10.4 Quality and innovation in youth work
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There are no quality indicators to evaluate the work of youth organisations. However, every 4 years their work is evaluated by the Inspection of Culture in order to renew their recognition by the public youth service.
For more information, refer to 5.7 “Learning to participate” through formal, non-formal and informal learning.
Research and evidence supporting youth work
The Minister of Youth maintains an institutionalised and regular cooperation with the Observatory of Childhood, Youth and Youth Welfare. This is a cross-disciplinary service of the French-Speaking Community created in 1998 at the request of the government.
This body is placed under the authority of the Secretary General of the Ministry. The missions of the Observatory consist notably in:
supporting researches and developing analysis and indicators about childhood, youth and youth welfare;
compiling an inventory of public policies and organisations and institutions that concern theses target groups;
evaluating decrees related to these topics, delivering opinions and making recommendations in these fields of competences;
promoting children’s rights. The Observatory is charged by the government to implement the article 42 (promoting the principles of the Convention in the French-Speaking Community) and 44 (reporting to the UN the measures taken at national level related to the Convention) of the International Convention of 20 November 1989 related to the Rights of Children. In this context, it is notably in charge of the follow-up and the evaluation of the Children’s rights action plans adopted by the French-speaking Community Government and the Walloon Region.
The Observatory is independent regarding the themes of the researches that it supports. To ensure that the Government is aware and implicated about the processes and the results of these studies, Cabinets of Ministers are generally invited to be part of the Committee in charge of the follow-up of the studies. The Government has also the prerogative to ask the Observatory to focus research on specific objects
The decree “Décret créant l’Observatoire de l’enfance, de la jeunesse et de l’aide à la jeunesse” (Decree of 12 May 2004 creating the Observatory of Childhood, Youth and Youth Welfare) is the official document describing the role and missions of the Observatory.
No top-level youth work policies and regulations have been developed directly with the consultation and contribution of young people.
However, The Minister for Youth and the Youth Department conduct regular dialogue and consultation with official representative bodies which involve actively young people. There are 3 main Advisory bodies in the field of youth policies that request the presence of young people in their board. This is a bottom-up approach and indirect consultation where these experts relay to the Minister of Youth young’s opinion, recommendations, impacts of politics on youth reality.
• The Advisory Commission of the Youth Organisations (Commission Consultative des Organisations de Jeunesse – CCOJ) requests the presence of one half of young people aged under 35 for Youth Organisations ;
• The Advisory Commission of the Youth Centres and Youth Clubs (Commission Consultative des Maisons et Centres de Jeunes – CCMCJ) requests the presence of one third of young people aged under 26 for Youth Centres ;
• The Youth forum of the French-speaking Community of Belgium (Forum des jeunes) is a youth consultation body. Refer to section 5.4 for more information.
The call for projects “Youth Local Policies” (politiques locales de jeunesse) aims to encourage young people to play an active role in their local environment.
One of the main goal of youth policy in the French-speaking Community of Belgium is to involve young people in the design, implementation and evaluation of their youth work projects. They are actors of their projects.
The Youth Department recognises and funds youth organisations among which some are media-oriented. They raise young people awareness about the right use of (new) media, the risks and opportunities that Medias offer. They work with schools, youth centres in order to train young people to media literacy. They also offer trainings to youth workers. The main goal is to provide young people with a critical mind regarding the use of media.
The Minister of Youth has launched in 2017 a call for media literacy projects. It addresses youth organisations and youth centres. It offers to selected projects a maximum of 2000 euros. The projects must affect at least one of the 3 following themes=
The total amount of funding is 30 000 euros with a maximum of 2000 euros allocated for selected projects.
The High Council of Media Literacy offers a common understanding of media literacy in the French-speaking Community of Belgium. It is mainly active in the education sector to strengthen media literacy’s lectures and projects in schools.
There are no measures to make digital infrastructure available to youth work projects and programmes.
There are initiatives aiming at facilitating cooperation and partnerships between youth work providers and actors in the fields of education, innovation, research and development, and business in order to support the transmission of digital practices and technology to youth work.