in schools and politicians;
it is a constant, ongoing process. In his opinion,
what is important right now is to focus on more
co-ordinated and individualised programmes in
the field of youth employment (entrepreneurship,
career counselling, mentorship programmes) and
he explained that in his country, in 2012, they
opened an innovative social innovation incubator
which created synergies between different
activities (information points, mentorship, startup support, networking space) which reached
around 2 000 young people in Sarajevo. This is an
interesting model that, in co-operation with other
experts, can be transferable to other contexts or
communities, he said.

Curiosity conversation #4:

what is the role of research in this direction?
I could say that I am one of the pioneers when it comes to the promotion
and development of youth information in ex-Yugoslavia, especially Serbia
and Montenegro, said Sladjana when I asked her to present herself. I was
one of the trained youth workers and counsellors and I worked at the local
and national levels first to raise awareness of decision makers and create
opportunities, like services within existing organisations such as the Office
for Prevention of Drug Abuse. Sladjana has experience in youth work from a
practice point of view, but today she is a researcher in the youth field and one
of the experts of the European Knowledge Centre for Youth Policy.2 At the
moment of the interview she told me that she is doing a policy, institutional
and legal analysis which is going to identify gaps in different areas of youth
employment and participation in the region. Based on this research and
other input, a specific programme is going to be supported by the United
Nations. This sounds promising, but is it really effective? Sladjana thinks that
research needs to be put in the agenda it is the starting point. From my
experience and from the recent UN point of view, what has been highlighted
as a main obstacle for low youth motivation and participation was lack of
access to information, she added. Youth information and counselling are
the priority needs of young people in all policy areas, especially when it comes
to youth employment and participation; however, there is a lack of capacities
of public institutions to answer to these burning needs and in Montenegro
for example, international institutions are taking over, said Sladjana.

2. http://youth-partnership-eu.coe.int/youth-partnership/ekcyp/index

All four curiosity conversations evolved around the issue of challenges faced in the region concerning
youth information and counselling. Zoran thinks that youth information in the region is at a starting
point and young people in the region dont know they have the right to information. Jan mentioned
that the disadvantaged position of young people, the lack of an institutional framework (recognising
that maybe in Croatia there is one, but quite new) are among the common challenges in the region. We
still have to fight and to promote why youth information is needed instead of working on next steps of
defining creative ways and approaches to youth information; it is a pre-period where we still fight for
recognition, he said.
Ante underlined that first of all there is a big problem of understanding the added value of this kind
of work and he explained that in many countries of SEE, young people are seen through a prism of
prevention and protection instead of participation and empowerment. Efforts to help young people
with their self-orientation or involving them in decision making are often seen as encouraging political
ambitions. Politicians need to see quick and final results.
Although SEE countries share geographical and historical connections, Ante mentioned that the situation
in South-East Europe is different from country to country and added that in Serbia for example there
has been a lot of work in terms of legislation; there are youth agencies and offices on the local level and
an umbrella organisation for youth organisatons has been put into place with state support. Croatias
integration into the EU has also allowed youth information centres to connect a lot with Eurodesk and
other international networks, while still working with counterparts in the region. Ante feels that Croatia
has the responsibility to transfer its experience to other EU candidate countries within the region. All
Balkan countries are aspiring members, the question is only about the speed, but sooner or later they will
join the EU and Croatia can offer a lot of advice based on our experience.
Lack of funds was a problem identified by all of them. However, Jan underlined that, from a practical
point of view, the contribution that we need primarily from governments is not only through budget
allocations but it can also be through infrastructure support, creating the space for official links between
youth practice and information provision with the school system and support to NGOs and conditions
that can create long-term co-operation between the educational system, employers and the private
sector.

Can a triangle be solid if there is no communication and co-operation between its corners? This was a
question that bothered all the interviewees and my curiosity drove me to find some answers on what
could be done.
Policy, especially in the region, needs to come down from the ivory tower, said Ante and added that
the only way to do it is by establishing an inclusive, sustainable and participatory process that involves
the practitioners, otherwise policy is only created to provide a framework for a portion of the population
to enjoy their rights, while the ones dealing with implementation or working with a certain target group
know best the technical and content needs when it comes to youth information and counselling.
Ante commented that in Croatia there is an effort to connect research with policy and practice. They
engage researchers in dealing with strategic and legal documents. They also did extensive research on
youth needs and they based the new national youth programme on the results. But as Ante noted, there
are some limitations to research outcomes, especially when it is ordered research, it depends who
commissioned it, he said. Another problem that he identified is that research needs to be inclusive of the
real population it examines and that if there are no satisfactory data, then the research is not complete.
In recent decades, every five years the different is huge, therefore we need full insight and updated data,
we cannot rely on selective ones, he added.

Zoran thinks that youth research is one of the

issues to be included as a permanent practice in
youth work in order to ensure real information on
the needs of young people. In that direction, in
my country there is no youth information research
and having information on the topics, the quality
and type of information that young people need
will allow us (practitioners) to better define the
approach on how to deliver it to them, he said.
For Zoran, what practitioners need from policy
makers is strong political commitment for youth
information and allocating the specific budget for
youth information support. But he underlined that
the issue of how to put youth information on the
priority list of politicians, since they are the people
that take decisions remains one of the challenges
for practitioners. Zoran considers that the support
of the Council of Europe and other international
institutions could be valuable in order to involve
deeper the politicians through recommendations
to the government.
A research project done by the UN, The voice of
youth, was an example of how we occasionally
need concrete, evidence-based statistics and
analysis. It is interesting to see from a research
point of view how they access this information
and with a quality analysis we can decide which
approach is more suitable, said Jan. However,
what he pointed out was that, there is no
structured approach to research, it happens ad hoc
and its pretty improvised, thats why I am not sure
that this type of ad hoc information exchange can
really have any impact.
Evidence-based decision making is super
important, the role of research in this direction
is super important, but what is most important is
the communication between the famous triangle,
underlined Sladjana. Luckily, symposiums like this
one try to promote of this kind of communication
that is so needed.

For Ante, the ideal information and counselling

service would be a space with little or no
boundaries, a welcoming place where young
people would come and get what they need
without administrative burdens. A youth-friendly
place with peer communication, liberated from
prejudice. It cannot be a place where you are
judged. Its place where people can find shelter
from their own worries. And of course it needs
to be well equipped in technical terms and with a
well-trained staff.
Zoran said with a smile that he wishes that
small villages have a youth information point as a
structure especially for those young people who
want to have a future to live in the village.
Jan foresees that youth information in the next
years will be influenced by new technologies just
think that five years ago in 2008, almost no one in
Bosnia was using Facebook, therefore it is difficult
to predict. For him, youth information needs to
be immediately looking and updated towards new
technologies and in close co-operation with young
people, but what will stay the same is the need for
a youth-friendly language and approach.
Youth information should be put on the agenda.
I mean seriously. I am not sure how, but the EU
and other international institutions can help to
pressure governments in order to prioritise the
issue. Then we should seriously analyse existing
resources, see what public institutions offer and
what they can offer it is the only way to become
sustainable and visible, said Sladjana. Ante from
his side also made this point clear when he said that
no matter if you are an activist, or a researcher or
a policy maker, no matter on which side you stand,
you contribute somehow to the improvement of
the lives of young people; the ideal situation is
not an antagonistic one and all actors should be
working together instead of on opposite sides.

Just before the symposiums end, I finally managed to put them all
four of them together (with the help of Marlies) on white chairs,
hopefully not only for a photo opportunity. We had four people
interviewed but only three chairs available because a triangle
has only three corners. If I asked the four of them to play musical
chairs, they should all be able to win because a golden triangle
only works when all its three corners are held together: research,
policy and practice in youth work should be interconnected. So,
dont be surprised if Jan and Zoran (who were both interviewed to
bring in a perspective from youth work practice) are sharing the
same chair we had to apply the pigeonhole principle as it is
called in mathematics.3 We could still spend hours thinking where
to place young people in this photo if we wanted to represent the
geometry of the youth sector, but I think we can leave this question
for a future mathematical problem-solving exercise.

3. In mathematics, the pigeonhole principle states that if n items are put into m pigeonholes with n > m, then at
least one pigeonhole must contain more than one item. So, imagine that four pigeons need to be placed into three
pigeonholes. Can it be done? The answer is yes but there is one catch. The catch is that no matter how the pigeons
are placed, one of the pigeonholes must contain more than one pigeon. The idea is simple, isnt it ?

Images provided by LiJOT - Lithuanian Youth Council

by Evaldas Rupkus
Images courtesy of LiJOT

The right to information is so self-explanatory and such an

integral part of our everyday life that one could wonder why
we need specific information services for youngsters. In the
same way, for me, an urgent need for youth information
and counselling is just too obvious to be ignored. I observed
my classmates and friends who were having a lot of trouble
making decisions about what to do with their lives after
school, or to finish it at all. It was especially hard for them
because of their background: living in a small town, distant
from all economic, academic or cultural centres in a postSoviet country which has just joined the EU. Therefore they
felt the change only because a lot of EU flags were around
but they were not experiencing the opportunities the EU
had to offer. Some of them were facing financial obstacles
or social problems in families which meant they were not
able to make their own lives better than their parents
managed to. Now some of them have managed to find their
place in society and to create their own businesses and
families here, others are doing this successfully outside
of Lithuania mainly in the UK. Sadly, a couple of them
have not managed to finish their education because of early
pregnancy or a lack of motivation they still cannot see
where they are heading.

There are some success and failure stories, however

most of the time those who are doing what society
expects them to do and who belong to the so-called
middle class are not doing just fine or even OK.
They are gaining education, however only one
third of them are sure about their choice of studies,
most of them are still unemployed or poorly paid
and very dependent on circumstances that will
find them on the spot. Most of them still do not
know how different things function; how to solve
financial, social, health problems (lets not forget,
that Lithuania is still a leader in suicide rates);
what opportunities in general are open for them.
During a couple years of work as a Eurodesk relay
I noticed that something more holistic in terms of
general youth information and counselling was
needed for our youngsters. They do not need to
be in the worst possible, vulnerable situation for
every youngster the transition period to adulthood
is a crucial time of their life, where parents cannot
help in every case, because in their time most of
the things we have today worked in another way.
So they need some professional and youth-friendly
support.

Setting up structured
information services in Lithuania
When I started working as the Eurodesk Lithuania
national co-ordinator, I noticed that youngsters
were searching for information in very different
ways. They needed some down-to-earth
communication in language they understood so
we established the I know it all programme for
renewed online services a revamped portal and
social media. Together with the national agency

for the Youth in Action programme we established

a young journalists network, which still works as
a peer-to-peer network and provides content for
our portal by youngsters themselves. However
this was not enough, because quite a lot of young
people still do not know about us or do not have
access to Internet or ICT skills. Therefore we
made a pilot of youth information centres as
Eurodesk representations in regions of Lithuania.
The main task for them was to implement work
that could be done outside Vilnius, reach out to
young people where they are and let them know
about us and answer their questions directly on
the spot. It works, it is needed, but there is a need
for a bigger second step: establishing generalist
youth information services with trained youth
information workers.
Thinking about the structure of youth information
and counselling at national and local levels started
in 2011 after a Nordbuk seminar, where there
was a small working group on youth information
by Finnish colleagues and representatives from
ERYICA. While sharing experiences and seeing
what generalist youth information actually is, I
got the feeling that this is exactly what we were
still lacking and had been looking for. Just after
this we organised an international seminar on the
structure of youth information with our regional
partners from neighbouring countries and
ERYICA. The Lithuanian Youth Council (LiJOT)
has attained the goal of establishing national
and local structures for youth information and
counselling (YIC) in the national programme of
development of youth policy, which now is the
main starting point for further work on this topic.

ium

Compendium

A first-aid kit for initiators

While we are moving along with the creation process, there
are still plenty of European countries which still do not
take this existing pillar of youth policy and a great tool for
working with young people into consideration. Especially
countries with the same historical past as Lithuania do
not see the need to have a clear system of how to provide
youngsters with more than specialised information services
(most of the time for employment only). However young
people are moving on without this help and struggle with
different decisions which are important for them, and
should be for the state. As I started thinking and collecting
information on the establishment of youth information
and counselling structures in my country, I noticed a
lack of them. It is great to have the opportunity for your
own innovation and creativity, however there are some
experiences in other countries that are better to avoid.
Of course, many good practices could be adjusted right
away to your national context, you just need to know them.
A general overview of the history and determinants of youth
information in Europe is also where everyone interested
should be starting his or her research. Another very
important aspect for initiators of YIC structures is having
a list of arguments and some empirical data on the impact
of YIC, when it comes to lobbying and the policy-making
process, where it is very easy to get lost. Thats why ERYICA
came up with the idea of having a publication a kind of
compendium on national YIC structures, which would be
helpful for initiators of youth information and counselling
structures at the national level and for youth policy experts
and politicians who are making decisions on this issue. A
first-aid kit is a practical tool, which I also needed when
I started working on explaining what generalist YIC is, and
what it is not. The compendium also aims to gather the
most important facts and figures and to put some structure
to the essence of generalist YIC to make it more clear
and concrete for everyone. Let me show you what are
we preparing and how helpful it could be if you are
thinking of starting a YIC structure in your country.

Compendium: to produce
arguments for policy makers

Impact of youth information

Is it possible to measure?

