KEKS
Competencies Framework
and
Youth Work Curriculum
Youth work has, during the last ten years, taken big steps when it comes to clarifying itself and getting political recognition at the European level, not least through the Council of Europe Recommendation on Youth Work.
In a second step the European Charter on Local Youth Work has established core principles and guidelines that has further helped youth work to find direction and move forward. On the basis of this it is now possible to better articulate the learning outcomes that can be expected, the process through which these can be achieved and the competencies needed to perform quality youth work.
KEKS has therefore developed:
A youth work curriculum that describes the preconditions for creating a learning environment, the foreseen learning outcomes and the process, including pedagogical methods, tools and themes, through which these are to be achieved.
A competency framework that lists the competencies, i.e. values, attitudes, skills and knowledge, needed to perform quality youth work and the process within which these are to be used.
“There is such a lot of unnecessary and complicated discussion about youth work today, promoted often by people who have little real understanding, and certainly not practical experience, of doing it. Youth work’s ‘common ground’ of spaces (for young people autonomy and voice) and bridges (towards more positive and successful transitions), the conclusion of the 2nd European Youth Work Convention in 2015, was enough. It paved the way for the Council of Europe’s 2017 Recommendation on Youth Work and the 2020 European Union Resolution on a European Youth Work Agenda. In turn guiding the Declaration of the 3rd European Youth Work Convention, Signposts for the Future (2020), that outlined an eight-point plan for the development of quality youth work across Europe. But it needed flesh on the bones.
KEKS has now produced and injected a refreshing blast of common sense back into youth work, with a curriculum framework to develop quality youth work, and an articulation of youth work competencies to enable and ensure the operationalisation of effective practice.
I’ve read a huge amount about youth work, written quite a bit, and practised youth work for a half a century. When I read these documents, I thought I don’t really need to read any more. They capture exactly what needs to be said.”
Comment by Howard Williamson
Howard Williamson, CVO CBE FRSA FHEA, is Professor of European Youth Policy at the University of South Wales and a UK nationally qualified youth worker. For many years he has been a key person in the development of European youth and youth work policy.
DOWNLOAD
We hope that these documents will inspire the further development of both youth work as such and the education and training of youth workers.
Our plan is to, in a next step, complement these documents with a self-assessment tool for youth workers and a discussion material linked to the curriculum.
