🇷🇴 Erasmus+ Training Course in Romania 🧠 Attention Digital Habits and Intentional Youth Work 📵

Description

Context

In the first year of our accreditation, "The Outdoor Youth Work" taught us to use outdoor spaces for non-formal learning. Even outside, we met the same obstacle: attention. In discussions with partners during 2026, youth workers named three difficulties: agreeing on phone use without conflict, bringing a distracted group back to an activity, and responding when young people rely on AI for advice.

In the wider context, problematic social media use among adolescents rose from 7% (2018) to 11% (2022) across 44 countries (WHO/HBSC, 2024), and 63.8% of 16-24-year-olds in the EU used generative AI tools in 2025 (Eurostat, 2026). AI gives rapid responses. It can support learning, and it may also encourage distraction, reliance on quick answers or less independent thinking. These effects differ between people and tasks, so youth workers need to observe them in themselves first. The outdoors is our deliberate low-tech contrast: away from notifications and feeds, participants can notice their own habits.

Goal

To enable youth workers to understand how using AI affects their own attention, critical thinking, confidence and decision-making, and to facilitate activities that help young people stay attentive and make intentional choices about technology.

Objectives

O1. To increase the self-awareness of 20 youth workers (volunteers, aspiring and active practitioners) regarding how AI use affects their own attention, critical thinking, confidence and decision-making, so that each can distinguish situations where AI supports learning from those where it hinders it.

O2. To strengthen the competence of the 20 youth workers to facilitate inclusive, well-debriefed activities on attention and to make reasoned decisions on whether AI serves an activity's learning purpose.

O3. To build the capacity of the partner organisations to help young people stay attentive and make intentional choices about technology, through the "Off Autopilot" toolkit of five activities, validated with local youth groups in every partner organisation within twelve weeks after the training.

Methodology

Phase 1 – Awareness (Days 1-2): team building, a negotiated phone agreement, Youthpass, self-assessment on the ETS competence model and outdoor attention exercises. Participants complete a first pair of tasks, without and with AI, and start an observation log.

Phase 2 – With and without AI (Days 3-4): Day 3, participants repeat paired tasks from their real work (planning a session, advising a young person), first alone, then with AI, checking AI answers against reliable sources. After each pair they record what changed in their attention, thinking, confidence and decisions. Day 4, a negotiated offline period in nature, with exceptions for accessibility and care duties; the group then compares logs: when did AI help, when did it get in the way, and for whom?

Phase 3 – Practice (Day 5): in four groups of five, over two sessions, each participant has a 20-minute slot: a six-minute activity, a short debrief, feedback and a repeated segment. Peers observe every slot; scheduled trainer observation ensures each participant is assessed once.

Phase 4 – Creation and transfer (Days 6-7): innovation camp. Five mixed teams each design one activity for young people on a sub-challenge derived from the three difficulties: phone agreements, reconnecting a distracted group, attentive listening, questioning AI advice, and deciding when technology helps. Each team tests its activity with another team and revises it; trainers coach participants who did not yet meet the Day 5 criteria. Day 7: final revisions, allocating local pilots, evaluation.

Expected Results

Target: all 20 participants show these competences in the observation log and the observed facilitation.

The "Off Autopilot" toolkit: one practical resource with five ready-to-use activities, each with clear instructions and reflection questions. Youth workers in the partner organisations will use it with their youth groups. It helps young people notice what distracts them, listen to each other, question AI answers and decide for themselves when technology is useful.

Youthpass certificates reflecting the ETS competence areas.

Impact and Dissemination

Within eight weeks, participants coordinate a local pilot in each partner organisation and report the activity used, the group, adaptations and young people's feedback. We revise the toolkit from these reports; the creating teams and partners review it online, and the final version is published within twelve weeks through our partners network, national networks and the SALTO-YOUTH Toolbox. After six months, a short online survey of partners records which activities remain in use.

Activity details

Activity type

Training Course

Activity dates

30 October - 7 November 2026

Location

Izvoare, Harghita, Romania

Application deadline

20 October 2026

Selection date

21 October 2026

Participants

20

Recommended for

Youth workers, Trainers, Youth leaders, Youth project managers

Working language

English

Organiser

Costs

Participation fee

No participation fee.

Accommodation and food

Accommodation and food are fully covered by the project, funded by the Erasmus+ programme.

Travel reimbursement

To make travel easier, the organisation will purchase tickets for all participants, so they won’t need to pay upfront or wait for reimbursement. We will prioritise greener options, such as trains and buses, to reduce the project’s environmental footprint.

Looking for participants from

34 countries can apply. The activity takes place in Izvoare, Harghita, Romania.