The compendium has been divided into four

parts: concept and development, state of the art
and impact as a policy measure, ERYICA and
its services, establishing youth information and
counselling structures at national level. The first
part of this publication outlines the definition
of YIC through a brief presentation of youth
information history major developments,
determinants in which the concept has emerged.
For this purpose not only existing documents were
analysed, but also pioneers of the concept of YIC
in different European countries were interviewed,
they are contributing to the publication with their
own articles and insights. Since the compendium
should be universal in all European countries,
a short overview of international institutions,
organisations and documents has been prepared.
The Council of Europe and the European Union
input into YIC and other European networks
such as Eurodesk or the European Youth Card
Association (EYCA) will be introduced to readers.
Probably the best way to understand how YIC
works, and what the different models of structuring
it on national levels are, is to present functioning
models in different national realities. Looking
at descriptions of Austrian, Finnish, French,
Portuguese, Croatian as well as Scottish, Welsh
and Flemish YIC structures by the same criteria
allows the reader to compare differences. It will
include short comments not only from pioneers
who are most often youth workers, academics or
representatives of NGOs, but also from politicians
who have supported this new way of working with
young people from the beginning. Therefore it will
help todays initiators to see arguments which have
helped in the past to promote the establishment of
YIC services.

The compendium is not only a compilation of

documents on YIC which have already been
created by different actors, this tool also aims to
make YIC more concrete and to provide initiators
with information on the impact that YIC has
for youngsters, the society and state. Every day,
during all these years of work in thousands of
youth information centres in different countries,
youth information workers see that their work is
needed and what impact they have on the lives of
young people. So the key to demonstrating this
lies in the method. Meanwhile there is an ongoing
YIC services users survey, which will provide us
with some very concrete quantitative data on the
impact of YIC services. The second part of the
compendium will include a summary of interviews
with co-ordinators of national YIC structures and
also academics will explain their research, which
should be transferred into a qualitative analysis.
We will provide readers with a list of problems that
YIC services can solve. Today, youth unemployment
is one of the biggest obstacles for successful youth
integration into society, which is why we will go
more into detail on YIC and possible synergies
with youth guarantee and youth employment in
general. To sum up, if the first part of the first-aid
kit for initiators of YIC on national level is more
introductory and provides an overview of YIC, the
second part aims to give some quantitative and
qualitative data and arguments which should help
initiators and lobbyists to explain and defend the
idea of YIC and show its impact.
Generalist youth information and counselling are
main concerns of the European Youth Information
and Counselling Agency (ERYICA), which has
been dealing with this topic since 1986. ERYICA

a
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is still actively helping countries which are
considering the establishment of YIC services and
promoting this actively at European level. ERYICA
offers a wide range of services, which can be very
helpful when starting a YIC structure at national
level. That is the main reason why the third
chapter of the compendium will present different
methodologies of training, good practice sharing
platforms (such as SHERYICA), publications and
projects created and offered by ERYICA. This
should help interested organisations or even policy
makers in the debates on how YIC should look in
their countries and provide them with a package
for a successful and easier start, preparation of the
first professional youth information workers and
international co-operation.

Guidelines for the beginner:

how to start?
Another important goal of the compendium on YIC
national structures is to enable beginners to plan
their own model YIC structure in their national
context based on experiences of countries where it
already exists. With input from different national
co-ordinators the compendium will present
possible ways to provide youth information at
national level. It includes all the main steps of
the process starting with a situation analysis of
young people needs, finding a suitable role for YIC
in the national context of youth policy, awareness
building and lobbying policy makers, getting YIC as
a part of youth policy in national and regional law.
A very important point is to decide which model
of governance of the YIC system will be chosen,
so readers will have the possibility to see the
comparison of existing models with their strengths
and weaknesses. Ensuring stable financing in a
time of restructuring of public finances is a timely
aspect, so some links to existing financial schemes
will be provided. Hiring and training staff, quality
of services and how to measure it, together with
some ideas on how to set up the regional network
and how international co-operation helps ensure
quality will enable initiators to see very practical

aspects of the establishment process. Nowadays it

is not possible to avoid the online part of YIC work,
so an article on planning and implementing online
services, communication and branding of online
and offline services will give some basic guidance.
More general overviews on methods of YIC
services, breaking down and explaining different
types of services, paying special attention to the
youth participation and peer-to-peer method and
also having a list of topics currently covered by
YIC in Europe should help as a source of ideas or
a good starting point for those who are planning
and taking decisions. Moreover, the European
Youth Information Charters principles and how
they are being implemented will help to evaluate
work and is meant to set a framework, which helps
when there is no other reference available. A list
with contacts of YIC structures and experts across
Europe will be also provided. Finally, the fourth
chapter of the compendium is a practical step-bystep toolkit with further referrals for those starting
something like YIC in their country.
Since the compendium by its nature is a collection
of different views and the variety of different
models of how YIC works in European countries,
we are not aiming to show one best way of how YIC
could function in your reality. It is too complex
and every situation must be taken as an individual
one. Therefore the Compendium on national
structures of youth information and counselling
will be a good starting point for explorers of the
very fascinating world of youth information.
We are doing our best to provide initiators and
policy makers with some empirical quantitative
and qualitative evidence on the impact of
youth information work, provide practical tools
and show some different experiences in other
countries, with further guidance. However you
need to be passionate about youth information
and counselling and believe that every youngster
should have the best possible knowledge on how
society works in order to create his or her life and
be an active, happy, healthy, critical, open-minded
person and national and European citizen.

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by Fiona McIntyre
(with a comment by Mika Pietil at the end)

A small country on the edge of Europe, Scotland is

renowned for its rugged mountainous landscape.
And the Scottish Government has lofty ambitions
too, saying it aims to make Scotland the best place
in the world to grow up.
So here, especially for Coyote, well investigate how
they will make that happen and the role that youth
information and counselling services can play.
With a population of 5.3 million and almost one million
young people aged between 10 and 24, the complex range
of needs is startling. Never daunted, the underpinning
national strategy is called Getting it Right for Every
Child. And they mean every child.
The entire concept of Getting It Right for Every Child
(GIRFEC) is based on addressing the needs of the whole
child/young person, with their overall well-being as the
ultimate priority. The move toward achieving this goal
started with a change of government in 2007. There was
a fundamental shift in policy from focusing on process to
working toward outcomes.

A national performance framework states the five strategic objectives along with
16 national outcomes. These are further broken down into national indicators.
GIRFEC is all about the Scottish Government, youth services and agencies, and
young people working together to promote children and young peoples rights
and support their well-being. One of the desired national outcomes for GIRFEC
shared with the Curriculum for Excellence in schools is that Scotlands
young people are successful learners, responsible citizens, confident individuals
and effective contributors.
The GIRFEC approach is to encourage services for children and young
people to work together to meet the needs of those they support. All
the main public bodies in Scotland support the GIRFEC principle.
At the heart of this approach is the well-being of children and young
people. This is defined as when they are:
safe
healthy
achieving
nurtured
active
respected
responsible
included.
This is not a short-term fix but aims to inspire long-term cultural change at
individual level for all children and young people in Scotland. There is a series
of clearly defined indicators at national level and the government are looking
at developing indicators for each child. Already, all school children do a selfassessment of their well-being, based on the categories above, which is regularly
repeated and recorded throughout their school life.
Youth information and counselling services contribute to young peoples wellbeing by giving them access to information and support which enable them to
make positive life choices. In 2009, a cross-sectoral working group developed
a national youth information framework for Scotland using a model adapted
from the Finnish youth information network. This defined three broad areas of
need. Its worth noting this is not a rigid categorisation young people move up
and down and between groups as they grow and develop, or as circumstances
change.

Animated videos by Marlies Pschl

Young people who are

Young people who feel they
able to find information need/want something
independently
Some young people need support to clarify their
They know what they need/are looking for and
can find it on their own or with a little (perhaps
exploratory) help. Increasingly they are digitally
agile and find this information online. Youth
information services play their part in guiding
them toward trusted and ever more impressive
youth information/youth-card/youth-portal websites.
They, in turn, can become involved in peer youth
information initiatives in and out of school.
Within youth information centres, professional
staff can help young people explore beyond any
initial query with examples of possibilities and
new directions.

needs and/or assistance to access the information/

services they want. There are often unidentified or
unarticulated needs which require the intervention
of trained, skilled peers or youth information
workers.

Young people who have

problems and face
challenges
Here the key is to identify information to help
them access the services and support they need.
This may be counselling for those who have chaotic
lifestyles, difficult life circumstances, or emotional
or physical health issues. Youth information and
counselling services will work with other local
agencies and departments to co-ordinate and
develop relevant support.

A report out in July from The Childrens Society found the happiness
of children in the UK is in decline, with 15% of young teenagers
reporting low well-being. The Good Childhood Report says wellbeing has dipped since 2008 after a period of improvement from
1994. Although four out of five can be described as flourishing,
teenagers aged 14 and 15 are said to have the lowest self-satisfaction.
Psychologist Linda Papadopoulos said it was important not to dismiss
this dip in well-being among 14 and 15-year-olds as inevitable and
just teenagers being teenagers.

We really must talk to this generation and listen

to what they have to say.
Children and teenagers deserve proper support, choices
and a decent say in their own lives. Being unhappy is
definitely not an inevitable part of growing up. We owe it
to our children to help them flourish as much as possible.
Those last two statements underline the role of youth information
in equipping young people to be active participants in their
communities and societies. Not only does every young person need
access to relevant information, they need to build their capacities
for interpreting that information, making positive life choices and
taking their place in society. In Scotland, at national level, several
voluntary organisations are working alongside the government
and local authorities to deliver just that. Young Scot is the national
youth information and citizenship charity for Scotland. It provides
young people, aged 11 to 26, with a mixture of information, ideas and
opportunities to help them become confident, informed and active
citizens. This is done in a variety of formats, including magazines,
online, phone, etc., so young people can access information in a way
they are comfortable with.

Animated videos by Marlies Pschl

The aim is to provide information which will

enable them to:
make informed decisions and choices;
turn their ideas into action;
take advantage of the opportunities available
to them in Scotland and the rest of Europe;
have the confidence and knowledge to take their
place as active citizens in their communities
locally, nationally and globally.
Young Scot also works with other agencies to
involve young people in the co-design of services
which affect them as well as working with hard-toreach young people to influence change. Members
of the Scottish Youth Parliament are elected in
every constituency, by young people, in some
areas using their Young Scot youth card to vote
electronically.
Scotland also has its own Commissioner for
Children and Young People whose job is to make
sure all children and young people in Scotland
have their rights respected, their voices heard and
that they can live safe and happy lives. The current
commissioner was previously a youth worker.
Moving towards making Scotland the best place in
the world to grow up is not without its challenges,
but youth information and counselling services

stand in an ideal place to meet these challenges

now and in the future:
they are seen to be safe/trusted/young people
friendly;
information on opportunities to participate is key;
as are opportunities to be active citizens;
for instance, promoting and supporting
volunteering opportunities (see Coyote No. 17);
they are egalitarian and holistic (as per the
European Youth Information and Counselling
Association Charter);
they already, by providing a broad range of
youth information, practice cross-sector working
a key factor in combating social exclusion and
fostering well-being;
they have developed innovative outreach
initiatives, especially in working with hard-toreach young people.
In this years independence referendum, for the
first time, 16 and 17 year olds in Scotland will be
eligible to vote. Whatever the outcome, Scotlands
government and youth services will continue to
honour its commitment to them.
Our young people need to be equipped to thrive
not just survive. They need inspiration, not
desperation, and wherever they are to be the best
place in the world to grow up.

It was very interesting to read how Scotland is

working for young peoples well-being. Finland
is also a small country, just as Scotland. It has a
population of 5.4 million with long distances,
municipalities with relatively small populations as
well as young people who live in remote areas, far
away from youth services.
Hearing from young people, the current and future
users of services, is very important, and not only
in youth information and counselling services. I
was glad to notice that this is such an important
part in GIRFEC in Scotland. In Finland, we have
the Child and Youth Policy Programme which is
adopted every four years by the government. Both
programmes are focusing on outcomes to support
young peoples growth and well-being, maybe
from different angles but both are based on young
peoples needs.
I was also delighted that Scotland could use the
model we are using in Finland when defining the
information and service needs of young people.
I felt proud when I heard that this model is used
in Scotland. This happened in summer 2013, in
Croatia, at the Symposium on Youth Policy in

South-East Europe, where Fiona was one of the

keynote speakers. In youth information there is
a very strong tradition of sharing good practices
based on experiences in the field. It is great that
work done in the Finnish network has been spread
around. The division of information needs into
three levels was originally developed by the youth
information workers in the youth information
centre Kompassi in Helsinki.
This kind of division has helped a lot when talking
about information needs and the provision of
youth information and counselling services. I
would say that is used in much the same ways in
Scotland and Finland. I would also say that our
youth information structures are similar in many
ways.
The discussion Fiona and I had after her speech
was amusing. I was of course interested in how
they had found our model, but at the same time I
also had to try to remember how we had distributed
information about it. After returning home, I
found out that the model had been published in a
report about youth information and counselling in
Finland, which had found its way to Scotland.

by Vera Hoogsteyns
Images courtesy of Jong & Van Zin

In Petto is a youth information and prevention service.

It is a youth service covering the whole of Flanders and is
recognised by the Youth Work Department of the Ministry
of the Flemish Community. We work closely together with
the Youth Advice Centres (JACs) and youth work practice.
In Petto is specialised in youth information and prevention,
with a particular focus on peer education.

