Illustration by Coline Robin

4th European Youth Work Convention – What are we talking about?

 by Miriam Teuma 

Malta will hold the 4th European Youth Work Convention in Valletta, from 27 to 30 May 2025, under the Maltese chairpersonship of the Council of Europe.

Over 450 participants are expected at the convention, including national delegations from over 40 countries, representatives from the European Commission, the Council of Europe, the voluntary youth sector and other youth organisations, and the wider youth work community of practice.

The event will be held at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, the historic hospital site built in the 16th century by the Order of St John, located towards the tip of the Valletta peninsula with magnificent views over the Grand Harbour.

The convention will be hosted and organised by the Parliamentary Secretariat for Youth, Research and Innovation, together with Aġenzija Żgħażagħ (Malta’s national youth agency) and the European Union Programme Agency (EUPA) for Malta, with the support of the EU-Council of Europe Youth Partnership.

To prepare for the convention, a Steering Group comprising representatives of the European Commission, the Council of Europe, the National Agencies for Erasmus+, the European Solidarity Corps, and representatives of the youth work community of practice was convened to advise on the programme and logistics for the convention.

The Steering Group serves as the main platform for preparing the convention. It facilitates regular exchanges of ideas and information between the European Commission, the Council of Europe and the youth work community of practice. It has defined the convention’s form, aims and objectives, advised on and helped steer its direction, and supported its implementation.

European Youth Work Conventions provide a significant forum for youth work practitioners and other critical stakeholders, including policy makers, researchers and youth organisations. Their contributions are essential to advancing youth work across Europe. The conventions aim to promote and strengthen youth work, further its development and fulfil its potential in supporting and empowering young people.

The work and declarations of the three previous conventions – Ghent (2010), Brussels (2015) and Bonn (2020) – other related EU and Council of Europe recommendations and resolutions, and Youth Partnership research will underpin, inform and provide the knowledge base for the convention in Malta.

In particular, the convention will seek to build on and advance the work of the European Youth Work Agenda and ensure both symmetry and continuity in promoting youth work policy development, implementation, recognition and quality practice.

The convention’s title, “Youthwork xcelerate – A roadmap towards a European strategy”, reflects Malta’s commitment to enhancing the recognition, standards and quality of youth work across Europe. It aims to provide a clear roadmap with concrete actions, initiatives and measures to unite Europe under a shared vision for youth work, in line with the European Youth Work Agenda and the Council of Europe’s recommendations. The focus on a “youth work strategy” reinforces the idea that the convention will be a forum and catalyst for promoting long-term, sustainable progress in youth work across Europe and at national, regional and local levels and to prioritise the next steps for the coming five years.

It also highlights Malta’s role as a bridge between past conventions and future strategic actions. It emphasises the urgent need to strengthen and enhance quality youth work practices in Europe so that these efforts are recognised and supported at both European and national levels. It also aims to foster the development and well-being of young people across diverse contexts and ensure that youth work in Europe becomes and remains an essential, recognised and supported dimension of young people’s learning, development and active citizenship.

The programme for the convention comprises an opening plenary session, a series of round-table discussions and thematic and inspirational workshops. The thematic workshops will focus on three dimensions:

 A common vision for youth work and its future will work on definitions and descriptions of youth work, values and ethics, quality and standards, recognition and visibility, and monitoring and evaluation.

 Supporting young people, their needs and aspirations, access, inclusion, participation and empowerment will dig deep into the role of youth workers, their education and training, and recognition: the role of youth centres and youth NGOs and CSOs; the role of youth work associations, networks and service providers, and youth work methodologies – tools, approaches and new technologies.

 Policy and strategy at European, national, regional and local levels, tackling youth work advocacy and interface with other policy fields; public/voluntary interface at the national, regional and local levels; and public/private and EU/EYF funding and resources for youth work.

The conference will also provide a platform for a diverse range of workshops on inspirational practices from Malta and other countries, as well as EU-Council of Europe Youth Partnership initiatives that both complement and reinforce the thematic workshops.

The draft report and conclusions of the convention will be presented to the Council of Europe Youth Ministers’ Conference in October 2025.

While the programme will provide the format and content for the convention, it’s the process and dynamic of the event itself that provides us with another story.

The hope and expectation is that the convention in Malta will fundamentally be about giving voice to and listening to the youth workers, youth leaders, youth organisations and service providers who work at the coal face of youth work and interact with and support young people on a regular and ongoing basis. What are their hopes, expectations, aspirations, concerns and fears for the future of youth work as a professional practice that has meaning and value for young people?

Ludwig Wittgenstein came to believe that the essence of language was in learning what other people are talking about from being in a community of successful language users. Are we a youth work community of successful language users? Are there issues that we talk about too much and others that we talk about too little? How do we avoid groupthink and listen to dissenting voices? What are the most important issues we most need to talk about? Can we find a language to address these issues? How can we transpose words into actions? How do we address and answer these questions in terms of the space we occupy, our experience in youth work and the broader human and social environment, and in terms of the times we live in, past memories, experiences gained, emerging challenges and how we envision the future?

The language of youth work is positive, fervent, uplifting and aspirational. Much progress has been made over the past 20 years in Europe in promoting and supporting youth work, but the reality of youth work for its community of practice is more challenging. The sound often shuts out the silence.

Youth work across Europe often faces challenges such as low policy priority, limited recognition, insufficient training, poor job prospects and a lack of equal status with other professions. Additionally, support structures and funding are often inadequate and inconsistent. The tendency for stakeholders in the field to work in silos inhibits mutual support in maximising the effects of available resources. Regional imbalances in youth work provision in Europe, while apparent and acknowledged, are rarely addressed. The voluntary youth sector is the backbone of youth work in Europe, yet in many countries, they often bear an excess burden, their potential is untapped and their capacity limited.

From a broader policy perspective, we in the youth work community of practice are a very small fish in a very big pond. We must, therefore, focus on and maximise our strengths, highlight youth work’s unique role in empowering young people as individuals and active citizens, and show how it can complement and reinforce youth policies in related fields while at the same time developing youth work strategies that are clear, realistic, focused, prioritised and time-bound.

The primary focus of the convention in Malta will be giving voice to and listening to youth workers, articulating and arriving at conclusions that can provide us with the essential features, building blocks, measures and initiatives for developing and implementing an effective youth work strategy. All stakeholders – policy makers, European institutions, member states at the national, regional and local levels, national agencies, the voluntary youth sector and young people – have varying roles and responsibilities in developing and implementing youth work strategies.

The next five years will see a new EU youth strategy, a new Multiannual Financial Framework, a new generation of EU programmes, and a new Council of Europe youth sector strategy.

The convention in Malta provides us with the opportunity to set out our strategic vision, priorities and objectives for youth work in Europe over the next five years and a roadmap for how they can be included in and become an essential pillar of youth policy at the European and national levels.

Together, let’s build a roadmap that accelerates youth work excellence across Europe.