Driving Change in Youth Work: Diverse Approaches in Poland, Austria and Europe

Written by Nik Paddison

What are the national realities regarding youth work in Austria and Poland?

Carola: In Austria youth work is quite highly developed, we have a national standards for youth work and we have the social and political recognition of youth work. We also have a number of umbrella organisations responsible for youth work, so I think the reality is quite good.

But of course, you can always improve things and the Bonn Process is a tool that is helping us improve our youth work reality and national processes.

Ola: In Poland, we don't have youth policy or a youth strategy or the definition of youth work on the national level, only at local level. However, there is a strong civil society, so there are a lot of organisations who are working with young people and they are doing good youth work.

Something that has had and still has a big impact on youth work in Poland is the number of people involved in gaining good practises and experiences from European projects, especially through the Erasmus+ Youth programme.

There are some municipalities that are open to cooperation with local youth organisations but on the whole in society youth work is not known as such.

Frederike, you have been doing a lot of research over the last years on the national processes around Europe. What are some of the things you have been noticing regarding national realities?

Frederike: One of the most notable things is that we have a substantial increase in the number of processes, in 2022, we had 18 and now, two years later, we have 35. I think another key thing that we have to acknowledge is that we have very different national realities in Europe - as we just heard.

We have countries where European documents like the European Youth Work Agenda, are used as an advocacy tool to get laws and policy in place, like Austria. Then there are countries who don't have any laws or policy related to youth work and you have civil society trying to set up something and so use the Agenda to say look, here is something that can provide a basis for a law on youth work. Then we also have countries who don't want to have anything to do with the Agenda because they have their own concept and understanding of youth work.

So we have a really broad diversity in Europe.

What is the situation regarding the European Youth Work Agenda implementation?

Carola: We started out being very motivated during the 3rd European Youth Work Convention, but due to COVID the subject of European youth work was not a high priority in that moment in Austria. Then I had the opportunity to attend the Exchange Forum in 2021, and I came back from that to my colleagues and said, “OK, I am now the National Coordinator for the Bonn Process!”

That pushed the process to be honest because soon after I came back we created a national working group with many of the umbrella organisations from Austria.

We started our process with a mapping of youth projects, initiatives and activities from 2020 to 2023. From this we made a progress report that showed what we are now doing in the youth sector and how it linked to national priorities and the European Youth Goals. This was an important step for the political level, because now we could show something tangible to the politicians. 

Austria is made up of federal states, each state has its own approach to youth work. Because of this we set up a meeting with the officials from the federal states in October 2024 where we introduced the Bonn Process.

Each federal state has its own approach, for example some have regional youth strategies and some don’t. We want to use the Bonn Process to give them the chance to have an exchange of best practices and find synergies.

How does that compare in Poland?

Ola: My organisation has been working with young people for over 14 years now. Several years ago we initiated applying for the European Youth Capital which we then hosted the title in Lublin in 2023. During the Lublin Youth Capital, there was an event hosted by SALTO-Youth and Europe Goes Local where we met with other very experienced youth work oriented organisations that we cooperate with in the frames of the Eurodesk network (EBU Foundation and Europe4Youth Association) and discussed about the European Youth Work Agenda, the European Charter of Local Youth Work, the European Youth Goals, and what is going to happen in Lublin and Poland after the Youth Capital.

We realised we could utilise the Agenda, the Charter and the Goals, to help us formalise and gain recognition for the youth work we are doing so improve our support for the young people. We want to see municipalities supporting youth work as part of their legal and fiscal obligation. In order to achieve this we have developed a vision for cities and towns having government support for young people.

That is why we made the decision to start the National Coalition for Youth Work. Once we had established the framework of the coalition, we started to invite other organisations from within the youth sector and outside of it- these included municipalities, institutions and other NGOs. We now have almost 30 different organisations and institutions involved. We officially launched the coalition in March of 2024.

The work of the coalition is to advocate for youth work, develop definitions and standards, and ensure youth work is not a privilege but the right of every young person in our country. At the next meeting we will meet with decision makers to talk about what youth work is and start the process of coming up with a definition. We expect this process to take a very longtime, but it is a start and it is absolutely coming from the grassroots level.

Frederike: For me, these are two very typical examples of how the European Youth Work Agenda is actually being developed or implemented. We see two completely different processes where a lot of things are happening in completely different ways.

In a lot of countries like Austria, we have this top-down approach where there is a national contact person or a national contact point with a process being officially implemented. Then we have countries like Poland where there is no national contact point, but we see that there is something happening but from the grassroots level.