In December 2013, In Petto will merge with two other

partners in Flemish youth work: Zin-derin(g) and Jeugd
en Seksualiteit.1 Together we will become Jong & Van
Zin, a training organisation for children, youngsters and
intermediaries (for example, trainers, youth leaders or
educators). We will produce informational products, with
and for children, young people and youth workers or other
intermediaries. I addition to this, well focus on developing
educational games, training programmes on specific topics
(like resilience, communication, group dynamics, sexuality
and relationships, etc.) and facilitating participative processes
and peer support. Our main focus is to empower children,
young people and their trainers, to be stronger and more
resilient in their daily lives. In our work, we always take young
peoples experiences and opinions as the starting point.

1. Zin-derin(g) and Jeugd en Seksualiteit are two Flemish organisations that are
active in Flemish youth work. Zin-derin(g) is specialised in interactive training
courses (on several topics) with young people and in non-formal education. Jeugd
en Seksualiteit is specialised in training and informational courses about sexuality,
relationships and different topics related to this.

Our Youth Advisor project started in 1991

as a co-operation programme between our
organisation (youth work) and the JAC (Youth
Advice Centre), which is part of the general welfare
centres (Centrum Algemeen Welzijnswerk (CAW)
in Dutch). Since then, about 4000 youngsters (15
to 18 years old) have officially been trained to be
Youth Advisors.

stronger in what theyre already good at, but also

stronger in their basic skills of communication,
interaction, listening, etc. Through interactive
methods, they practice their skills and we expand
their ability to be a good friend for their peers.

The idea is simple: we believe in the power

of peer support and thats why Youth Advice
Centres train young people in their region in
communication skills, the ability to listen to their
peers and the ability to recognise problems. We
try to work within the informal networks that
exist between young people and to make young
people more resilient, while focusing on their
personal strengths. They are also informed about
available support systems in the Flemish context
so they can refer their peers to the right service
when needed and provide them with quality
youth information.

By working in a group, we try to make young

people aware of signals which peers can send.
We show them how to react when they think
there might be something going on in the life of
one of their peers. We believe that being aware
of feelings, opinions and possible problems of
friends and peers is a very important first step.

Making young people stronger

Jong & Van Zin focuses on the talents and
strengths of children and young people. We pay
close attention to their capabilities. In everything
we do, produce and organise, we focus on the
things theyre good at. Because of our expertise
in training and informing, we have the possibility
to make children and young people stronger:

Making young people aware

Making sure they know their options

when support is needed
When we want to enable youngsters to refer
their peers to the correct information or support
system, its very important they know about the
options and possibilities available. In this part of
our training, we work on their knowledge about
the Flemish support system, but also about specific
topics. It can be about support for psychological
problems, but also financial support, support for
studies, health care, youth information services,
etc. The information we provide them can be
about different subjects, for example drug (ab)use,
divorce, sexuality and relationships.

Jong & Van Zin believes strongly in the importance of acknowledgement. This is why we organise a thank
you weekend for our Youth Advisors every year. When organising this weekend, we work closely with a
small group of Youth Advisors. In fact, this core group organises the event, with our help and support.
During this weekend, the Youth Advisors meet each other and they can do things together in a group. We
reward them for their commitment with training courses on several topics. We pay attention to group
dynamics, information about sexuality and relationships, drugs, friendship and more. In addition to the
weekend, we try to give our Youth Advisors as many opportunities as possible. They get the chance to
participate in Yintro training courses (on youth information and counselling work, prepared by ERYICA)
and in international projects for youth ambassadors for youth information. In this way, we hope to give
them the opportunity to be engaged in a broader area than only the Flemish context.

Lisas parents are going through a divorce. Lisa is struggling with her loyalty towards both parents.
She lives with her mother and misses her dad. She hesitates to show those feelings to her mother.
Luckily she can talk about all this with Nora, a friend from school and a Youth Advisor. Nora listens
and helps Lisa to find a way to deal with the situation. After a while Nora doesnt really know what
to do to help Lisa anymore, so she goes to the JAC for advice. The social worker, whom Nora knows
well from Youth Advisor training, gives her some tips to help Lisa. With this assistance, and with her
own skills, Nora succeeds in helping Lisa with her problems. Nora also learnt in her training to notice
signals which indicate Lisa needs professional help. In that case, Nora wont hesitate to advise her
friend about professional support.

At this moment, Jong & Van Zin is extending the Youth Advisor concept to other
sectors, like education, youth work and youth at risk. We believe this project
will be highly valuable in these settings. Overall, we think its important to
underline that Youth Advisors arent mini-social workers. They are trained to
be a good friend who knows where to find support and advice when needed.

4:
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Doriene,: 2fun, part of an awehsoismsueegsrin a

Dorien, 24:
Peer-to-peer is very important I think.
Youngsters go most of the time to their
friends when they have questions or
problems. Since I did the project, I know
better how to help my friends. It makes
it easier for them to go to the youth
information centre.

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Lise, 22:

Being a Youth Advisor is an opportunity and a learning experience I

recommend it to all young people who care for their friends and want to expand their
horizons in helping others. Not only is it something you take with you for the rest of
your life, it can also be of great use to the professionals who might lose touch with the
day-to-day environment young people live in. Youth Advisors are an excellent asset
to any YIC, connected to their peers and if allowed, they can function as a perfect
connection between professionals and the young people who are not able to speak out.
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Robiu, 21:
My experience as a young person of peer-to-peer work in
youth information dates back to when I was in secondary
school. The form of peer-to-peer work we had in my school
was a scheme known as peer mentoring. The peer mentoring
scheme helps student ease the transition between primary school
and secondary school. Starting secondary school can often be a
very difficult change for some students and a lot of time they need
the dedicated support of another person to help them navigate
their way through the new environment.

Laurence, 19

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e a Youth A
dvisor, I feel
like I under
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iends bette
Im able to
r and
help them ea
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ask for my
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ore.

Peer mentoring covers a range of useful and supportive activities such as development
of literacy and numeracy skills, improvement of attendance and classroom behaviour.
My experience of this was that every morning before school started, I would sit down
with a student/peer and tackle one of the activities listed.
Peer mentoring makes a real difference to students who have just started secondary school.
It marks a turning point in their lives, helping them to build new networks of support,
increase their self-confidence, develop new skills and change their lives for the better.

Map of Gezi Park, pos

Reliable information is a crucial precondition for

those who would like to enjoy their right to association
and freedom of expression. If you cannot get reliable
information about what is going on in the streets
from the ones in charge of reporting, what do you do?
You go out and report it yourself!
What had been going on in Istanbul since 27 May
2013 had a lot to do with youth and it had a lot to do
with information. Yet one has to cross his or her eyes
to see what it has to do with youth information.

The circumstances that led to what I choose to call

a civic resistance were a series of events in which
people were asking for their right to participate. It
was neither the first demand to participate nor
it will be the last. Yet here we are. I am trying to
put this article together while jumping between
screens from several social media sites and this
page. Because it has been almost two months
since it started and tonight as I write in July 2013
it is still going on.

Let me tell you the background story as briefly as

I can. It started just before the general elections
in 2011. The governing party started to announce
their development projects as the elections were
getting close. Out of many crazy projects1 for
Istanbul (for some reason that year, journalists
preferred to refer to the major projects as crazy)
one of them was about the renovation of Taksim
Square. This project2 would take all the vehicle
traffic underground leaving the square for the
pedestrians and re-build the long gone Topu
Barracks in the place of Gezi Park.
Depending on your visions of life, city planning and
economic growth, you could take different sides
on the value of these projects. And people did just
that. A group of architects and city planners argued
against the Taksim renovation project and formed
an initiative called Taksim Soldarity. They also
called the project crazy but with a different tone
of voice. The craziest part for them was that at no
time were people of the region3 consulted about
this project. At the end of an unannounced nonparticipative process, the project was there on the
table, decided.
As an opposing initiative, Taksim Solidarity not
only took their case to several committees and the
courts, but also started to organise gatherings and
festivals in the park to spread the word. Meanwhile
the square was closed for construction and their

court case was accepted and then rejected several

times. (Finally, in the last days it was accepted
again).
Then one night in May 2013, the construction
machines start to take down some trees in Gezi
Park. A fairly small group of people rushed to the
park to stop this demolition, and they managed
to do so. The day after, the machines approached
the park again and for the guardians/protesters it
became evident that they would have to stay there
day and night. Even though, legally, the demolition
was not allowed, the machines were there.
The response from the authorities quickly
escalated from municipality forces to the state
police. The police interference was brutal on the
second morning when the tents were burnt and
teargas and water cannons were used excessively.4
That was the moment when many young people
said enough is enough and rushed to the park to
help. By the end of the day, thousands of people
were trying to reach Taksim Square.
Why mainly young people? It was because they
could get the news and pictures from online social
media. Meanwhile the older people were away
from the Internet, enjoying several TV shows on
how to bake and who is the most beautiful and
what to do in the summer. And the news channel
aired a three-hour documentary on penguins.5

1. http://www.euronews.com/2011/04/27/turkey-s-pm-unveils-crazy-canal-project/
2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22753752
3. http://www.taksimplatformu.com/english.php
4. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22780773
5. http://youtu.be/kxeZILofFzM

Children of the Revolution, Zsombor Lacza, 2013

tvirtual.wordpress.com

2013 CCBY-NC-SA

by Glesin Nemutlu Unal

Throughout the course of history in Turkey, young

people were called by several names associated
with different roles. At times they were the light
of the future and at other times the soldiers of
democracy. In the political history of Turkey,
young people were always present and reserved
for a duty of saving or protecting. This was the case
until the 1980s.
For the youth of the 1980s and afterwards young
people started to be referred to as apolitical. The
common discourse was that these young people
only wanted to have better, newer and more
commercial goods and that they had absolutely
nothing to do with politics. Knowing this is not
true, I would like to suggest a very good study by
Demet Lksl, summarising the history of youth
in Turkey and making a detailed case that the
youth after the 1980s are not apolitical at all.6
As a self-proclaimed youth worker, I personally
have been asked several times in the last decade
why young people in Turkey were not interested in
politics anymore. In a nutshell, how I responded
was based on what I hear from young people and
also believed: It is not true that young people are
not interested in politics. They have unlimited
ideas and proposals about how things should be
dealt with and how a country should be governed.
Their lack of interest is towards the system as such,
which they refer to as slow, corrupt and dirty.7

And there they are. From the first day until now,
young people are on the streets, in the parks,
in the forums, online, offline. They are the ones
gathering information, sharing, spreading the
word and shaping their lives. Several responsible
adults apologised explicitly to young people for
their apolitical labelling. Especially people from
my generation. We were the ones oppressed and
cut off from being political. The least we could do
is to provide support now.

During the first week of resistance, in one of his

speeches, the prime minister declared that he was
supported by the 50% of the votes at the elections
so he did not need permission to change Taksim
Square from anyone, not from the opposing party
or from a few apulcu.
A very rough translation of the word apulcu to
English would be looter. Young people didnt
assume this name as an insult but rather took it
with humour and joy.
In a short time, this new name formed a common
identity to call out the messages of the resistance,
a common brand under which communication
would flow easily and in a united manner.
Thousands added this brand to their profile
names on various social media sites. The meaning
of the word became resister in public use.

Symbols of Gezi Park, Anonymous, 2013

6. Lksl G.D., La jeunesse turque actuelle: La fin du mythe de la jeunesse?, EHESS, Paris, 2005.
7. http://www.taraf.com.tr/nese-duzel/makale-gulesin-nemutlu-yoruk-kurtaran-gencler.htm. (In Turkish)

Taksim square volunteer medical help,

Mstyslav Chernov, 2013

Already the first day it became evident that

traditional media would ignore whatever was
going on in the streets. The resistance spread to
more than 20 cities and the speed of information
flowing on the screens was way too fast to follow.
Following the changes in profile names, the hash
tags came. (Pause for some language training: diren
means to resist in Turkish). #direngezi was the
one related to Gezi Park. All the neighbourhoods in
Istanbul and cities in Turkey started to form their
own hash tags. #direnbesiktas, #direnankara,
#direneskisehir, #direnadana. Profiles that shared
news from the streets were quickly formed and
followed. The information flows started to form
hubs.
The speed of online information and the uneasy
feeling of turbulence began to form a risk of
spreading misinformation. Online trolls were
a known concept after all. Everyone became
a volunteer journalist and the responsible
attitudes we expected from journalists were our
responsibility now. Confirming any information
you came across before sharing it again became a
constant struggle. When you see pictures of people
in need of a doctor and also the phone number
of a volunteer infirmary, you want to share it
immediately. But no, you should call the number
and quickly check it before doing anything.
In time, standards started to form. If you are the
witness of what you are writing, then you also
write kesin bilgi, which means it is definitive
information. And then it is up to the receivers
of course to re-distribute it. Another norm: you
should not say happening now!, instead you

should type the time. You should be as clear as

possible about the place, and hash tag it if possible.
Pictures and videos are considered crucial, both
in spreading the news and collecting evidence for
judicial cases afterwards. And most importantly,
you should keep yourself safe while reporting.

