On 12-14 June, in Prague, the Symposium 'Youth Policy Responses to the Contemporary Challenges Faced by Young People’ took place, in the framework of the Czech Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
The event gathered 110 practitioners, researchers, policy makers, and representatives of different European, national or local youth organisations to discuss the most compelling challenges that young people are facing, and current and possible policy responses to these challenges.
Through a mixture of keynote speeches, interactive sessions, thematic spaces, and informal exchanges, participants were led through presentations of good practice examples to discussions on the conditions for effective policy implementation and to the elaboration of key messages to be addressed to all those that are involved in policy design and implementation in the field of youth.
The objectives of the Symposium, as identified by the two partner institutions, were:
- To further the understanding of youth policy responses and youth policy initiatives at local, national and European levels, from a theoretical and practice perspective, and its capacity to address some contemporary challenges that young people face;
- To explore thematic areas of youth policy of particular relevance to young people’s lives today, by sharing examples of effective practice of youth policy that tackles contemporary challenges;
- To identify key messages for the future work on youth policy at local, national and Europe levels;
- To offer a space for networking among the participants from policy, practice and research.
The event combined interactive sessions, experts’ inputs, fair of examples of practice and tools, and work in thematic groups referring to areas of youth policy and challenges faced by young people:
- “belonging”,
- “agency and empowerment”,
- “participation and expression”,
- “volunteering”,
- “learning and training”, and
- “working and creating”.
The hashtag of the event was #youthpolicy17 and the event was covered through the Twitter account @eucoeyouth and on the EU-CoE youth partnership Facebook page.
