Qualification and professionalisation

Our offers for further education are mainly directed at full-time and voluntary staff from Germany and all over Europe, acting as multipliers in the field of youth and social work, who already have some experience with intercultural work or would like to obtain some qualification regarding specific aspects of European or international youth work.

The development and implementation of training modules usually takes place within a cooperative network and/or as commissioned work. The following is a list of selected examples of qualification projects:

• Training for professionals in international youth work from Germany, France, and Tunisia, on the topic of protection and safety for international youth encounters (funding body: Franco-German Youth Office)
• Long-term training course for professionals in open youth work on the topic of ‘Activating young people for the development of civil society – but how?’ (funding body: Federal Foreign Office)
• International training courses for professionals in international youth work on topics such as intercultural learning, international teamwork, recognition of non-formal learning (funding bodies: Youth for Europe – National Agency for the EU ‘Youth in Action’ programme)
• International training courses for professionals in non-formal adult education on the topic of ‘learning to learn competence’ within a European two-year project involving partners from Austria, Italy, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Spain (funding body: European Commission)
• Training on the topic of intercultural sensitisation and intercultural competency for job centre staff (contracting authority: Job Centre for the district of Mayen-Koblenz)

To complement these activities, we are also active in theory building and advise executive agencies and funding bodies about training and further education of staff involved in international youth work.

The following two papers summarise the key ideas of our approach to professionalisation as theses:

Otten, Hendrik; Ohana, Yael: The eight key competencies for Lifelong Learning: an appropriate framework within which to develop the competence of trainers in the field of European youth work or just plain politics? SALTO, Bonn: September 2009.

Otten, Hendrik: Ten theses on the correlation of European youth work, intercultural learning and demands on full and part-time staff with a view to their qualification and professionalisation of their work. Council of Europe/European Youth Centre Budapest: February 2009.