The ignorance of the mass media was so extensive

that young people needed to call their parents and
relatives in different towns to inform them. Not
only uncles and aunts but the whole world should
know about what was going on. I think it was done
for two reasons: firstly, to put foreign pressure on
the government to stop the police brutality8 and
secondly, because we could!
The collective memory we shared in the last years of
the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring were
not through television but through other channels
of information. So it was in Istanbul. The Erasmus
students in Istanbul shot a video and posted it
on YouTube.9 Facebook groups were informed.10
Tweets were sent with occupy hash tags and in
different languages. The word of resistance was
out there for the world to see.
Wide-ranging
responses
were
received.
Videos from all over the world from support
demonstrations started to arrive. Opinion leaders
and artists started to post about the resistance.
The uprising in Brazil added a whole different
level to the feeling of international solidarity. My
personal favourite video was from Egypt, recorded
in the dark room of a young protester who shared
his experience and comments on what the young
resisters in Turkey should be careful of.

8. http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/full-page-ad-for-turkish-democracy-in-action
9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0YcEUHxTuY
10. https://www.facebook.com/chapullinginternational

The number of people staying in Gezi Park was in

the thousands in a short time. And the first thing
built was an information board, together with an
infirmary. In time, as the police attacks started
to subside, workshops, concerts and discussion
forums took place.
Apart from the young people staying in Gezi Park,
there were also others, volunteering to visit and
then move to a place with Internet coverage and
report, as coverage in the park was down for
several days.
During the sit-in at the park, exam time arrived
for high school students. As there were many
high school students and university students or
graduates living side by side, they quickly formed
a classroom where older ones could tutor the
younger ones for their exams.
At the 1st European Youth Work Convention
in Ghent, a researcher said: For young people
nowadays, owning is not as cool as it used to be
for previous generations. Now what is cool for
them is to share. Life at Gezi Park was proof of
this statement with its library, stage, day care
corner, classroom, food corner and tents. It was
cool.

As the weeks passed by, apart from the heroes,

heroines and others living in the park, many
young people start to live a kind of Clark
Kent life. All through the day, workers went to
work and students went to school. And at the
end of the day, all these people from different
neighbourhoods start to walk to Taksim, together
in groups of hundreds. And to different parks and
squares in different cities too.

How were these walks organised? What was the

information structure? For this part, I would dare
to say, none. People were getting on with their
daily stuff and then started to walk.
Night time was filled with encounters with police
trying to block the way to the park, which became
a given condition. But what was happening during
the daytime?

During the day, the pictures and videos from

the previous night were being edited; websites
and blogs were being updated; animations and
illustrations were drawn.
Humour and laughter are powerful tools against
a stubborn solid authority. Henri Bergson says
in his book on laughter11 that what is funny is the
stiffness (where flexibility is needed), and laughter
is the punishment to it.
At a time when people needed each other, the echo
of laughter played a uniting role.

If Gezi had not happened, I would probably have

liked to write a Coyote article on Who sets the
agenda when informing youth? What do young
people need to know about? And what do we want
young people to know about? Where is the pointer?
Who holds it?
And in that imaginary article, I would probably
argue that the expressed needs of young people
should be setting the agenda so the pointer should
be in their hands. If the need is jobs, let the
information be on the topic of employment. If the
need is expression, let the information be on the
topic of art.

After the experience with Gezi Park resistance, my position about

agenda setting was not changed but more deeply seated. In the youth
work field, we work a lot on skills and attitudes. Demanding, receiving
and critically analysing information also require a certain set of skills,
so does producing the information.
I believe it is time to provide means and support for young people to
consolidate and share their own set of information. With the Gezi Park
experience, I believe now more than ever that any structure which is not
fast in giving a response, not participative or not clear will be resisted.

So here you are, at the last lines of this article. You know what? I
would like to ask you to do something, if you will allow me? Think of
something that bothers you. The best would be if you could think of
a situation in which your participation was not allowed although the
consequences would also affect you. It is probably a situation about
which you were misinformed.
And now stand up.
Just stand up.
And think of what you will do next.

11. Bergson H., An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, The Macmillan Company, 1911

r Hofmann
Photo: Pete

Peter Hofmann
TALE: I created this object at
the end of Training Advanced
Learners in Europe guided by
my intuition, feelings, state of
being after this intense two-year
journey. I do not really know what
it should express but it resonated a
lot with me; for a while afterwards it
was a kind of personal logo. Somehow
it has to do with growing, diversity, confusion
all this and much more was present throughout TALE
for me.

by Mark E. Taylor and Marlies Pschl

Gisle Evrard
Big. Strong. Literary.
If there are only three words to describe most of the
memories I have of my co-operation with the Partnership and
all the people who are linked to it, those would be the ones.
BIG in all ways possible: a big amount of work, big
publications, big visions, big hearts, big projects, big hopes.

. Taylor

STRONG ideals, commitments, values, beliefs and people.

kE
photo: Mar

Driving with Coyote editorial team member, Davide, into Zagreb to work on the symposium, we started
talking about romance in our lives. One thing led to another and we fell into a passionate embrace
which would change our mutual futures forever! My goodness, we thought, isnt it romantic to work
for the Partnership?!! And then we cast our thoughts into the next years and wondered what would
life be like if the Partnership did not exist anymore? Suddenly the joy we had felt seemed to fly out of
the side window of the taxi

A couple of days later the remaining members of the editorial team

Matina, Marlies and I decided to follow our instincts and
make a pilgrimage to one of the remaining wonders of
the modern world: The Museum of Broken Relationships.1
Emotions ran high, as they do, and we decided to dedicate
a couple of pages of the next Coyote to an imaginary world
in which the Partnership ceased to exist. So we have asked
people who, like us, have engaged passionately with this
pioneering partnership in the youth field to provide us with
an image, a story or a word which sums up their feelings
here we are.

LITERARY oh that is another story literary because

of the publications, of course, and pages and pages of
projects-to-be and thoughts-to-be, but also literary like
poetry. And what all that co-operation brought me but
shhh
And if you are wondering why Obelix is proudly standing
on a keyboard, it is because that is the symbol I had chosen,
among others, while starting the work on Coyote 20.
EXTREMELY motivating, challenging, puzzling at times,
but so enjoyable.

1. http://brokenships.com

Thank you, Partnership!

Photo:

Gisle

Evrard

Photo: Howard Williamso

Mark E.Taylor

Photo: Mar

k E. Taylor

Balls! we said, in answer to a question from

Balazs Hidveghi (then administrator for the
Partnership) about what kind of gadget
would be appropriate to use at the upcoming
Bridges for Training conference, held in
Brugge in 2001. He was a little perplexed, so
we explained that trainers often use balls in
training for energisers, problem-solving
exercises, learning to juggle, name games
and the like. So we had a couple of hundred
balls for distribution. I can still remember
the looks of astonishment as Sonja Mitter
opened the box during the training fair
and rolled what looked like hundreds
of oranges across the floor! Who knows
where they all went and how many course
participants had them in their hands? They
were very good anti-stress balls as well. I
still have these three: as you can see one
of them looks a bit worse for wear as it was
attacked by our old dog Othello. But thats
another story

In my mind, one of the most beautiful books on my shelves is

related to the Partnership between the European Commission
and the Council of Europe in the field of youth. It is a first
and numbered edition of Adriano Sofris Il nodo e il chiodo
[The knot and the nail] translated into German. My copy is
numbered 3134.

One evening in the late 1990s, I was walking from the European
Youth Centre in Strasbourg to a downtown restaurant. I was
in the company of Hanjo Schild. We shared thoughts about
what we were reading at the time, and he mentioned Sofris
work. I bought the book and for a long time it remained on my
desk. I have never read it from the first to the last page, nor
have I quoted from it. But very often I leaf through it and read a
random paragraph.
Adriano Sofri was a former leader of the autonomist movement
Lotta Continua. Arrested in 1988, he spent several years in
prison (see Ginzburg 2002). But above all he is a great intellectual
and a philosophical writer with an amazing cultural sensitivity.
In the course of the years, I have become convinced that the
Partnership is also about knotting, weaving and knitting. It is in
need of both knots and nails, of both a right hand and a left hand.
Very often opposite forces are interconnected. By labouring to enhance the
Partnerships yin and yang, we can ensure its success and a long life under
radically altering circumstances.

Ginzburg, C.(2002), The judge and the historian. Marginal notes on a late-twentieth-century
miscarriage of justice, Verso, London.
Sofri, A. (1995), Il nodo e il chiodo. Libro per la mano sinistra. Sellerio (Fine secolo, 1), Palermo.
Sofri, A. (1998), Der Knoten und der Nagel. Ein Buch zur linken Hand. Eichborn (Die andere
Bibliothek, 160), Frankfurt am Main.

I was a member of the original Youth Partnership protocol

on youth worker training in 1998. I have been involved
with the work of the Youth Partnership ever since. My
trusty little travel guitar, bought five years earlier, has
always come with me. It was a prop when I spoke at the
start of the All Different All Equal campaign in 2006, with
the words in the image projected behind me. The author
of those words Cecil Patton, youth worker, musician and
personal friend had died of a stroke the week before at the
age of 41. But, before and after his death, he contributed
this song to the work of the Youth Partnership and the
youth agenda across Europe. The Youth Partnership lies
at the core and is the bridge between the values of the
Council of Europe and the objectives of the European
Union. A broken Partnership, like shattered glass, will
produce a fragmented Europe. Whenever I think of the
Partnership, I also think of Cecils words.

About knots and nails

photo: Mark E. Taylo

Howard Williamson

Charles Berg

by Jaana Fedotoff and Mika Pietil

According to one definition, the principal tasks of the

youth information and counselling field are the provision
of information, guidance and counselling to young people.
How does this work change when it goes online? Do the
approaches and requirements change from face-toface meetings? What professional skills are emphasised
and what are the prerequisites for online counselling? In
this article, we attempt to address these questions by
comparing face-to-face meetings with online meetings,
and by considering the principles of the European
Youth Information Charter. In this context, web-based
or online youth counselling comprises both real-time
and non-real-time guidance and counselling as well
as extensive Internet-based information resources
directed at young people.

Besides national legislation and strategies,

youth information and counselling services
follow the sectors European guidelines as
found in the European Youth Information
Charter (2004). In 2009, the European Youth
Information and Counselling Agency (ERYICA)
adopted the European Principles for Online
Youth Information. The provision of services
is the act of of providing access to information
and counselling services for all young people.
The aim is to guarantee the equality of access
to information for all young people, regardless
of their situation, ethnic background, gender
or social category. Special attention should
be paid to disadvantaged groups and to young
people who may have specific needs. In addition,
services should be easily accessible without
any appointment being required, and the
information available should be primarily based
on young peoples needs. Each young person
should be treated and respected as an individual
and the response to his or her question should
be personalised. It is also important that the
services are free of charge and that information
is given in a way that respects young peoples
privacy.
In addition to the European principles, the heart
of youth information and counselling services lies
in childrens and young peoples right to access
information, as stated in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of
the Child and the Convention for the Protection of
Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Youth
information and counselling services throughout
Europe have also taken into consideration the
European Unions proposed Youth Strategy
2010-2018, the objective of which is to improve
access to youth information and help disseminate
information through all possible channels at local,
regional and national levels.

Requirements for workers in

web-based youth information
and counselling
Besides provision of information, guidance
and counselling, web-based youth information
and counselling services involve producing
informational content on various themes for
young people. This information deals with topics
that relate to young peoples lives. Producing this
informational content is challenging. Workers
have to process all available knowledge and pick
the relevant, usable and easily applicable pieces
of accurate information. The skills of information
management and handling of information and its
deciphering will not necessarily have been in the
curriculum during the youth workers professional
training.
Youth workers that we have met in various
training events have, in many cases, stated that
their skills and expertise in working with young
people in various web-based environments are
not appropriate. There is not enough knowledge
on the possibilities of social media services, and
their technical skills are inadequate for working in
an online environment. There is also uncertainty
about real-time online interaction. However,
the quantity, quality or availability of web-based
services targeted at young people should not be
dependent on whether or not workers possess
adequate skills and expertise for web-based work.
It is not enough to know various forums and
platforms of social media; such knowledge should
also be supplemented by a deeper understanding
of the meaning of digital operating environments
and cultures and their impact on individuals and
communities. An overemphasis on tools only gets
in the way and prevents a deeper vision of the
works educational objectives.

Two types of web-based

information services:
real-time and non-real-time
services
In recent years, the tools and channels of webbased youth information and counselling
services have become more diverse. In addition
to websites, social media also present new
opportunities, and they have made available an
expanding, diversifying matrix of services and
organisations.
In Finland, within the existing web-based youth
information services, questions from young
people are mainly sent to non-real-time Q&A
services. However, there are also services with
a real-time chat function. When answering
questions sent to a Q&A page, the youth
information and counselling worker makes an
assessment on the basis of the nature and topic
of the question and his or her own professional
experience and decides whether the approach to
be adopted should be a guiding or a counselling
one. It is possible that the worker may have to act
in a situation where additional questions cannot
be asked. A challenging feature in these services is
that the gender, age, home town or home district
of the person asking the question are not always
known. The answer, however, must be written in
such a manner that the customer receives enough
information and can make an informed decision.

