KEKS – normalising the purpose of youth work

Written by Nik Paddison

She has a background in youth work, which she fell in love with when she was studying social work at the University. She discovered youth work when she did a half semester work practise at a youth centre in Gothenburg. While there she saw the power of working with young people’s strengths and saw how this youth centre treated young people as the experts of their own lives. “My studies were mostly focusing on social work, so when I did this, I really like fell in love with this perspective and felt instantly that spark that this is where I want to be.”

After several years of being a youth worker in the Gothenburg region, she came across KEKS. At that time, it was just one person running the whole organisation and KEKS were looking to hire a second person. Jenny got the job and the rest, as they say, is history.

Can you describe what KEKS is?

KEKS started 20 years ago – 2005 – it is our twentieth anniversary this year. It started with three municipalities here in Sweden who came together with a desire to set measurable aims for youth work. They wanted to get feedback from the involved young people in terms of what kind of experience they were having, and they wanted to do competency development with the youth workers.

KEKS is a non-governmental organisation and is made up of over 80 organisations – with the majority in Sweden where 67 municipalities are involved. We have members in ten other European countries. Our members are both municipality departments and NGOs.

What does KEKS do?

Probably the biggest aim we have is to clarify the purpose of youth work. We recognise that each municipality, NGO, youth centre, and youth worker, does not have the same idea of what youth work is. Just in Sweden we have so much diversity in youth work.

We do it in different ways because we work with different young people, but we must have common aims, and this is something that we work towards.

We are striving to create a clear identity of youth work with measurable aims for the youth workers to reflect on. Part of our work is also identifying what the young people experience and what they gain from being a part of youth work to be able to see what it is we are doing well, what the challenges are, and what can be done better. We also support our members in creating local youth work policies that connect to these aims, which in turn builds a clearer identity of youth work.

Two other core aims of KEKS are the participation and learning of young people, and the competency development of the youth workers.

The competency development is supported by the training courses we deliver, the contents of which are based on the needs of the members at the local level. KEKS also provides a platform and a documentation tool that supports youth workers to describe how young people have been a part of the planning, preparing, and carrying out of activities.

This helps the youth workers to record how many activities had young people as a part of the creation each week! This is a tool they can use every time they work with young people which can help them to reflect on their work and how they can improve it. It has the added value that they can see what they have achieved and be proud of it. It is also used as a tool for gathering statistics.

The data we gather from the youth workers provides a picture of what youth work is doing. Further to this, the knowledge that is gathered is something that we use when we advocate for youth work with politicians.

Regarding the learning and participation of young people, we have a questionnaire for them to fill in. Here they can give their perception of the different youth work processes they are a part of, this includes how they feel about them and what they have learned. This provides a good foundation for us to reflect on what we are doing and enables us to showcase the outcomes. The outcomes are also used to lobby municipalities for investing funds and resources into youth work.

What connection does KEKS have with different European mechanisms?

These are questions that we work with all the time and are closely connected to. In terms of the European Youth Work Agenda (EYWA), one of the eight priority areas is about quality development and this is really the focus of our network. 

There is also the European Charter on Local Youth Work, which is something we are promoting a lot. We are part of a national working group for Europe Goes Local here in Sweden. This group of national networks together with the Swedish National Agency were almost all part of the 3rd European Youth Work Convention.

When we originally got connected with the EYWA we immediately saw the connection it had to the European Charter. So, we work with both processes connecting them to our daily work as much as possible.

How is KEKS supporting the recognition of youth work?

I think it supports the recognition of youth work on different levels. Being a large network, we can support youth work on the local level which in turn supports recognition in each local society because we are constantly documenting, evaluating and disseminating the outcomes of youth work.

We have also been a part of the European arena when it comes to recognition of youth work. Jonas Agdur, my colleague was part of the EU expert group on youth work quality systems and was also a part of the working group that drafted the Council of Europe Recommendation on Youth Work. We are invited to take part in such groupings because of the work we are doing. 

Where would you like to see youth work in five years’ time?

This is not an easy question! I think there are two things I would like to see. I would like to see more focus and support for local youth work policy development, there are many things that could be supported and strengthened in that area. This would strengthen the whole of the youth work sector. Still on policy development, at least from a Swedish perspective, I would like to see a national youth work policy based on the Council of Europe Recommendation on Youth Work and in line with the Charter for Local Youth Work.

The second area is that I hope that we in five years' time have a much stronger focus on creating knowledge-based policy and practice through continuous documentation, follow up and analysis of measurable outcomes. This to be followed by an analysis of the youth work practice that supports such outcomes. Spreading this information within the sector, we will create stronger youth work practice. It will also provide us what we need to be able to show to others outside of youth work the real values it has for both young people and society.

Jenny Haglund

Jenny is the Secretary General of the KEKS network and has been working with the organisation for 15 years. KEKS is a non-governmental organisation and is made up of over 80 organisations.