Unfortunately, particularly for the situation like in Poland, there are still many countries in similar positions, with no clearly identified person or organisation to contact. We cannot reach out to them for research, so we miss data on grassroots initiatives.

What else is needed at the national level?

Ola: Momentum is needed and a specific political climate. There needs to be openness on the part of the politicians because many ideas from youth work sound confusing and unclear to them. In Poland we are approaching the period of the Polish Presidency of the EU, so this is going to be a good time to talk about youthwork and the Agenda. But we will need help to make that space of dialogue happen.

Carola: I think we needed a better translation of the Agenda. At the beginning it was very complex for people to understand what it is and even I, as someone that was part of the negotiating of the Agenda, I was not quite sure what to answer if someone asked me what it is.

As a National Coordinator I communicate about it as tool, not as a process. In Austria we had a problem with the notion and the term of ‘process’, this term when translated indicates that it has a beginning and an end - but what is the ending?

Maybe we should talk about it as a tool and instrument, something that will help us to improve our youth work alongside other existing measures. Bringing understanding of the Agenda from the European level to the national level was difficult but now we are trying to explain it to the regional and local levels.

Frederike: I think this is about both the openness and the translation. The translation and the question of what the Agenda is, can be confusing. For some it is an advocacy tool, a tool for strengthening youth work, but then there are already so many advocacy mechanisms, so what makes this different? You really have to think about, how can I use this Agenda? And I think in many countries and processes and for a lot of people, it is still unclear what it actually is.

Also let´s note that we do not have a common concept of youth work across Europe, this complicates for some their understanding of the Agenda.

In terms of openness, it is not only openness of decision makers, but very much the discourse within the country. That is what we see in Germany, there is a lot of hesitation to interact with what is happening on the European level, the Agenda being a classic example. Some organisations see it as an extra thing they have to engage with and are not sure if this European level thing is going to be helpful for the development of youth work within the country.

Ola: I would say we also see it as a tool. I think it gives some assurance to both NGO's and governments, because it is not something that you are inventing yourself. Experts from different European countries put a lot of work into it and there is a lot of useful knowledge, it is like some sort of prescription that you can use to make things better. So you can take it and use it, or at least adapt some parts for your own reality.

Frederike: I agree, but we need to add one ingredient to it: There needs to be funding attached to it, national and/or European.

Ola: Yes, one of the things that is an issue for us is when we are talking about the recognition of youth work, we still do not have a definition for it. If the government knows what it is, then we can push to also have funds for it.

Carola: We have a youth promotion act, which means that organisations can apply to us for funding which also comes with a lot of support. We are fortunate to have political structures that recognise youth work and provide a framework.

But that is also a problem in Austria, some youth organisations say that they don't want to have a framework, they are doing their thing, and it works great, they don’t want outside interference. Somehow a balance is needed, this is something we are still working on.

Frederike: At this moment there is a wide problem we need to address regarding recognition. It was clear from the survey, and from this conversation, that there is still a very big question of what recognition is and what it looks like in practice, its limits and boundaries and role…

A last question: What do you want from the Convention? 

Frederike: I would like to have a clearer idea of why we are having things like the Convention and the Agenda, and where they are going!

I had a feeling that after the third Convention that was kind of missing, everybody was excited that we now have an Agenda that we now somehow need to implement and develop it but where is it heading to?

So, what is the 4th Convention going to be about? Is it going to be a stock taking of what we have done in the last five years or throw out another plan for the Community of Practice to follow?

Carola: I think the Convention is a good chance to create momentum in the national processes. We can talk to the political level and tell them that something big is happening in youth work with all the countries participating and maybe we can do something with this.

That is my wish from the personal side but on another side, I would like that we are not talking about the same topics, which it feels like looking back at the last three Conventions. My wish is that there will be some kind of development that gives a clearer vision of what it is that we are all doing together. So, kind of growing youth work!

Ola: For me, I would agree with what has been said, so basically growing what we have. I would like that the Convention grabs the best things that are happening in different countries, because I think it is very inspiring if we meet there, and we can explore some kind of a map of best practises. Also, that we use this big gathering to put pressure on the decision makers in our different countries.

This can be a big powerful source of energy that can do great things for youth work.

The experts

Frederike Hofmann-van de Poll works for the Centre of European Youth Policy at the German Youth Institute.

Carola Meier works for the Austrian Federal Chancellery in the Department of International Youth and Family Policies.

Aleksandra (Ola) Kulik is Chairwoman at Sempre a Frente Foundation and one of the initiators of the National Coalition for Youth Work in Poland.