A much-debated issue among people working

in youth information and counselling services is
whether web-based and face-to-face services are
essentially different, and if they are, where the
difference is. Participants in the basic training
course on youth information and counselling in
Finland, arranged by Koordinaatti, considered
the question of whether face-to-face situations are
more challenging, in one respect or another, than
contacts made by young people through non-realtime online services. The participants concluded
that a particularly challenging feature in face-toface situations is that the worker is immediately
thrown into interaction. A guidance situation
begins instantly, and even a little uncertainty
about the subject or the situation may cause
young people to grow anxious or hesitant about
asking their questions. The workers skills and
professional expertise are immediately at stake,
and a professional support network is not always
available. A web-based, non-real-time service is
more forgiving in this respect, as it gives the worker
time to think about the answer. A non-real-time
service is often free of external, disturbing factors
that may have a negative impact on the worker
customer interaction. When the topic was discussed
with the participants of the basic training course,
they also insisted on the fact that a web-based
service, whether it is real-time or non-real-time,
makes it possible to ask even sensitive questions,
such as those dealing with sexuality. This may be an
issue particularly in small towns where everyone
knows everyone else and asking face-to-face
questions may be more difficult for privacy reasons.

Real-time service demands

a lot from the worker
An example of real-time information and
counselling services is a one-to-one chat service
between the customer and the worker. Chat
functions are provided in many web-based youth
information and counselling services in Finland.
Experience of one-to-one services has been
encouraging. In these situations, well-functioning
interaction is easy to achieve, and work can be
based on a guidance approach. In this type of
dialogue, the customer takes an active role in
solving the problems under discussion. The worker
then works to strengthen the recipients ability to
function and avoids offering ready-made solutions.
Factors that often limit the possibility of offering
real-time online services are limited resources and
the practical organisation of the service. A realtime online service needs specified business hours,
and it always demands personnel resources and
premises at certain times of day. The required IT
facilities must also be available.
What has been perceived as challenging in realtime services is the dialogue with a young person in
an acute crisis situation and the support and help
provided to them. The workers experience and
expertise and agreed courses of action contribute
to a quick understanding of the situation and a

subsequent solution, as does a good knowledge

of the youth support and crisis services. Also, the
fact that support and crisis work specialists are
available helps to shorten the time it takes to assist
the customer. Emergency and crisis situations
are always unique, and much depends on what
information the customer provides for the worker
to have an overview of the situation. The worker
should ask further, tentative questions in order to
assess whether the situation is genuine and how
serious it is, where the person is, whether there
are any other people present, what sort of mood
the person is in and whether there are any adults
nearby. The purpose of this is to offer the young
person mental support, give confidence and advice
for a possible resolution of the matter, as well as
help to find the individual or the organisation
that can provide the most appropriate assistance
in the situation. Solving emergency and crisis
situations is challenging and mentally strenuous
for workers. Often there is no certainty that the
young person has followed the advice given, and
the case may haunt the worker for a long time.
It is crucial that workers have the possibility of
discussing such cases for example, in regular,
supervised sessions. Peer discussions relating to
young peoples questions and situations are also
necessary in the working community. Regular,
high-quality training for workers guarantees highquality dialogue and supports workers well-being
at work.

What does quality mean in web-based

youth information and counselling?
In web-based guidance and counselling, quality assurance is another
challenging area. This is a particularly acute question if young
peoples questions are answered by several people, but common
principles for answering questions do not exist or are not known.
An example of this could, for instance, be where one worker thinks
that an URL without any further information is an adequate
answer, while another collects information from several sources,
checks the accuracy of the sources, uses them to draw up a reliable,
comprehensive answer to the question and, if necessary, refers
the person asking the question to an appropriate specialist. Which
answer is better quality and who should assess it?
As a rule, the quality is assessed by the young person who asked the
question. It is, however, reasonable to ask whether young people
are able to demand enough information and whether the worker
is able to provide it without this being specifically requested. The
objectives of web-based youth information and counselling services
are young peoples educational guidance and strengthening their
social identity. Quality can also be measured by assessing how the
counselling and guidance provided contribute to these objectives.
Workers expertise concerning matters related to young peoples lives
and pedagogical skills play a key role in web-based work. All guidance
and counselling, whether they take place online or face-to-face,
should be based on the educational targets set for youth information
and counselling so that they provide
support for young people and guarantee
equal opportunities for all of them. In
addition to an educational approach,
familiarity with the possibilities of
the online world is important. These
elements of professional expertise make
up the foundation for high-quality work,
in web-based services and elsewhere.

Future outlooks and perspectives

If Facebook pages are the only available youth information and
counselling tool, this does not meet the criteria for high-quality
provision of information, guidance and counselling. However, social
media services can be utilised in supporting provision of information
in youth information and counselling work. It is important that
the provision of youth information and counselling services also
takes into account local service points. Some youth information
and counselling service providers have, often in co-operation with
young people, developed new approaches to youth guidance and
counselling. These services are suitably complemented by webbased services that help make guidance and counselling available
even to young people who live in remote areas. In addition, they
are available to young people who, due to one limiting factor or
other, cannot use their local services. For them, web-based youth
information and counselling services constitute an important source
of information and support.
Web-based services in particular, the utilisation of social media
have improved availability. In the future, multi-disciplinary
and inter-professional co-operation will play a key part in the
planning and development of web-based services. Mutual dialogue
is important, if not crucial, in order to avoid the duplication and
oversupply of services.
Development of the necessary additional services related to local
and web-based services is important from the perspective of equal
access. It is impossible to predict future technical progress and the
associated possibilities, but it is likely that the development of web
and mobile services will open up many new options. Society expects
even young people to be critical media users and to be able to adopt
new things quickly, solve complex problems and collect information
independently, but in planning and implementing these services, a
customer-orientated approach and interactivity should be kept in
mind.

by Imre

youth
r
u
o
f
o
y
d
o
b
e
Th
ker
information wor

Simon

What do the Belgian guy who once wanted to avoid

the obligatory military service, the Slovenian one who
wished to escape the national bank and the Dutch former
lighting technician have in common? They all excel in
their field: youth information.
Even though the urge
to change careers
is not an obligatory
part of becoming
a good youth information worker,
it is frequent and
enriching.
Just
like
several
other
ana
ght Now! Io
professions, youth
rmation Ri
Photo: Info
information and counselling is a job that
is best learnt by doing. What is more, besides possessing knowledge and skills, it requires a certain
personality and approach. This is one of the reasons
why I set out to describe the unofficial profile of
youth information workers in this article.
The above-mentioned variety does not only
benefit youth information and counselling but it
exemplifies some peculiarities of this profession.
The first youth information centre was opened
in 1961 and as the concept spread, its pioneer
professionals did not follow a regular training or
career path. Specific training in formal education
was not provided until recent years and even
though formal training is available in most
European countries at the moment, it usually
concerns youth work in general and covers youth
information and counselling as a minor part

of it. To our knowledge, no academic degree is

currently available that explicitly focuses on youth
information, thus coming from different fields is
still common, and rather beneficial.
The reason for this is that much in counselling
depends on the person. Just as there is no such
thing as good or bad language schools but good or
bad language teachers, it is not youth information
centres that do the job; it is the youth information
worker. Thats why face-to-face counselling is a
unique service.
Lets see what the necessary soft skills are for a
youth information worker. The best place to find
this out is among the practitioners themselves. At
one point participants of ERYICA training courses
are asked to design the ideal youth information
worker. You can see some of their results among
the illustrations on these pages.
A recurrent element is open-mindedness, which
incorporates other characteristics such as interest,
tolerance, knowing ones possibilities as well as
limits and most importantly respect towards the
young person. It might be surprising that such soft
skills are put in the foreground but this exemplifies
our preceding statement that personality
outweighs a degree.

The head
knowledge about people, institutions, tools and methods,
the current situation and issues for young people
critical thinking
motivation for lifelong learning
filtering, selection and assessment of information
ideally specific youth information training
...and yes, an open mind!

The hand

The heart

a combination of good
planning and flexibility
good communication skills
use of communication and
counselling techniques in practice
fast action and constant updates
the ability of giving without asking
active listening
teamwork skills
solid and confident action
respect of confidentiality and
gaining trust

a welcoming attitude
a positive approach, charisma
patience
care
respect
guidance and advice

Many training courses are

designed to prepare youth information
workers. Their content can be grouped
under four major topics, namely:

No profession can be
fulfilled without specific
knowledge; lets then take
a look at training content.

historical and theoretical background and

principles of youth information work;

youth information in practice;

communication and work with young people;

evaluation, promotion, quality control

and possibilities for development.

The characteristics of the two ways of providing

youth information are compared in the table below:

1. History

Knowing ones history is important in every

situation and a relatively young profession is no
exception to that. In our case, the beginning of
this history dates back only to the days when the
specific needs of young people were recognised.
Do you remember the Beatles? Their hairstyles
provoked scandals but they were wearing suits and
ties just like everyone else those days. It is just
after this time that young people were recognised
as a distinct target group and that is when our
history starts. The principles of the European
Youth Information Charter (1993, revised in 2004)
and the Principles for Online Youth Information
(2009) also deserve mention here.

2. Youth Information
in practice

On the practice side, youth information workers

need to be aware of young peoples information
needs (a constantly moving target), find and
select quality information, organise and design it
appropriately for the target group and the most
difficult of all get it through to them.

3. Communication the art of

working with young people

Besides the knowledge of communication

techniques and principles, the particular setting
of counselling requires confidence in ones
professionalism, having sensitive topics, trust and
confidentiality issues in mind. A youth counsellor
also needs to be an excellent diplomat, as the real
issues of young people are usually not spoken out
directly but can be deduced.

4. Quality, promotion
and development

A particularly important aspect is quality.

Guidelines, insurance, control, (self-) assessment,
logos and seals of approval are being created to
ensure the same quality in youth information
networks a service that has to be promoted as well
as constantly developed just as everything else.
In the beginning of this article we mentioned some
examples of youth information workers who had
unusual career paths. This variety is present on the
other side of the counter too, as information is
not always obtained from people who provide it as
a profession. Youth workers are present in most
countries of Europe, even though they work in
different contexts and carry out different activities.
Some of them provide information on free-time
activities, others work in a country-specific system
of youth houses or playgrounds, whereas others
hit the streets and go where the target group is.
They all work with young people and as soon as
they earn their confidence, they receive questions
and they are expected to provide answers. We
call these colleagues, from the youth information
and counselling point of view, youth information
mediators or Jimmies.
This concept is of Dutch origin, hence the name
Jongeren Informatie Medewerker (or Jimmy).
Its underlying principle is the creation of a bridge
between youth work and youth information,
increasing the outreach of the latter, as well as
the capacities of the former. Jimmies are trained
to provide basic youth information, as part of
their work, in a professional way as well as in cooperation with youth information centres.

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Youth in
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works at a yout

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youth informat
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is more confro
challenges durin
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provides inform
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particular pers
focuses on one
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piece work, sh
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b, techniques...
s (materials, we
has several tool
activity
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youth informat

Youth information mediator (Jimmy)

in various settings,
works as a youth worker
k, outreach work, etc.
wor
et
in a youth house, stre
and provides youth
works with young people
g as an implicit part
llin
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information and
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accompanies young people
is asked for information and
often works with groups of
sees the development of a

advice

people

young person
tion centre

refers to the youth informa

l for youth work

youth information is a too

These two groups are the main professional providers of youth information
and counselling. As our recent experience shows, the co-operation between
them is interesting for both parties involved and most importantly,
benefits young people.
In its relatively short history, youth information and counselling work has
already undergone a fundamental change. Instead of youth information
centres being a storeroom of information, giving ultimate answers
to those who request it, youth information workers now help young
people find their way in the information jungle and provide face-to-face
counselling which is unique in the field. And most probably, changes for
youth information workers will be faster than ever because this is the
case for their target group.
To succeed in this, undergraduates are prepared by the former Welsh
punk, once a regular and admittedly problematic visitor of a youth centre,
who now teaches future youth workers at the University of Birmingham.
This is what youth information and counselling is all about: not only a
change of careers but a change of life.

by Andriy Pavlovych, Bernard Abrignani, Federica Demicheli

and Sonja Mitter. Compiled by Mark E. Taylor

Within the Youth in Action programme, the regional

SALTO resource centres have a crucial role to
play in informing all actors about the opportunities
available to them. Ranging from South-East
Europe to the Meda region and Eastern Europe
and Caucasus. Coyote asked them to consider
what was specific in their different approaches to
youth information. Here are their answers.

Andriy Pavlovych
1) What does your SALTO youth information strategy consist of?
How did you develop it? Is it different from the other Regional SALTOs?
How does it foresee interaction with stakeholders in the region?
SALTO EECAs youth information strategy is based on three pillars: Internet resources (a website,
e-Newsletter, Facebook, etc.), printed materials (leaflets, booklets, Youth in 7 magazine, educational
reports, etc.) and people-to-people contacts (presentations, consulting, sharing good practices, etc.).
SALTO EECA is the youngest regional resource centre (established in October 2003), therefore we were
in a more comfortable situation as we could learn from the experience of our colleagues of the SALTO
EuroMed and SALTO SEE. First we started to develop Internet resources and at that time it was in
English only. We also started to work on printed materials and in this case, we tried to do our best to be
as multilingual as possible. The EECA region is the most multilingual EU Neighbouring Partner region:
seven countries, seven languages, four alphabets and four totally different linguistic families. Russian
is still the most popular language in the EECA region (due to the common post-Soviet heritage), on the
other hand a lot of young people in Caucasus countries do not speak Russian fluently anymore; they
prefer to speak English. This is why a common solution is to have bilingual English/Russian publications.
The most ambitious task was to prepare the ambassadors we call them multipliers who will be ready
to inform and to promote the opportunities for international youth co-operation within the EUs youth
programme. The network of multipliers was established in the beginning of 2005 and is now the main
structure we use for implementation of the SALTO EECAs youth information strategy in the region.1
1. More information about this structure is available at www.saltoyouth.net/rc/eeca/eecamultipliers/

Multipliers are our experts from the region who know

how to inform and how to promote the EUs youth
programme according to the reality in their countries
and regions. They represent the NGOs where they
have implemented activities within the EUs youth
programme, so they have the proper insight. The
multipliers sometimes introduce themselves as
information representatives of the YiA Programme
(because it sounds more official, in Russian the term
multipliers has a strong association to a cartoon
maker ) and they involve national and local youth
policy stakeholders in their co-operation. We have
many examples where, thanks to our multipliers, the
SALTO EECA developed co-operation with national
governmental institutions on youth affairs. Also, we
have implemented together various educational and
promotional activities (study visits, conferences, etc.)
to involve more national and local stakeholders in
international and pan-European co-operation.

