Event

Youth Working Group

In recent years EPR members have increasingly expressed interest collaborating in the area of working with young people with disabilities. In addition, EPR is currently leading 2 Erasmus+ projects with members focused on young people, Jump2Job and TransitAction.

The third meeting is organised online on 24 November and split into two parts. The morning session will be dedicated to transition services and programmes for young people with disabilities. The EPR Secretariat will present the DRAFT Report based on the (ongoing) collection of good practices from EPR members. Based on 3 or 4 presentations of colleagues and by using small discussion groups we will aim at identifying common success factors. The afternoon session will be jointly organised with colleagues from the Working Group “Mental Health”. The good practice exchange will look into services and programmes to address the needs of YPWD with mental health conditions, qualification and skill needs for the professionals, implications for the (re-)organisation of services, etc.

The joint work started off in December 2020 at a National Awareness Raising Event (NARE) online where a number of EPR members presented their services and programmes for young people with disabilities. On 17 May and 30 June 2021, two meetings were organised to start off a thematically focused exchange and mutual learning on services for young people with disabilities. The participants identified a number of topics of common interest: 1) “Transition Management” for young people with disability (YPWD) from school and training into employment; 2) Improvement of the employability of young people with a disability or mental health issues, including by addressing motivational issues for them to learn; 3) Adaptation of services to new demands in the labour market for young people with a disability or mental health conditions and to their specific needs; 4) How to effectively accompany and support a shift to hybrid models of learning, teaching and training; 5) Inclusive education; 6) Organisation of trans-national exchanges for young people with a disability or mental health issues.

The first meeting in 2022 on 31 March focused on “inclusive education”. Information on the activities planned in the European Year 2022 on Youth relevant for social service providers was shared. The second meeting on 23 June was built around the topic “Transitions from education and training into employment for YPWD”. Additionally, recent developments regarding the main EU policy frameworks and funds relevant for child and youth welfare and/or youth policy were presented and discussed.

Participants are asked to fill in the registration form by 17 November, 17:00 CET, at the latest. They are kindly invited to let the EPR Secretariat know, when registering, if they are interested in making a contribution in either of the sessions. This would be highly appreciated.

This event is for EPR members only.