The Digital Imperative: Why Youth Work Must Evolve
Today's youth are digital natives, spending significant portions of their lives on social media, gaming platforms, and virtual communities. Their shift from physical spaces to the online scene presents a challenge for youth workers but also allows them to engage with them in innovative and even more effective ways. Digital tools can facilitate reaching young people who are challenging to engage offline, offer new channels for peer-to-peer discussions, and offer training and learning through gaming.
However, a significant gap hinders youth workers from following the youth to the online scene. Many youth workers lack the skills, training, and resources to navigate the digital landscape effectively. NGYW aims to address this by creating a long-term vision and strategy for sustainable youth work that meets the needs of young people in the digital age.
Inside the Network: A Collaborative Journey
The NextGen YouthWork Network brings together ten diverse cities: Eindhoven (Netherlands), Aarhus (Denmark), Cartagena (Spain), Iași (Romania), Klaipėda (Lithuania), Oulu (Finland), Perugia (Italy), Tetovo (North Macedonia), Veszprém (Hungary) and Viladecans (Spain). Through diverse physical and online meetings, the Network serves as a platform for knowledge sharing and exploring innovative approaches. It helps cities develop Integrated Action Plans, fostering a collaborative journey towards digital youth work.
City Spotlights: Innovative Digital Practices in Action
Each city brings unique challenges and perspectives to the Network, leading to tailored solutions.
Eindhoven confronts declining youth participation in physical spaces by building youth workers' digital skills. Dynamo Eindhoven, the city's most significant youth work organisation, focuses strongly on digital engagement with youth, apart from the traditional work done in the youth centres in the neighbourhoods and many activities and initiatives outside. Early in the process, they recognised that the key to the successful digital transition of youth work is building the skills of their youth workers. Dynamo elaborated an Online Youthwork Handbook which offers strategies for engaging youth on platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, and Snapchat. While encouraging their youth workers and providing them with resources to go online, the more experienced ones act as Digi-coaches to guide youth workers in digital spaces.
Aarhus, a city committed to digital inclusion, is ensuring that all its citizens, regardless of their digital skills or resources, can access the services they need. Their Strategy for Digital Inclusion serves as a solid foundation, with the overarching goal of providing all citizens equal access and benefits from digital opportunities. The city's active involvement in the Network, where it draws inspiration from other participating cities, proves its commitment to digital accessibility.
Oulu focuses on ensuring equal access to services, and it does so by cooperating intensely with other cities in developing a national online youth space based on Discord and sharing data on all their youth work activities with other municipalities. Smart City Oulu, launched in 2024, will invest significantly in AI-driven service development, youth e-services, and digital education initiatives, with a vision for online elections, information portals, and virtual communities.
Cartagena intends to empower youth through increased civic participation, skills development, and social inclusion, using peer-led information networks and cultural projects like the Ache and Mandarache Awards. The project is a large-scale reading promotion initiative that annually engages around 7,000 youth from 12 to 30 in discussing and debating topics relevant to them. Besides the two literary awards, the initiative includes creative writing workshops, a podcast network produced with and for the youth, and various events each school year. Based initially on physical meetings and tools, COVID-19 and the lockdowns posed an immense challenge to the Awards, which the city successfully tackled by going online on WhatsApp, YouTube, and Spotify. Since then, Cartagena has been expanding its digital activities by creating a WhatsApp channel disseminated through youth correspondents among their peers.
Veszprém is committed to developing digital youth work and improving accessibility to youth services while strengthening the role of youth in municipal decision-making and using the renewed urban community spaces as a result of the European Capital of Culture. The city is cultivating a pioneering role in youth work in Hungary. Making use of a central initiative that set up Digital Knowledge Centres to provide hands-on STEM education for young people aged 7-19, Veszprém involves youth in creating a mobile phone app for youth. While the success of developing an app may seem doubtful, the involvement of young people will have the undoubted benefit of teaching them how to create an app from scratch and incorporating their needs into city services for young people.
Viladecans focuses on redefining youth worker roles and improving communication strategies to ensure services are more accessible, using a hybrid approach. Learning from their peers in Cartagena, they are working to initiate a WhatsApp channel and test a TikTok channel to reach a broader range of youth between 12 and 35.
