"Through the current project ""Leadership for mid level managers"" we've created a consortium of 6 partner organizations, from 4 countries and all the partners were implicated until the end of the project, according to the initial agreements. The project had 3 main objectives being:1. Exchange best practices in order to improve the common knowledge base of all consortium partners in regards to development programs aimed towards mid-level managers from small, medium and large companies our specialist’s time management, development of a career plan path and communications skills.2. Create a common baseline analysis in regards to the struggles and issues that mid-level managers from small, medium and large companies are confronted in companies from various European countries.3. Identify areas of improvement for the partners’ current leadership training programs, mainly effective communication, feedback, motivation and engagement.The project results and activities were concluded in an international analysis report, covering the issues that mid-level managers from small, medium and large companies located in the partner countries are confronted with. It consist of series of case studies run by each partner organisation. Initially we considered to analyse 18 case studies in the consortium and we succeeded to analyse 20 case studies. Through the international report and the case studies, partners were able to exchange best practices. Furthermore, the best practice approach helped the partners to identify skill gaps within mid-level management. Broader HR skills and technical tools has been identified as the main elements to develop.At the five transnational project meeting we had a total number of 71 participants.The partners also conducted a total of 3 training demos on mid-level management, used to increase knowledge and training capabilities of the participants: educators, trainers, experts and middle managers. At trainings we had a total number of 41 participants. The trainings covered topics that should increase mid-level managers’ leadership skills like: communication, teamwork, delivering feedback and employees’ motivation. A few tools were presented and discussed like: feedback methods, job description forms, evaluation systems of the employees (KPIs system), personality tests. At the end of the project, all partner organizations and our representatives have extended knowledge, from a national to a European level, and we improved our expertise about leadership training."

The project Yeuthpact! started with the consideration that Youth work and projects involving young people, including the ones working in European funding framework (international camps, European volunteering projects, etc.), have a tremendous value to foster better societies. On the one hand, throughout events, exchanges, camps, community work and transnational volunteering, youth work increases young people’s educational and training opportunities. On the other hand, it can improve life conditions of people from local communities where projects take place. Both dimensions encompass the impact, which can be defined as “the changes resulting from organisation’s activities” (Charities Evaluation Service’s quote, mentioned at “How do we know it’s working?”-Conference organised by National Youth Council of Ireland, 2011)Whilst European Commission (2017) has recently considered European Voluntary Service a highly valuable programme with a significant impact on volunteers and organisations involved, such impact is mitigated on local communities where projects take place due to different reasons. One of the reasons is the “lack of tools to measure impact on local community”. As a result, plenty of studies and papers show the difficulties to find data or evidence about youth work’s social impact: Pwell and Bratović (2007), Lough, Moore McBride and Sherraden (2009), European Youth Forum-YFJ (2016), European Commission (2016; 2017), among others.A gap thus exists when assessing the social impact of youth work so youth practitioners, in terms of local community-wise, struggle to answer the question “What difference does my work make?” (Dr. Bamber, Centre for Effective Services, “How do we know it’s working?”-Conference, National Youth Council of Ireland, 2011). There is current a need to promote evidence-based practice when assessing the impact of youth work on local communities (“Study on the impact of transnational volunteering through the European Voluntary Service” -EC, 2014). Thus, youth workers needed:-To develop tailor-made methods and tools to assess the impact of their work on local communities, thereby providing evidences of their influences-To build their capacity of evaluate how their actions work at local communities so they can design and implement more effective projectsY-EUTH-PACT! had the aim to contribute to increase the quality of youth work by improving the capacity of youth practitioners to assess the impact of youth work on local communities, through the creation of new tools and the improvement of youth practitioners’ competences. The specific objectives were: -To standardise good practices for assessing impact on local communities of youth work and volunteering projects;-To create a methodology, guidelines and tools for youth workers to assess the impact of youth work on local communities-To develop a framework of competences for youth practitioners to become impact assessors;-To develop a training programme with e-modules to train youth practitioners on impact assessment practices; and-To equip organisations’ staff with tailor-made methodologies to improve the way they assess the impact on local communitiesMain project target group: youth workers.Indirect target groups were (among others): young people, teachers, high school educators, HEI staff, adults, local organisations/institutions involved in youth sector, NGOs and other third sector entities.Y-EUTH-PACT! was aligned with Erasmus+ objective of fostering quality improvements in youth work, in particular through enhanced cooperation between organisations in the youth field and/or other stakeholders. Moreover the project results can become very useful when assessing the impact of new ESC projects on local communities, thereby increasing the transferability of project’s outputs. Even beyond Erasmus+, the project addressed the recommendation adopted by European countries, represented in this project as well (NL, ES, IT, UK, and BG), of “supporting the development of appropriate forms of review and evaluation of the impact and outcomes of youth work” (Recommendation CM/Rec(2017)4, Council of Europe, 2017).Finally, given the difficulties and restriction brought in by the Covid-19 Pandemic, it is worth mentioning that Partners during the 2nd half of project implementation, have constantly adapted ongoing to the situation, by intensifying and improving the general online communication, dissemination and also online training activities, in order to overcome such situation. This resulted in an additional (and unforeseeable) capacity building for the partners and staff involved, when it comes to work and communicate effective online and general upgrade of digital skills.

