Strategic partnership Youth Work HD, financed by the European Commision through Erasmus+ program,  will give an answer to the needs of youth workers that aren't covered at the moment in the countries involved in project (Croatia, Italy, Latvia and Lithuania), but also in most European countries. Partners involved in this project are working on solving many open European questions - from digital literacy, youth unemployment and digital innovation to standardization of youth work. We have recognized general skills and knowledges that could help to set standards among different types of youth workers in Europe.

The quality and success of youth work is highly dependent on its capability to meet and constructively relate not only to the needs of young people, but also to the knowledge and expectations of society in general, other actors in the youth field, and both professional and volunteer youth workers. We have recognized a set of ICT tools and skills that we find important in our daily work with young people (online safety, social networks for reaching out to young people, tools for online cooperation, online counselling, open educational resources etc.).

Recognizing the potential of digital technology (based on knowledge and expertise that our organisations have) we decided to develop online platform that will serve for professional development of youth workers and assure them with basic knowledge and skills they need.

We believe this will set a common ground for youth workers in 21st century that would set a standard in terms of cooperation between organisations in the field of youth work and open it up to cross-sectoral cooperation.

In order to develop online platform we will conduct research on youth work (O1) on three levels: (1) desk research of the online tools and educational materials available to youth workers and of their quality, (2) online survey about general skills and knowledge needed by youth workers and (3) focus groups/structured interviews with smaller groups of youth workers covering the topics which will have popped up in online survey in more detail.

At least 4 online courses will be developed in line with research results gathered and after final agreement on the content of educational material online platform Youth Work HD will be developed and first cycle of online education among 50 youth workers will be carried out.

Sustainability of platform will be ensured by development of detailed instructions about how to produce new educational resources by respecting the educational methodology developed through this project. This will allow organisations not included in this project to use the platform. The platform will be disseminated on the European level through different networks in which the partners are included.