Iași lacks the youth services and infrastructure available in their partner cities. However, riding the wave of the NextGen YouthWork Network and building on the good practices learned in Cartagena and Viladecans, the city is testing the development of a youth centre in a neighbourhood. Working with their stakeholders, such as the local universities and NGOs, Iași can create a youth centre housing bottom-up initiatives aimed at youth. Also inspired by Cartagena's Mandarache Award and capitalising on its perceived Cultural Capital of Romania status, Iași is considering a similar initiative, incorporating it into the blooming local cultural life, involving relevant stakeholders.
Klaipėda focuses on training youth workers on digital tools, enhancing their ability to engage with young people online. Being an active participant in previous Erasmus projects, the city has already experimented with digital tools, such as virtual reality, to raise awareness on issues such as bullying and living with impairments.
Perugia has a strong orientation to culture and innovative approaches, working with a bottom-up initiative of a local stakeholder already engaging many young people as volunteers in the buzzing local music scene. Their testing actions centre around training youth in online communication and graphics, event organisation, social media, and AI and developing a Laboratory for Youth Ideas, a tool to enable young people to express their voice and tell the city's story by managing small budgets.
Tetovo addresses challenges youth face due to COVID-19, such as online schooling and social isolation. Their focus is also on creating opportunities for youth activities and providing them with training on digital communication.
Testing Actions: Innovation in Practice
Testing Actions in the URBACT framework are valuable because they allow cities to experiment with new ideas on a small scale before implementing them more broadly. This approach facilitates rapid learning and adaptation, focusing on building knowledge and experimenting rather than relying on assumptions. Within the Network, the cities deal with various key themes:
- Building the skills of youth workers: Eindhoven is committed to developing online tools for youth workers; Klaipeda and Tetovo train youth workers on digital tools.
- Creating the physical and digital infrastructure for youth: Iași is developing a youth centre in a neighbourhood; Veszprém has already transformed a community point into a youth community space.
- Experimenting with novel ideas: Oulu is testing a knowledge management tool, to measure young adults' well-being and improve services. Perugia aims to create a bot to support young people in organising events.
- Creating and using new digital solutions or channels for engaging youth: Aarhus explores new ways of guiding youngsters seeking information about vocational education. Veszprém is developing an app for youth. Other cities rely on existing social media services to engage with youth: Cartagena intends to expand its digital activities by creating a WhatsApp channel, and Viladecans - while learning from Cartagena - aims to set up and boost its communication on WhatsApp and TikTok to reach a broader range of youth.
- Promoting youth expression: Perugia wants to enable young people to express their voices and tell the city's story by managing small budgets.
Challenges and Roadblocks: Navigating the Future
Despite its successes, cities in the Network face several challenges. Many cities have found refining their Integrated Action Plans (IAPs) demanding, as youth work spans multiple policy areas. Stakeholder engagement and maintaining regular participation in ULG meetings are challenging, and the need for professional facilitation is evident. Securing resources and funding remains a key concern, with cities needing more structured guidance on identifying financial opportunities, writing successful grant applications, and aligning objectives with measurable outcomes.
NGYW is committed to addressing these challenges and working together to find solutions and strengthen its foundations. However, the Network will significantly emphasise refining funding strategies and providing dedicated training sessions for the successful implementation of IAPs. The upcoming meetings and workshops will focus on strengthening operational readiness and securing political and financial support. And finally, a peer review process will enable cities to improve their action plans.
The Road Ahead: A Sustainable Digital Future
NGYW is smoothing the cities' way on the digital transition in youth work. By fostering collaboration, sharing knowledge, and testing innovative approaches, the Network is helping cities create inclusive and responsive youth services. The ultimate goal is to empower youth workers with the skills, knowledge, and resources they need to connect with young people in the digital age and help them thrive. This collaborative effort promises to shape the future of youth work, ensuring it remains relevant, effective, and responsive to the needs of young people in the digital era.
Social media: https://instagram.com/nextgen_youthwork
Keywords: youth, youth work, digital youth work, digital transition
Hashtags: #bettercities #actionplanning