One of the growing sectors of digital government is about open data as an extraordinary tool to detect main trends, de-structuring aggregated data, empowering citizens to understand how funds, actions, public decisions of decision-makers are implemented and eventually implemented. In Europe, the Public Open Data service infrastructure implements one of the key actions included in the Commission communication on Open Data of December 2011, and many are the actual platforms where open data are stored and easily accessible. However, there is a spread lack of culture/competencies in converting open data into useful service and a real support element for inclusive decision-making. This is particularly referred to all those people who have a leading role in local communities, namely: public decision-makers, cultural practitioners, non-profit leaders [from now on public makers]. Open data mining, services, manipulation can create operating platforms for citizens, entrepreneurs as well as public makers to adopt strategic decisions and make more our societies more transparent and inclusive. There is a ramping discussion about refugees, but much of the democratic debate about accountability has been left apart in favor of social emergences. At the moment, open data usage is very limited and fragmented in Europe with diverse examples of good practices, but also their total absence in any curricular activities. What is more, a comprehensive strategy about open data has proven in some countries to create bottom-up movements of citizens and public makers involved in peer-to-peer learning and investigation, creating concrete ICT tools to support public administrations, to understand how local project are run and developed and how money is actually spent. Public decision-makers, cultural practitioners, non-profit leaders [from now on public makers] have a great role to start strategic change, but they need professional training within an adult education sphere of up-skilling. The project Open data e-learning platform and digital tools for participatory decision making [OpenMakers] is an adult strategic partnership focused on digital active citizenship that aims to foster the usage of open data among public makers supporting their local work through innovative training in digital literacy combined with open data learning/usage. OpenMakers aims to broaden ICT competencies and skills of public admins, non-profit leaders, young professionals, project managers etc. creating sustainable and needs-focused learning patterns, enabling non-profits/public bodies/informal ICT groups to act at the local level through open data interpretation and management. Three are the most important results of the project: 1. An innovative, comprehensive and simplified step-by-step web-program (OER) on digital financing to run on a platform in order to guide through simplified graphics and monitoring/validation mechanisms in terms of open data learning and experimenting. (O1) 2. The creation of learning material for trainers (O2) and for target users (O3) and its conversion as an e-learning course that it is suitable for public makers. In particular, O2 material will strengthen the digital and open data knowledge of trainers, making them prepared in a field that it is generally left aside in terms of activities. A pilot testing phase will be defined through a triple pattern: - C1 training of trainers, targeting educational staff of each participating organization, in order to reach common outreach & standards. It will be connected to the methodology work of IO1 and to the practical outcomes of O2 & O3. - C2 training of learners: this training will focus on the final users and it will be crucial in order to pilot test learning methodologies, define local activities, etc. - Local activities referred to a blended-learning test of O3 material throughout the e-learning platform (O4), putting together trained educators and users and multiplying the educational effects. The overall methodology is inspired by the living lab approach, so that the actual learning is connected to concrete local actions about open data experimenting and implementation as democratic tools, promoting ad-hoc services. Substantially, introducing open data should make citizens and public makers change the way they normally think and interact, also in terms of changing the perspective of accountability and digital citizenship.