2) What do you consider the major

challenges in your region in being a
provider of youth information about
the Youth in Action programme?
What have been your solutions to
those challenges?
The major challenges:
Multilingualism and how to avoid linguistic
barriers. I answered this question above. I would
just like to emphasise that the best way is to
organise workshops on sharing good practices
when people meet other people from their countries
who have already experienced international youth
co-operation. It helps a lot to understand that,
Yes! We can!
Target group. How to identify the target groups?
For example, young people from rural and deprived
urban areas (the priority groups for the eastern
partnership Youth Window). We have organised
a few international educational activities for these
specific target groups, but it was very difficult to
approach and to recruit people from these areas.
So, we decided to organise some local activities
in their national languages, which we believe will
prove to be more user friendly.
Political situation of the country. For example,
Belarus, which is not even a Council of Europe
member state. How do you promote European

values in such a country? Our solution was to

avoid calling them European! In general, it is
better to focus on social inclusion than on youth
participation. The main conclusion is that the
specific youth information strategy has to be
decided on with the local youth policy/youth sector
actors. Also, we have to remember the safety of our
local partners who are involved in information and
promotion activities.

3) What have you learnt if anything

from your colleagues and regional
stakeholders experience in youth
information from the other regional
SALTOs?
As I mentioned, we are the youngest SALTO,
so we learnt a lot! First of all, we have analysed
the SALTO EuroMed and SALTO SEE Internet
resources and printed materials. The European
Commission also organised the meeting of the
regional SALTO RCs in 2005 where we had
the opportunity to discuss the similarities and
differences in our information strategies. From
that time we started to co-operate more closely.
We also learnt a lot from the local structures
developed by SALTO SEE (such as contact
points) and by the SALTO EuroMed (such as
multipliers).

4) If you had one thing which you

could implement to improve things
in the future, what would it be?
(Always bearing in mind that we dont
know exactly what the structure of
Erasmus+ will be!)
We should pay more attention to the development
of multilingual e-tools for partnership building in
the field of youth. It seems that e-materials get to
a wider target group and printed materials might
disappear soon.

5) Anything else you would like to add?

The youth information strategy has to be relevant
to the capacity of the region and at the same time
it should be in accordance with the capacity of
the EUs programmes in the youth field for the
Neighbouring Partner regions.

Bernard Abrignani and

Federica Demicheli
1) What does your SALTOyouth
information strategyconsist of?
How did you develop it? Is it different
from the other regional SALTOs?
How does it foresee interaction with
stakeholders in the region?
The information strategy is based on general and
common activities with the other SALTOs such as:
newsletters (EuroMed and Tools for Learning)
magazines (Meet In EuroMed and Tools for
Learning)
website
I dont know if it is specific but apart from our
Facebook page and Twitter we have a Facebook
page for each activity, usually managed by our
participants, and we use them to inform our
former participants.
We have also one specific video for each of our
activities uploaded on Vimeo and on the Facebook
page of each activity, for example on YouTube.

In our specific case, there is intense work done

with the stakeholders in the region based on oneto-one meetings and the development of ad hoc
projects on very important topics for the region
(government level, national information sessions,
EU Directorate Generals DEVCO and EAC, the
Youth Partnership, UNESCO, etc.)
Each publication is sent to different people, mainly
stakeholders, and according to the topic and
language. Not all of them are sent to same people.
The fact that we publish mainly in English, French
and Arabic is part of our strategy to avoid any kind
of exclusion!
We have also started new training courses for the
multipliers in Meda countries through RCBS but
that will bring added value to the SALTO EuroMed
network; approximately 30 people (youth leaders,
youth workers) in already four of the eight
countries.
In each of our activities we introduce the SALTO
network and the Youth in Action programme, and
recently the new Erasmus+ programme.

2) What do you consider themajor

challengesin your region in being a
provider of youth information about
the Youth in Action programme?
What have been your solutions to
those challenges?
The major challenges are:
1) an unstable political situation that does not
allow for the development of an information
strategy and which brings more fragility;

3) What haveyou learnt if anything

from your colleagues and regional
stakeholders experience in youth
information from the other regional
SALTOs?
The idea and methodology of EVS accreditation,
but we will need to adapt to the cultural and political
situation in the region and in each country!

4) If you had one thing which you

could implement toimprove things in
the future, what would it be? (Always
bearing in mind that we dont
know exactly what the structure of
Erasmus+ will be!)

2) the turnover of people working in the EuroMediterranean Youth Unit or in some reference
NGOs.

EVS strategy including accreditation for hosting,

sending and training of mentors as a way to create
qualitative and sustainable co-operation between
NGOs from both sides; never forget that our slogan
is bringing both sides together!

The idea of creating a national multipliers group is

part of the new strategy based more on NGOs than
on stakeholders.

5) Anything else you would like to add?

One important matter also is to help participants

from Meda countries by selecting them and paying
their travel costs, in many cases we do this with
national agencies.

Never forget that social media networks played a role

in the recent Arab Spring: they were used as channel
for information and a forum for exchange.
Thats why we have to adapt our information strategy
to the different target groups we have and to use
the existing tools that are used especially by young
people.

Sonja Mitter
(Please note: Sonja wanted to tackle the last
question first for reasons which will become
obvious as you read on)

5) Anything else you would

like to add?
Before talking about strategy and challenges,
maybe its worth saying this.
Generally speaking, we can be proud of what
has been reached throughout the past years.
For a couple of years already, many good
applications for Youth in Action projects have
been submitted by and with partners from SouthEastern Europe; the budget is sufficient only for
granting about one third of them, and there are
continuously new organisations from this region
using the possibilities offered by the programme.
Information has found its way through the world
of youth work in this part of Europe.
Our youth information strategy in SEE, built
by local stakeholders, has been an essential
part of promoting and supporting the Youth in
Action programme in this region. While SALTO
SEE manages to reach annually some 100150 participants by directly involving them in
European support activities where they can learn
more about the programme and how to use it, via
its local stakeholders an additional 300-600 young
people, youth leaders or other interested people
are directly participating in local information and
training activities. An additional, higher number
receives information from national information

providers via the Internet or promotional activities

of a more general nature. It might be hard to
define concrete outcomes, but without a doubt,
SALTO SEE could not have done it alone, without
an information strategy based on local/national
stakeholders.
If I had one more thing to add, it would be an
example of good practice. The Youth in Action
information strategy has been working most
successfully in Serbia, where several interlinked
developments and conditions have contributed to
its success. The work of the contact points (see point
1 below) has been carried out reliably for many
years, with great commitment, competence and
efficiency. It has been embedded in a strong and
politically active youth work scene and has been
able to rely on a co-ordinated and strong network of
trainers and multipliers. Importantly, the process
has benefitted from stable and quite substantial
financial and political support from the Serbian
Ministry of Youth and Sport, which has taken on
board interests from the non-governmental youth
sector in the formulation and implementation
of national youth policy and has integrated the
promotion of the Youth in Action programme into
its policy. This shows that a strategy of providing
information and support relies strongly on the
competences and capacities of the information
providers but also on the framework in which they
can operate, namely interaction with other local
stakeholders and social and political recognition of
their work.
There have been positive developments in all other
countries of the region (which I will not mention
at this point), albeit to different degrees. The
situation is not equally successful in all countries
and there is still a lot left to be done.

1) What does your SALTO youth

information strategy consist of?
How did you develop it? Is it different
from the other regional SALTOs?
How does it foresee interaction with
stakeholders in the region?
Our youth information strategy in SEE is based on
several basic assumptions:
1. Any strategy regarding information about Youth
in Action in SEE aims to reach potential project
organisers and enable them to use the programme.
It needs to include promotion (creating a need
for information), information (general + targetspecific), advice/counselling and training.

also been directly co-ordinating and organising

support activities in SEE countries (based
on perceived needs and interests) as well as coorganised European support activities (partially
targeted, partially general according to requests).
Since 2010, SALTO has organised annual working
meetings with national ministries in charge of
youth issues from SEE, recognising the important
role they play in supporting and giving recognition
to YiA information strategy and information
providers in their countries. While accreditors
come from SEE countries and other European
countries to ensure a European dimension in the
accreditation process, trainers and contact points
are, with some exceptions, from SEE countries.

4. Information providers should be structures

(organisations) rather than individuals, in order
to ensure higher sustainability. However, the
experience of individuals in charge of providing
the information is essential.

Exchange of information between the different

pools and actors and development of jointly
agreed principles and standards have been found
to be essential. There are regular (annual or biannual) working meetings of pools of contact
points, accreditors and trainers, separately as well
as all multipliers together. Meetings serve to share
information, experiences, challenges and realities,
and to review aims and objectives for further
information and support in the region. Regular
public calls serve to renew pools and assess
interest in the region. Integration of new members
into the pools and training of new multipliers on
the job aim to develop multipliers and information
providers based in all countries of SEE.

Our information strategy is based on

organisations that are nominated by SALTO
SEE as Contact Points for the Youth in Action
programme (since 2005) in (if possible) every
country of SEE, which are partially supported by
the national governments (Serbia). In addition, in
the field of EVS there are accreditors (information
to EVS sending and host organisations, since
2006) and trainers of EVS volunteers (information
to volunteers, since 2007); SALTO SEE has

The information strategy was developed taking

into account demands made by the programme,
and needs and possibilities perceived in the
region (what worked, what didnt, trial and error
method); it was based originally on a formal needs
assessment process in 2004 and 2005 (contact
points), since then there has been constant
discussion with stakeholders. Roles and activities
provided should reflect stability and continuity as
well as development and change.

2. There is a lack of existing youth information

structures that can be used for the purpose of
providing information about YiA.
3. Information should be provided by locals who
have a good understanding of the local (youth
work) reality, speak the local language and are
close to the target group.

2) What do you consider the major challenges in your region in being a

provider of youth information about the Youth in Action programme?
What have been your solutions to those challenges?
Challenges NOT in order of priority:
lack of existing youth information structures that could take up this role, at least partially;
lack of capacities and/or competences of potential information providers in this specific field;
the situation is becoming increasingly different in every country, thus demanding a specific approach;
lack of motivation of organisations to take up this demanding role, very limited financial support; (need
for additional financial support from other/national sources, mostly missing), sustainability of contact
point role/work is a challenge;
spirit of competition over resources, sharing of information within established
informal (politically influenced) networks rather than via official structures;
lack of social and political recognition of youth work and non-formal learning.
Some attempted solutions:
adapting the role and tasks of contact points over time, defining specific
tasks of an organisation rather than an overall role to fulfil;
efforts to reach out to national authorities in charge of youth
to increase recognition;
defining more flexible approaches where needed
(organising additional activities involving other actors,
especially in countries where developed strategies meet
the most challenges);
using resources from one country to support youth
information strategy in another, using examples of good practice;
we are still searching for the perfect solution!

3) What have you learnt if anything from your colleagues and

regional stakeholders experience in youth information from the other
regional SALTOs?
There are different realities that are not immediately comparable in regard to the recognition of the Youth
in Action programme and SALTO in the region, youth work and youth policy, existing youth information
structures, etc. Different realities demand different solutions.
Approaches taken by each SALTO are quite different but have some similarities. Sustainability of efforts
is a challenge for all SALTOs in their region. There are differences within each region which demand
specific approaches.

4) If you had one thing which you could implement to improve things
in the future, what would it be? (Always bearing in mind that we dont
know exactly what the structure of Erasmus+ will be!)
At this point we do not know yet if we will be free to select our Youth in Action information strategy in
the future European youth programme. Possibly, all information about the different programmes will
be dealt with jointly via existing (or to be created??) EU structures in the partner regions. If we had one
wish, it would be to keep the possibility to define our approach, using specific multipliers/information
providers and the developed capacities and competences. Ideally, they could be linked to, or co-operating
with, established EU offices in the region.
Our key words in any future youth information strategy should be SUSTAINABILITY and FLEXIBILITY
(to respond to different and changing needs in a changing region). Last but not least, we need to use the
existing resources that we have in the region even better, across the different countries.

