Inspiring recognition practices and tools

In this section of the Visible Value, you may find the real treasure from the field of recognition of youth work. This is a well-selected collection of the recognition tools and practices that have been developed all over Europe.

We hope it will inspire you to develop your own or at least to imagine what the recognition might look like in very practical terms. Our intention is that this collection is regularly updated. So, if you are aware of other tools and practices that deserve to be included, please, let us know. In the meantime, enjoy the current collection.

Back Validation of youth worker’s competences by National Association of Youth Workers in Serbia (NAPOR)

A validation mechanism developed by youth workers themselves!

Short description:

National association of youth workers in Serbia (NAPOR) was founded in 2009, as a result of an initiative of civil society organizations, which implement youth work. They recognized the need for quality assurance of youth work programs, the need to standardize, professionalize and recognize youth work by youth, institutions which work with youth, the state and society as a whole.

National Association of Youth Workers is vocational and representative union of associations whose mission is creation and development of conditions for quality assurance and recognition of youth work with the aim of developing potential of youth and youth workers, who contribute to welfare of community and society. NAPOR’s vision is that each young person has their own youth worker.

Currently, NAPOR embraces 48 organizations of youth and for youth which implement youth work throughout Serbia. All member organizations have one representative in General Assembly of the association, which takes place at least once a year. Up to date the main NAPOR’s accomplishments were:

Defining the 3 vocational standards in the area of professional youth work (Youth Leader, Youth Worker and Specialist for Youth Work and Policy).
Participation in the core working group for creation of the Law on Youth in Serbia, where definition of youth work found its place.
Developing standards for youth work programs and the mechanism for its implementation.
Drafting the Code of Ethics for Youth Workers developed and signed by all members; Council for Ethical Issues established.
Non-formal education curricula for Youth Leaders and Youth Workers developed.
Mechanism for validation of previously attained competencies in youth work developed.

Validation of youth worker’s competences by NAPOR

In order to have quality youth work programmes, competent youth workers are needed to implement them. Therefore, NAPOR created Curriculum for education of youth workers, which contains training program for two vocational levels (Youth Leader and Youth Worker) and mechanism for validation of previously attained competences in youth work. Validation process is intended for persons who implement youth work in practice and continuously work on self-improvement, but have no comprehensive formal or non-formal education in youth work. For those practitioners, it is possible to prove the competences that they gained through experience and different training courses in front of board of experts, in order to gain certificate for one of 2 vocational levels. Currently, NAPOR is working with the Ministry of Education in order to find ways to integrate the NAPOR mechanism in the national system for validation of informal and non-formal learning.

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