Digital Youth Work, means proactively using or addressing digital media and technology in youth work. Digital Youth work is not a youth work method but instead it can be included in any youth work setting (open youth work, youth information and counselling,youth clubs, detached youth work, ect.) and they both share the same goals.This definition is given by the EC Publication: “Developing Digital Youth Work - Expert Group Set Up under the European Union Work Plan for Youth 2016-2018” that also highlights the importance in this new digital era, to upskill youth workers’ digital competences, in particular in these specific fields (to be added/combined to the most traditional key competences already set for youth work,such as non-formal learning, management of mobility and volunteering projects, facilitation skills, etc): •Using Social Media in Sharing Information•Online Youth Counselling•Support Digital Literacy•Enabling Participation with Digital Tools•Supporting Cultural Youth Work online•Supporting the development of technological skills•Using Digital Games in Youth WorkThe project DIGITAL YOUTH WORKER: “Open education and innovative practices for the capacity building of Youth Workers in the digital era” is intend to be the follow-up (phase 2) of the previously implemented Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership project: EU-NET:“Enhancing a Universal Guide and Network for the Youth Workers of the Future” that was coordinated by GoEurope and had the main objective of sharing good practices and helping define the state of the art of Youth Work in Europe, including the development of different useful digital tools for youth workers and the creation of a solid network, still active to date (www.eu-network.net and its social media).Thus, building on the foundations of the previous EU-NET project, DIGITAL YOUTH WORKER aims to:c)Map and develop a dedicated Competency Framework for Digital Youth Workers d)Develop a dedicated e-learning platform for Digital Youth Workers and its Testing (e-Training and Modules, based on the previously developed Competency Framework).DIGITAL YOUTH WORKER also addresses the recommendation of “developing tools and methods that allow a better match to the needs of the local community[ies]” (EC, 2017), besides supporting the following Erasmus+ KA2 objectives:•Building capacity and modernising youth work;•New methods and training opportunities to build young people’s key competences;•More strategic and integrated use of ICTs and open educational resources (OER) in education, training and youth systems; •Sharing best practices, promoting high quality youth work and build on the competencies of youth workers; •Increasing the opportunities for youth workers’ professional development by building on the staff competencies, validating learning, encouraging active citizenship of young people•Better understanding and recognition of skills and qualifications about youth work in Europe•Increased quality of education and training and youth work in Europe and beyond: combining higher levels of excellence and attractiveness with increased opportunities for all.The partnership is composed by 3 organizations active in the field of youth work, mobility, volunteering and non-formal learning, representing 3 different Programme Countries: Spain,Bulgaria and Italy, that share different practices and understandings about youth work, so this will add an international dimension to the project and will help create a better understanding about the diversities and similarities of youth workers and the use of digital skills.Each partner will be involved in a different set of tasks according to their specific expertise (i.e. they will be responsible for the mapping and development of a valid competency framework for Digital Youth Workers, applicable in each European Country;developing the e-learning platform with online training modules specific for digital youth work,to be pilot tested on min. 60 people). Main Target groups of the project are:• Youth workers/facilitators/trainers and young leaders who are in general working in the youth and digital fields,organizing seminars,training courses,youth exchanges,workshops as well as managing the EVS (now European Solidarity Corps) programme. •NGOs,Associations,Foundations,Informal Groups of Youth,Municipalities,Development agencies and Universities working in the aforementioned sectors. •Old and future volunteers and “wannabe” youth workers among other interested parties; •Policy Makers, Public & Private Stakeholders. Furthermore,the indirect beneficiaries of this project will be the participants of future mobility/training and volunteering projects, as they will benefit of a higher quality standard experience and they will receive a better first-hand mentoring as well as an improved follow-up from remote by using upgraded digital skills.Additional beneficiaries will be identified by each partner at local,regional,national and European level.

At the moment, when we applied project in Europe there were different initiatives coming from the banks, from OECD discussions and papers that should encourage migrants and minorities on financial and digital literacy. However, little had been done in terms of education attached to financial service, in creating simple access material that could build the basis for empowerment both in terms of digital skills and of financial household management. Therefore, creating tools for financial and digital literacy for people who works with fewer opportunity participants. This was the result of the need from grassroots activities that we collected from focus groups. Therefore, SELF-MATE [Sharing and learning Platform in financial management and literacy for migrants and people with fewer opportunities] aimed to create knowledge/competence foundation of adult migrant households (25+) and train migrants’ educators in a number of themes. The main themes changed slightly during the project implementation such as 1. Financial Literacy and vocabulary 2. Personal Finances 3. Technology 4. Consumer rights 5. Financial security focusing on transversal competences. Furthermore, SELF-MATE aimed to empower migrant women and raise awareness about their concrete contribution in terms of family economy as well as in those uncountable values of safety and protection. Concrete results of the project were - an e-learning platform to acquire digital and financial through ad-hoc material for migrants and people with fewer opportunities; - a double learning/teaching booklet, both for educators and for learners; - a self-assessment tool to test digital financial knowledge one has on the web platform.Project had also one training activity for staff to test the material that we produced. 15 staff/volunteer had joined the training In Ankara Turkey. Project had affected by Covid in few aspects however the project team managed to able to decrease the risk to minimum and completed the project successfully. it is easy to access the platform through selfmate.eu