🇮🇹 Erasmus+ Training Course in Italy 🤝 Inclusive Youth Work for Young People With Fewer Opportunities 🧭

Description

The young people who need youth work most are the hardest to reach. This course is about closing that gap: finding out what they actually need, building activities around it with non-formal methods, and knowing afterwards whether anything changed.

Many young people carry difficulties that go unnoticed — financial hardship, discrimination linked to their background or origin, rejection inside their own peer groups and families. Youth work is often the only space where those barriers can be named and worked with. But reaching these young people well takes more than good intentions. It takes the ability to find out what they actually need, to design activities around those needs rather than around a timetable, and to know afterwards whether anything changed.

That is the gap this project addresses. Across our six partner organisations, committed youth workers told us the same thing: they want to work with young people facing fewer opportunities, and they want sharper tools for doing it. Methods for assessing needs. A clearer way to set and measure objectives. A wider repertoire of non-formal methods that works with groups who are hard to reach.

Aim

To equip 24 youth workers with the competences needed to engage young people with fewer opportunities — assessing their needs, designing and implementing educational programmes, and following up on them effectively.

Objectives

Enhance participants' knowledge of the stages of engaging young people: needs assessment, designing and implementing educational programmes for vulnerable groups, and understanding the barriers those groups face.

Develop participants' skills to engage young people facing fewer opportunities in a way that is tailored to specific needs, fosters trust and encourages growth, using non-formal education methods.

Develop a positive, open-minded attitude in youth workers, encouraging inclusivity, acceptance and understanding to support young people from diverse backgrounds.

Increase the number of young people with fewer opportunities that our organisations engage — 15 to 20 additional beneficiaries per organisation in the year following the project.

Ensure transfer into daily practice: each organisation runs dissemination workshops and implements at least three new activities with young people with fewer opportunities after the mobility, supported by a three-month mentoring period.

Approach

The course combines experiential non-formal learning, peer exchange of methods, facilitation practice led by participants themselves, and structured daily reflection. It produces a shared toolkit of methods, a project brochure on non-formal education methods for inclusive youth work, and a concrete transfer plan for each organisation. All participants receive a Youthpass certificate.

Activity details

Activity type

Training Course

Activity dates

26 October - 3 November 2026

Location

Liguria, Italy

Application deadline

29 September 2026

Selection date

5 October 2026

Participants

24

Recommended for

Youth workers, Trainers, Youth leaders, Youth project managers

Working language

English

Organiser

Costs

Participation fee

There are no participation fees.

Accommodation and food

Accommodation and food are covered by the hosting organisation from the evening of 26 October to the morning of 3 November 2026.

Travel reimbursement

Travel costs are reimbursed up to 309€ for all participants, and up to 100€ for those based in Italy.

Looking for participants from

6 countries can apply. The activity takes place in Liguria, Italy.