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YouthWiki

EACEA National Policies Platform
Spain

Spain

4. Social Inclusion

4.7 Youth work to foster social inclusion

Last update: 28 November 2023
On this page
  1. Policy/legal framework
  2. Main inclusive Youth-Work programmes and target groups
  3. Youth work providers in the field of social inclusion for young people
  4. Training and support for youth workers engaged in social inclusion programmes
  5. Financial support
  6. Quality assurance
On this page
  1. Policy/legal framework
  2. Main inclusive Youth-Work programmes and target groups
  3. Youth work providers in the field of social inclusion for young people
  4. Training and support for youth workers engaged in social inclusion programmes
  5. Financial support
  6. Quality assurance

Policy/legal framework

The Spanish State has designed a package of measures for the promotion of social inclusion through youth work, defined in the Spanish National  Youth Guarantee Plan Plus 2021-2027 (Plan de Garantía Juvenil Plus 2021-2027) and the Operational Programme for Youth Employment (Programa Operativo de Empleo Juvenil). The Council of Ministers approved on June 8, 2021 the "Youth Guarantee Plan Plus 2021-2027 of decent work for young people" that acts as a reference for the bodies linked to the National Youth Guarantee System. The Youth Guarantee Plan is part of the Youth Advances Strategic Plan, whose budget is 4,950 million euros. The Youth Employment Operational Programme started in 2024 and runs until 2027.

They are aimed at young people between the ages of 16 and 25 year old (or under 30 in the case of persons with a degree of disability equal or superior to 33%) and their objective is the promotion of employment for the promotion of social inclusion, against poverty and any form of discrimination. The action plans are intended for young unemployed people who are not integrated into education or training systems.

 

Main inclusive Youth-Work programmes and target groups

Youth Guarantee from the Ministry of Labour, Migrations and Social Security

 Spanish National  Youth Guarantee Plan Plus 2021-2027 (Plan de Garantía Juvenil Plus 2021-2027) is an initiative oriented towards reducing high levels of unemployment and to facilitate the labour insertion of young people. Between 16 and 19 years old who are legally unemployed and they are not in a position to study. Once enrolled, they can access job offers, continuing education system, training courses and business practices.

This program grants special attention to ensuring access to vocational education and trainning programs to youth with disabilities and/or at risk of social exclusion through both ordinary jobs and protected jobs.

 

Some examples of this programs are the actions carried out by the ONCE Foundation specifically aimed at young people with disabilities like the program Inserta and the job platform Portalento.

A few years ago, Royal Decree-Law 2/2021 of 26 January on the reinforcement and consolidation of social measures in defence of employment has been published, according to which, in terms of the Youth Guarantee, two new features stand out:

Registration is facilitated for unaccompanied foreign minors (commonly known as MENAs) who can prove that they are unaccompanied.

The Temporary Employment Regulation Files (ERTE) that affect young people who are registered in the Youth Guarantee will be considered measures that contribute to maintaining the employment of these people, for the purposes of the European Social Fund.

 

Chavós Nebó Youth Network

The Chavos Nebo Youth Network (Red Juvenil Chavós Nebó) is a network of youth information services run by the Roma Secretariat Foundation (Fundación Secretariado Gitano) in collaboration with the Youth Institute (INJUVE). This network provides services to Roma youth in Spanish territory through state coordination of activities carried out at the local or regional level. The objectives of the network are the promotion of interculturalism and networking with other entities, explicitly oriented to cultural specificity and the promotion of Roma youth.

At the head of the services are young Roma who act as a reference for other young people of the same ethnic group. They are located in socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods that have a high Roma population. Among their programmes are those of employment, social inclusion and education.

 

Youth and inclusion

Youth and Inclusion (Jóvenes e inclusión) is a network of organisations working to improve social inclusion, emancipation and autonomy of young people at risk or social difficulties. Its objective is to develop and disseminate tools and good practices to increase the effectiveness of the various intervention programmes.