1. Jelena Miljanic

currently working at the UN Co-ordination Office

in Montenegro,at the time working in the Forum
Montenegro NGO as co-ordinator of the youth
information and resource centre
Our colleagues from Slovenia (MISSS (Youth information counselling
centre)) opened the doors for youth information and counselling
development in Montenegro by hosting a study visit to their organisation
and other youth information services in Slovenia. This fostered our
partnership with EYRICA which introduced a network of professionals and
organisations that has accompanied our efforts. Seeing and experiencing
youth information in practice helped us plan and implement our work.
Back at that time, Slovenia was the closest Balkan country with developed
youth information systems and these similar realities helped by sharing
experiences that could be implemented in our country.

by Matina Magkou
Images by Marlies Pschl

When you bring together people working in the same field, it is unavoidable:
plenary presentations, workshops, corridor conversations are about
models, ideas, projects that are implemented in a certain location of the
European geography. All this with the aim of learning from each other, right?
Now, to what extent does something that is happening in another country/
region / city becomes a source of inspiration for our work? Do events, like
the Symposium on the role of information and counselling in fostering young
peoples social inclusion and access to their rights, actually help people
get new ideas by listening to what is happening elsewhere? And would they
actually try to copy-paste or adapt these ideas to their own realities?

Matina Magkou talked to different participants

at the symposium to get some answers and
understand what has been an inspiring
coming-from-elsewhere moment for them
either throughout their involvement in youth
information and counselling services so far,
or during this event.

2. Nela Sladojevic

Ministry of Family, Youth and Sport of

the Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina
([email protected])
I have seen that several youth centres in Belgium have workers to
reach out to people on the street. This is an important approach
because the majority of young people would not come to the youth
centre themselves and it is important to reach non-organised youth,
especially those that are most in need. In my country only 7% of
young people are members of youth organisations or are using
services of youth organisations. Also, in Belgium, they have invested
in rural youth information services, which are needed in my country
although not yet recognised by local governments as a priority. We
are currently developing quality standards for youth centres in the
Republic of Srpska, and my international experience and exposure
are helping me in this work.

3. Manana Kavtaradze

Head of the International Relations Division,

Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs of Georgia
([email protected])
A conversation with Jorge Orlando Queirs from the Portuguese
Youth Institute has been an inspiration for me. The way they reached
young people in rural areas using info buses full of information related
to youth (sexual education, scholarships, mobility opportunities, etc.)
was an idea that we are trying to implement in Georgia right now. In
Georgia there are many rural areas where young people dont have
access even to the Internet. With music, fireworks and promotional
material we try to attract them and address their needs. We are still
looking for creative ideas. If Coyote readers have suggestions, write
to me!

7. Ibai Guirles

France Bnvolat. International projects

co-ordinator ([email protected])

4. Antonio Saccone

Even though I am active around Europe participating in a number of

youth projects, I was impressed to see how young people were involved,
engaged and supported in a Jugend Hausen in a small rural area in
Germany (Blh, Tbingen) a few years ago. It showed me that this
structure was responding to the needs of the local population and the
municipality. The young people that were there had the opportunity
to share; there were moments where a youth worker was with them
but also moments when they were alone to take decisions and express
themselves in their own way. I use this experience in different
moments in assessments I do for municipalities and stakeholders
regarding youth information and counselling.

CEO of the International Institute for Sustainable

Development Policy and Diplomacy of Sport in
Slovenia ([email protected])
I work in an association dealing with sports and social change.
After coming to this symposium and listening to colleagues
from other countries, I am convinced that our activity makes
sense and sports and outdoor games can actually contribute to
the counselling of young people. Listening to the experiences
from other countries and sectors I realised that a coach or a
co-ordinator of a sports club has a social and educational role
and he or she has to be trained in that. I came here without a lot
of awareness and now I think that our mission is compatible
with youth information. It has been a learning experience and
a motivation that we are on the right track!

5. Albion Zeka

researcher at University of Pristina and youth

expert, Kosovo ([email protected])
I come from Kosovo where youth information is at level 0:
there is no structure, no infrastructure, no funding. Coming
to this symposium was inspiring for me to see that there
are networks that help you start things and people that
are offering to help. This symposium helped me to find out
which people I could seek advice from. And it also raised a
question: how can we ensure that we are giving the right
to information to all young people and at the same time
have personalised information services? At least I know
the question now the million dollar answer will come
afterwards. But now I know colleagues from around Europe
that I can ask!

6. Claudia Reis

National Co-ordinator, Youth Information and

Counselling Centres, Portuguese Sport and Youth
Institute ([email protected])
Evaldas from Lithuania shared with us a dynamic and empowering
Youth in Action project called I know it all. This initiative promotes
information on youth mobility and European opportunities through
journalism. Through this project, a young person becomes a journalist in
a foreign country, gathers information and resources and reports on his
or her experience. This activity also enhances social inclusion because it
gives access to knowledge about the society and the cultural reality that
otherwise would be difficult to get. Thank you, Evaldas! I will see how we
can do this in Portugal as well!

8. Pepe Moreno

Youth Information Network, Directorate General

for Employment and Youth in Castilla La Mancha,
Spain ([email protected]))
Considering the framework in which I work, a local government in
a country that has very high unemployment rates, I was impressed
by the project presented by Estonia. The information they were
giving, the experiences that they had, showed me how much can
be achieved through a local centre and that can be transported
to a youth centre. In the formal education system all this cannot
be achieved; thats why we need to find ways of collaboration to
help young people in their professional development.

9. Evaldas Rupkus

Lithuanian Youth Council (LiJOT)

([email protected])
Listening to the keynote speech of Fiona McIntyre
from Scotland, I was inspired by the co-design
approach in information and counselling services.
This means that youngsters should not only be the
recipients of information and counselling services,
but they have a big role to play in the planning and
evaluation stages and should be fully integrated. I
also think that Jan from Bosnia and Herzegovina
made a good point: the role of Eurodesk in the SouthEastern Europe region should be further explored to
provide more information opportunities to young
people from the region. Why start all over again if we
already have a lot to build on?

10. Lana Gorianzky

13. Ivona Separovic

I liked the project BYSTRM that was put in place in Finland and it
is a good example of how institutions should be connected. I hope
that one day well have something similar in Croatia because it is a
very useful and needed system for youth.

In Austria, they have a fabulous system and as a young person

with disabilities you can get all the information that you need.
In Croatia, when you want to ask something which is connected
to health conditions or education or something else, you cannot
get the right answers easily. Awareness is the key point: if
you know what you need to know, then you can ask it! This
should also be the role of information and counselling services,
because if you dont know how to express your needs, then you
are stuck in a box.

BREZA youth NGO, Croatia

([email protected])

The European youth portal (http://europa.eu/youth/EU_en) got

my attention because I think that most young people in Croatia
dont know about it and it has excellent information that is very
useful. I hope my opinion helped you and I want to congratulate you
for being so wonderful in this symposium. You were so open and
everybody could talk to you and find out all the information they
needed. Well done! Keep up the good work!

ZAMISLI association for promoting

quality education for youth with disabilities

11. Andres Lokk

Youth Work Centre, Estonia

([email protected])
Every time I travel to a meeting or to visit colleagues in other countries,
this works as a time for reflection for me. I see what other people are
doing, what the realities are in the different countries and I feel proud that
in Estonia we have good structures and good support from the government
side. Still the issue that arises when we discuss with colleagues is that we
still have a lot of work to do in order to achieve social inclusion of all young
people through information and counselling. I like the Finnish idea that in
the same space young people can find different services for what they need.

12. Margarita Kotenko

Projects co-ordinator in the

National Youth Council of Moldova
([email protected])
I remember some years ago, when I started to be active in the
youth field, many participants at the seminars, workshops and
training courses were bragging about how many international
activities they had attended.
During this symposium I was glad to observe that many
youth NGOs and services are focusing on the hard-to-reach
youngsters. The idea of involving the vulnerable groups is in
the air and hopefully with combined efforts we will succeed in
empowering the isolated and include the excluded youngsters.

14. Robiu Salisu

Clic Online, Wales Youth Ambassador

([email protected])
One of this things Ive learnt at this symposium is about the two projects
currently taking place in Estonia. The projects are called switch on and
getting started and their aim is to get young people back into employment.
I look forward to sharing this idea with my organisation and seeing if there
is a way we can use a similar method to face youth unemployment in Wales.

by Jane Westergaard

The current state of the global economy means that many young people are
facing particularly challenging times. The difficulties inherent in navigating
a safe course through the turbulence of adolescence and making sense of
their own physical, emotional, social and psychological development, are
exacerbated in an environment where the landscape relating to education,
employment and training opportunities appears to be increasingly bleak.
At times like these, youth support workers (a generic term encompassing
a range of roles involved in supporting young people; youth workers,
counsellors, mentors, tutors and so on) who engage with young people on
a one-to-one basis, aim to build relationships of trust with their clients. In
a climate of openness and transparency, youth support practitioners work
alongside young people to encourage them to reflect on their lives, identify
the barriers and challenges they face and consider ways in which these
can be managed and overcome. In other words, youth support workers
assist their clients to move towards change and achieve positive outcomes.
This work involves more than simply providing relevant information
to young people (although this, of course, is helpful where necessary
and appropriate). Rather it requires an understanding of approaches to
engaging young people and the development of skills to build and sustain
meaningful professional relationships with clients.
This article focuses on the importance of the one-to-one relationship,
based on the premise that, like their therapeutic counselling colleagues,
youth support workers use counselling skills in their practice with young
people. It introduces a research project which examines the central features
of effective therapeutic counselling practice with young people from the
counsellors perspective. The research asks five qualified and experienced
therapeutic counsellors who work in a voluntary youth counselling agency
to reflect on what works in their counselling practice. It is hoped that
the participants responses, outlined below, might inform and contribute
to youth support practice in particular to one-to-one work with young
people.

Four key shared themes relating to the question

what works in one-to-one counselling practice
with young people, emerged. They were: the need
for safety for clients in therapeutic counselling,
the quality of the clientcounsellor relationship,
flexibility in theoretical orientation and the use of
creative methods.

Offering a safe space

Participants in this study referred to the
environment and the importance of providing a
warm, comfortable, confidential and private space
to clients. In addition, each participant referred to
the psychological dimension of safety alongside
the physical factors. The significance of safety in
the counselling relationship is well documented
and the provision of a safe space implies
paying attention to two elements: the physical
environment and the counselling process.
The focus on offering a respectful and nurturing
environment in which clients can feel secure
is, perhaps, particularly important for young
people, many of whom do not feel safe in their

surroundings: as homes, classrooms, clubs, the

streets, can all pose threats. The counselling room
too, may be approached with trepidation, anxiety
or even fear. Pope (2002) makes the case for
youth-friendly counselling services, recognising
the specific needs of this client group and the
challenges they may face in accessing support.
The physical space alone does not provide
the safety alluded to by participants in this
study. The concept of safety in the process of
counselling refers to the boundaries of the
relationship, containment and the adherence
to a code of ethics and the law, which includes
recognition of the limits of confidentiality in the
relationship. Without explicit boundaries in place
behavioural, ethical and legal the safety that
is crucial to building a meaningful relationship
may be compromised. In a recent study (Lynass
et al. 2012) young people spoke about valuing the
confidential and private nature of the counselling
process. There appears to be agreement here
between what counsellors think works and what
young people themselves identify as helpful. This
finding is likely to resonate with many youth
support practitioners who will also be aware of
the need to provide a safe and confidential space
to their clients.

The significance of the

therapeutic relationship
All participants in the study stressed the need to
build a trusting, respectful relationship with young
people. Without this, they explained, young people
would be less likely to engage in the counselling
process. The concept of the relationship or
therapeutic alliance in counselling is both revered
and contested. There are research findings that
support the centrality of the therapeutic alliance
and there are those that question its significance.
But what is clear is that, for many young people,
relationships of trust with adults in their lives
may be in short supply. Times where they can
simply be with an adult without having to meet
expectations, risk feeling judged, criticised or
ignored may be rare.
In order for young people to talk to adults openly
and honestly, a relationship based on trust is
likely to have developed. Lynass et al. (2012)
found that young people in counselling valued the
opportunity to talk or get things out, in particular
they cited feeling listened to and understood by
the counsellor as important. That is not to suggest
that creating a positive counselling relationship
with young people is straightforward. This is
supported by counsellors in the study who each
stressed the importance of taking time to build the
relationship, welcoming the opportunity offered
by their counselling agency to work with clients for
up to 52 sessions.
For youth support work, the message
here is clear; young people need time
and space in order for a trusting
and safe relationship to develop.
The youth support worker must
develop patience, resilience
and key counselling skills in
order to ensure that this
can happen. Some youth
support workers are

constrained by external factors such as the need

to meet targets or a restriction on the number of
times they can meet and engage with their clients.
In some cases there is a risk that this can be
detrimental to the quality of the work undertaken
with young people.

The importance of
flexibility in approach
One of the most interesting, and perhaps
contentious, findings from the research was
the openness each counsellor expressed to
being flexible in their therapeutic approach. In
particular, counsellors, regardless of their specific
counselling training, described their adherence
to the core conditions of person-centred practice
(Rogers 1951; Prever 2010). By taking an empathic
approach, adopting a non-judgmental response
through unconditional positive regard and
demonstrating self-awareness and congruence in
the work, each participant felt that a relationship
developed whereby his or her young clients were
encouraged to tell their stories and share their
thoughts and feelings with the counsellor.
Interestingly, there is little evidence to suggest
that young people themselves identify any single
counselling orientation as more or less helpful.
The learning here perhaps, for youth support
practitioners who engage in one-to-one work
with young people, is that attention to the specific
approaches to engagement in which they were
trained is important, and it is the
adherence to person-centred
conditions of congruence,
empathy and unconditional
positive regard that
young people value
most of all.

