1euaGiT

The first round table discussion was held in DG EAC with eight colleagues from the
Youth Policy Unit. The second round table discussion was held with five of the members
of the expert group on recognition of youth work and non-formal learning of the Youth
Partnership between the EU and the Council of Europe.
The individual stakeholders represented the Council of Europe, European Commission,
European Youth Forum, the Partnership between the European Union and Council of
Europe in the field of Youth, POYWE- Open Youth clubs Network, European Platform for
Non-professional Youth Work, World Scout Bureau, Youthpolicy.org, the Flemish
Governmental Agency for Youth Issues, Finnish Ministry for Education and Culture
(youth division), the National Agency Youth in Action in Germany, and a number of
academics known at the EU level.
1.2.3 Case studies
Conducting case studies was the next key stage during the data collection phase. The
team of researchers selected and carried out 27 case studies which were broken down
into 14 long case studies and 13 ‘snap-shot’ case studies. The purpose of these case
studies was not only to identify the critical factors for success in youth work, but to
understand why they were successful, how youth work creates added value and under
what circumstances youth work is successful. A pool of youth work examples was
collected in order to identify how successful practice was achieved using a variety of
methods, including desk research and sourcing examples from EU and national level
stakeholders. A set of screening criteria was put in place to identify potential case
studies which included:
■ The activity(ies) must be youth centred;
■ The activity(ies) must have been established for at least three years;
■ The activity(ies) must be working towards the well-being of young people.
The resulting screened list of examples was subsequently classified using a three-tier
system in order to identify examples with evaluation studies (Tier 1), examples with
monitoring data (2), and (3) nominated examples that are interesting/unusual, even if
they do not have either monitoring data or evaluation studies of their work.
■ Tier 1 – Evaluated activities: Examples that have been subject to at least
one evaluation of their activities.
■ Tier 2 – Monitoring activities: Examples that have implemented monitoring
of the implementation of their activities. At a minimum they have collected
data on participation.
■ Tier 3 – Promising activities: Examples that have a strong qualitative
evidence-base and have been identified as being appropriate for
consideration as ‘best practice’. Whilst these examples do not have either
monitoring or evaluation data, this is not a criteria for exclusion. Despite the
lack of evidence based outcomes, they may still be implementing core
strategies/factors that are linked to successful outcomes.
On the basis of this classification, case study examples were selected that have proven
their success, illustrated a successful track record or were nominated due to their
promising strategies/activities. It was important not to exclude interesting examples of
potential good practice due to a lack of evaluation or monitoring data as the lack of
these elements can simply reflect other factors such as the size or context of the
examples. Therefore, some promising examples were included in the selection process.
In addition to these various tiers for selection, other factors were taken into
consideration in the selection. It was important to select a set of cases that represent a
variety of target groups. Therefore, consideration was given to whether the case is:
■
Universal (open to all); or
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