Since 2016 they have carried out various actions to achieve the aforementioned objectives: research, training actions, awareness campaigns, collaboration with state policy and sharing resources and experiences. In 2022 they have published several articles on how to address bullying from queer pedagogy, vicarious violence, networks and communication, etc. In addition, they have carried out two investigations, one on effective socio-educational intervention strategies with adolescents and young people at risk of social exclusion (2011-2012) and the second on the analysis, evaluation and improvement of intervention processes for the emancipation of young people in difficulty or risk (2014).

 

 

Youth work providers in the field of social inclusion for young people

As a summary, below are some examples of organizations and NGOs working in the field of youth social inclusion:

Organisation name

 

Target population        

Vulnerable people in general

 

Women and sexual Diversity

Migrants

 

People with disabilities

Roma people

Source: Informa Joven

 

Public funding to training organizations comes primarily from the EU and its programmes:

 

Training and support for youth workers engaged in social inclusion programmes

Reconoce Project 

With the support of the Youth Institute, the Reconoce Project (Proyecto Reconoce) is a project led by the Don Bosco Confederation (Confederación de Centros Juveniles Don Bosco) in collaboration with the Didania Federation (Federación Didania) and ASDE Scouts of Spain. Its aims are to enhance the experience of volunteering in order to raise awareness among the business community and civil society about skills acquired by volunteering and to improve the employability of young people. Among its lines of action are: the implementation of a system of non-formal accreditation of voluntary action and the organisation of dialogue forums with administrations to implement official recognition of volunteer professional competencies.

Financial support

There are different financial sources of support for youth organizations for social inclusion programmes. Most of the funding is made public, private funding is residual.

There is no document yet covering the total funding of the programmes, as they are still being developed. Funding covers 2021-27. The previous funding of social programmes (2014-2020) involved various public and private institutions, as well as programmes: Most were of public and European origin, Employment and Social Innovation,  eramus +, EaSI (Employment and Social Innovation Programme), Europe for Citizens Programme, Justice Programme, European Aid Fund for the Needy (FEAD), Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme, Asylum Fund, Migration and Integration. There is also the Intercultural Project and social cohesion funded by the Caixa, private origin.

The European Funds (2021-27) finance part of the aforementioned programmes. This funding seeks to be more adapted to local development, focusing mainly on the issues of social exclusion of young people (unemployment, low educational levels...). This financial package includes €1.8 million (combined funds from the MFF and NGEU), and aims to address the socio-economic crises of the pandemic COVID-19. In addition, these funds are subdivided into 7 sections, several covering young people at risk of exclusion, such as point 2 on cohesion, resilience and values. This one is dedicated 1,099,700 million euros. Also the section 4 (Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (2021-2027), migration and border management, to which 22.700 million are dedicated and the sixth neighbourhood and the rest of the world, which is dedicated 98.400 million euros.

Within the European funds is the ERDF programme which seeks to achieve the selected policy objectives of each region, such as promoting the least developed regions.

Another element used for European recovery is the Next Generation EU programme to which EUR 750.000 million is allocated. This instrument aims to create more jobs and alleviate the damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

In turn, the MFF (Multiannual Financial Framework) focuses on migration, neighbourhood, cohesion, innovation, etc. is allocated €1,074.3 million.

Quality assurance

In the case of the Youth Guarantee, the monitoring and evaluation of all actions and programmes within the plan is an intrinsic measure, both to be taken into account in the development of future plans and to ensure the efficient use of resources. The development of an information and management system is proposed to identify the beneficiaries of the plan, the resources used and the fulfilment of each of the action plans. For the evaluation of the plan, the Youth Guarantee system follows, among other things, the common assessment standards and indicators such as the ratio of youth unemployment rate to the general unemployment rate, the rate of young people who neither study nor work (NEET) and the percentage of long-term unemployed youth.

The Chavos Nebo Youth Network is part of the Roma Secretariat Foundation and as such, the actions contained in the project are evaluated following according the Foundation statutes. Thus, the development of the youth network is controlled by a computerised tool for monitoring the intervention called Program Portal, which provides access to information on programme interventions, participation results and beneficiaries. As regards budget control, since the Foundation’s projects are funded both by the European Social Fund as well as by the Spanish Government, there is systematic monitoring of the application of expenditure by these public institutions.

In the case of Youth and Inclusion (Jóvenes e inclusión), there is no public material on the evaluation processes of the programmes developed by the institution.