10.7 Raising awareness about youth work
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The network of Local Youth Councils and Local Youth Offices offer information about youth work opportunities for young people in their local communities and beyond.
In addition, and bearing in mind that most of the training is organized by civil society organizations (mainly youth organizations), they often represent the main information providers. Dissemination tools are diverse and can include websites, mailing lists, social media and different physical places like the premises of the local institutions or info stands.
National Association of Youth Work Practitioners - NAPOR, as being the most influential organisation in the field of professionalisation of youth work, disseminate information on its website as well as through different campaigns to raise awareness about youth work.
The Foundation Tempus offers information about youth work opportunities within the Erasmus+ programme on its website, social media and mailing lists.
At the beginning of 2018, NAPOR conducted a campaign on the importance of youth work with the aim of recognizing youth work as a factor in the development of social change. The campaign was implemented at the national level and included 40 interviews with beneficiaries of youth work programmes and youth workers. The publication was made within the project "Youth work outside the framework" which is implemented by NAPOR with the financial support of the Ministry of Youth and Sports (the former ministry in charge of youth).
NAPOR published Research on the Attitudes of Parents on Youth Work which explored parents' views on youth work to find ways to motivate and involve parents in shaping public youth policy and to provide parents with appropriate and timely information about youth work programs.
In 2022, NAPOR in cooperation with UNICEF published a study on youth and participation. More than 400 young people in Serbia took part in the study. This study aims precisely to identify various obstacles, but also the potential among young people for (greater) participation in the work of organizations for young people/youth organizations.
As a part of the project "Measuring the impact of youth work (an) impossible mission", supported by the European Commission through the Erasmus+ program, in partnership with the Institute of Social Sciences (Serbia), St. Kliment Ohridski University (Bulgaria) and national associations of youth workers from Portugal (APP Juventude), Italy (NINFEA) and North Macedonia (Union for Youth Work), NAPOR is developing a system for measuring the performance of youth work through: 1) Mapping existing practices, mechanisms, tools, instruments at the EU, national and local level that measure impact youth work on young people; 2) Development of mechanisms and instruments for measuring the impact of youth work that is applicable at the European level; 3) Developing and testing mechanisms and instruments for measuring the social impact of youth work. During 2023, the system was tested in Serbia, North Macedonia, Portugal and Italy, and the final analysis of the results will be available in June 2024.
NAPOR was also the organizer of the conference on the topic "Laboratory of Youth Work", which was attended by 50 youth workers, leaders and representatives of institutions. The event served as a platform for discussion and exchange of experiences on the recognition and improvement of youth work at the local and national level. The conference was the opportunity for several organizations to demonstrate their innovative practices in youth work, share information with local communities, as well as to provide young people with the opportunity to take the role of program creators.