The use of creativity

in the work
The participants in the study also made the link
between working flexibly, as discussed above
and working creatively with young people in
counselling. Geldard and Geldard (2009) make
the link between flexibility and creativity in
counselling, explaining that young people may
become restless or bored with the counselling
process and that the counsellor should be able to
respond spontaneously where this is the case.
The use of creative methods is not widely explored
in counselling training and therefore it relies
on each counsellors willingness to engage with
creative activities and learn more about their
applicability. The use of creativity in counselling
also raises the issue of resources. The participants
in the study had excellent resources to draw on
(toys, figures, sand trays, beads, building blocks
and so on), but at a time of financial restrictions
to public and voluntary sector budgets, there may
be less inclination to invest in creative activities
for therapeutic counsellors (and youth support
practitioners) to use. Those working in the
broad remit of youth support may find that they
have access to a range of resources and creative
methods with which they can engage and support
their clients; finding alternative ways to reflect on
issues, consider strategies and plan for change
in the future. Like their therapeutic counselling
colleagues, youth support practitioners should
take an informed approach to using creative
methods; being clear about what they are doing,
why they are doing it and what they are hoping to
achieve.

There is a growing body of literature that focuses

on counselling young people, but there appears to
be little written which examines the practice from
the counsellors perspective. This study, albeit
not based on a large sample, provides some indepth, illuminative reflections from therapeutic
counsellors on four key aspects of what they feel
works in their practice.
The evidence here can be transposed to the youth
support work context where practitioners also
build one-to-one relationships of trust with their
clients. Youth support workers are not necessarily
trained counsellors, but nevertheless, like their
therapeutic counselling colleagues, they are
establishing one-to-one relationships with young
people with the aim of working towards greater
reflection, understanding and positive change.
The evidence presented here is helpful in order
to inform and develop this important area of
professional practice.
A full version of this paper can be found in
Counselling and Psychotherapy Research (2013)
Volume 13 (2), pp 98-106.

Geldard K. and Geldard D. (2009), Relationship Counselling

for Children Young People and Families, Sage, London.
Lynass R., Pykhtina O. and Cooper M. (2012), A thematic
analysis of young peoples experience of counselling in five secondary
schools in the UK, Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 12 (1) 53-62.
Pope P. (2002), Youth-friendly counselling, Counselling and
Psychotherapy Research, February, 18-19.
Prever M. (2010), Counselling and Supporting Children and
Young People: A Person-Centred Approach, Sage, London.
Rogers C.R. (1951), Client Centred Therapy, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA.

Within discussions with a learner it can help orientate comments, feedback and questions
as the following example shows:

Model
L live it!

Stressing the importance of being in

the here and now, be focused on what
is happening.

What happened? Where?

When? Who was involved?

E experience it!

Getting fully into the experience, try

things, experiment.

What did you do? What did you try to do?

What did others do? How did they react
to you and your actions?

A awareness increasing!

Connect what is happening to sensations,

feelings and more cognitive processes.

What was going on inside of you at that time?

How did that feel? What was successful?
What didnt work? (Maybe even: I noticed that)

R record your findings!

Write, draw, speak, film the ideas coming

to mind. It is important not to forget.

Describe your conclusions.

Now you have come out of the
experience what does it mean for you?

N name your learning!

Naming the knowledge, skills and inner

readiness gained is important for oneself
and so that others can also understand what
is meant.

What have you learned?

What would you put in an email/ in a letter
to your parents /on Facebook / in a CV
to describe what you learned?
How would the results be different?

(Note: these two parts are very

strongly linked)

by

Mark E. Taylor

[email protected]

Marker is a regular column in Coyote, hoping to encourage debate, questions and a certain regard.
For reasons of space, this Marker is more digital than in the previous edition. Normal service may
resume in the next issue.

LEARN = Customer service complaint handling?

Did you know that the acronym LEARN stands for Listen, Empathise, Apologise,
React and Notify? No, neither did I until I started writing this. It is used to help
those who have to deal with customer complaints, to show how they should react
in a nicely efficient way to those customers who are brave enough to face up to the
capitalist Moloch.
During the process of writing a publication about one-to-one learning support my
friend and colleague Monika Kait-Jakninien and I were researching and
comparing lots of experiences drawn from practice together with ideas, concepts and
models. For instance, we included coaching models like GROW (Goal, Reality, Options
Way forward) and CLEAR (Contracting, Listening, Exploring, Action,
Review), plus the feedback model the Johari Window. Still, we
were not able to find a simple (not simplistic!) model to describe a
learning process. After periods of intense thought, meditation and
walking the dog we arrived at a point of clarity when the MonMar
LEARN Model suddenly appeared (MonMar = Monika & Mark ;o) ).
After testing it with some willing victims we came to the conclusion
that it could be worth sharing with others.
This admittedly basic model attempts to describe an experiential
learning process from the start to finish. Learning is NOT a linear
process each level is connected with the others and it is possible
to go forwards and backwards, for example, to be at A and then jump
back to L. Thats life.
We used the word LEARN as an
acronym from which to build.
What other words could you use
as a basis for such a concept?

L live it!
E experience it!
A awareness increasing!
R record your findings!
N name your learning!

Questions/Comments

Explanation

Monika would be very happy to hear what you think about this model.

Trous en formation?
All over France you will find this road sign. In such a context, it means holes
in the making so your car will not actually fall into a pit. There are just some
problems which could become larger if nothing is done about them. So why do
I show you this? Well, one of the words for training in French is formation
and I have been wondering for quite a while whether it would be possible to
make a little joke along the lines of holes in training. Or even use it for the
introduction to an evaluation session. Never even thought of making fun of
participants by welcoming them as the holes though...
So, francophiles a question for you! How would you use this sign?

And finally

Thanks to those who write or give informal

feedback. Next time we consider the pataphysics
of inner readiness
Hey Olivier, did you find Heidegger here?

Sounds, words, inspirations

Daft Punk, Face to Face
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKJfJMMsqX4
(accessed 18.06.2014)
Its not hard to go the distance when you
finally get involved face to face
JD Twitch featuring Killa P, Skeng Teng
(Tapes remix) [Bucky Skank]
www.youtube.com/watch?v=brzU2oqe14k
(accessed 18.06.2014)

Eliot Fisk & Paco Pena: Tiny Desk Concert

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDdudDaWdqY#t=106
(accessed 18.06.2014)
Wilko and Roger Daltrey live in concert
www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3oAaElKxKs (accessed
18.06.2014)
Freak Power, Tune in, turn in, cop out
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_O6BWniZwY
(accessed 18.06.2014)
Christian Alexander (2012), L.e.a.r.n....
Conflict resolution and guest services
www.slideshare.net/ChristianAlexander1/learnconflictresolution-and-guest-services (accessed 18.06.2014)

Bernard Abrignani is the co-ordinator of Salto-Youth Euromed

and Good Practices Resource Centre; project director for
technical assistance of the EuroMed Youth Programme IV
at the French National Institute for Youth and Community
Education (INJEP). He is also the project director of RCBS
(the technical assistance service of the EuroMed Youth
programmes III and IV).
Vedrana Bilii has been involved in youth work since 2001,
first as a volunteer, and later as one of the founders of the youth
information centre in Split, Info Zona. She has been activity
co-ordinator and a youth information worker in the youth
information centre since 2009 and president of the Association
of Youth Information Centres in Croatia since 2012.
Davide Capecchi doesnt ever know how to answer the
question Where are you from? He is always here and there,
advocating the importance of youth information and youth
work. He is working to the best of his ability to match the
expectations of the members and stakeholders of ERYICA, the
European Youth Information and Counselling Agency, as its
director; a role he has held since 2007. Member of the Coyote
editorial team.
Federica Demicheli is the project officer for Salto-Youth
Euromed and Good Practices Resource Centre.
Jaana Fedotoff has worked as a co-ordinator at Koordinaatti
since it was established, in 2006. She has a Masters degree in
community education, but has also studied a number of other
subjects, such as journalism and mass communication.
Vera Hoogsteyns is a youth information worker with the
Flemish organisation Jong & Van Zin. She works on youth
participation, peer support, bullying, resiliency, open
communication and feedback.
Zoran Ilieski is the executive director of the coalition of youth
organisations SEGA and the president of Youth Council Prilep.
He was directly involved in the establishment of the first
youth information centre in the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia.
Jan Zlatan Kulenovic is Executive Director of the Youth
Information Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (OIA). He lives
and works in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is active in
a number of networks and projects throughout the world.
Fiona McIntyre is a freelance writer and editor, based in
Edinburgh, who works with youth agencies in Scotland,
charities and voluntary organisations and the European Youth
Card Association.
Matina Magkou is to be found in different places of the world
giving training courses, facilitating meetings, writing reports,
editing publications, co-ordinating projects, organising events
and festivals, touring with theatre companies,consulting
cultural organisations and (occasionally) working on her
PhD thesis which focuses on (surprise, surprise!) mobility.A
Coyote editorial team member.
Ante Martic currently works as an advisor for legal affairs at
the national association of local municipalities of Croatia. He
has previously worked at the Ministry of Social Policy and
Youth of the Republic of Croatia and at the European Youth
Forum as a policy officer.

Ivan Medi has been active in the NGO sector, with an

emphasis on youth work, since 1999. He is one of the founders
of the youth information centre, Info Zona, in Split and has
been its president since 2008.
Sonja Mitter kulj is co-ordinator of the SALTO South East
Europe Resource Centre in Ljubljana. Sonja was the founding
editor of Coyote.
Andriy Pavlovych is co-ordinator of SALTO Eastern Europe
and the Caucasus Resource Centre in Warsaw.
Mika Pietil has worked as a planning officer at Koordinaatti
since September 2007. He first started working with young
people in 1995. He first became involved in youth information
and counselling in 1997, by establishing a youth information
and counselling service in the city of Kokkola, Finland as well
as a web-based service.
Sladjana Petkovic works as lead consultant for the Millennium
Acceleration Framework (MAF) Intervention in Montenegro
at UNDP Montenegro and in the past was part of the Pool
of European Youth Researchers PEYR. She is specialised
in developmental youth work and social education at the
Jonkoping University/Sweden.
Marlies Pschl is a visual artist and film maker currently based
in Vienna. Her work is centred on questions of language and
education, as well as the relation between text and image.
Coyote editorial team member.

Coyote - a resourceful animal whose blunders or successes

explain the condition of life in an uncertain universe.

(In: Jack Tresidder, The Hutchison Dictionary of Symbols, 1997)

Coyote is a magazine addressed to trainers, youth workers, researchers, policy makers and all
those who want to know more about the youth field in Europe.
Coyote wants to provide a forum to share and give new insights into some of the issues
facing those who work with young people. Issues relate to diverse training methodologies and
concepts; youth policy and research; and realities across this continent. It also informs about
current developments relating to young people at the European level.
Coyote can be received free of charge (subject to availability; please contact:
[email protected]) and is available in an electronic format at:
http://pjp-eu.coe.int/en/web/youth-partnership/

Partnership between the European Commission and the Council of Europe in the field of youth
c/o Council of Europe / Directorate of Democratic Citizenship and Participation Youth Department / F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex, France
http://pjp-eu.coe.int/en/web/youth-partnership/ - Tel: +33 3 88 41 30 77 or +33 3 90 21 49 16 / Fax: +33 3 88 41 27 78

Glesin Nemutlu Unal is a freelance trainer and consultant

currently working under the label of her learning design office
called tekne. She lives in Istanbul.
Evaldas Rupkus is known as a reanimator. He started working
in the field of information for youth when he was still a 10-yearold child himself. His dream at the moment is to create a youth
information and counselling system in Lithuania which would
help young people to understand their potential and how to
use it. You can currently find him in Vienna.
Imre Simon works in Luxembourg for the European Youth
Information and Counselling Agency (ERYICA) to strengthen
European co-operation in the field of youth information work
and services. A certified youth information trainer, Imre
has been active in the human rights education and global
education fields as well.
Mark E. Taylor works from his current base in Strasbourg,
France. You can find him around the place facilitating meetings,
training, running workshops and consulting organisations.
One of his passions is to be found in contributing to what he
hopes are useful educational publications. Editor of Coyote
magazine since 2010.
Jane Westergaard is a senior lecturer at Canterbury Christ
Church University. She teaches on a range of programmes
specifically designed for students who plan to engage in youth
support work. She has recently published a book, Effective
counselling with young people, with colleague, Hazel Reid.
Jane is a qualified and practising UKRC registered counsellor,
working with young people and adult clients.

The Council of Europe is the continents leading human

rights organisation. It comprises 47 member states,
28 of which are members of the European Union.
All Council of Europe member states have signed up to
the European Convention on Human Rights, a treaty
designed to protect human rights, democracy and the
rule of law. The European Court of Human Rights oversees
the implementation of the Convention in the member states.

The European Union is a unique economic and political partnership

between 27 democratic European countries. Its aims are peace,
prosperity and freedom for its 500 million citizens in a fairer,
safer world. To make things happen, EU countries set up bodies
to run the EU and adopt its legislation. The main ones are the
European Parliament (representing the people of Europe), the
Council of the European Union (representing national governments)
and the European Commission (representing the common EU interest).

www.coe.int

http://europa.eu