aufZAQ and the research project JumP – Youth Work with Perspectives from the University of Applied Sciences in Kempten together carried out the project “Qualified Youth Workers for Europe”. The aim of the project was to promote transparency and recognition of skills and qualifications of youth workers. In recent years, both project partners have developed well-founded theoretical competence models based on the practice of youth work in the respective region, which are unique in their kind. They refer to the European Qualification Framework and include the entire field of youth work, i.e. associative and open youth work as well as for volunteers and full-time workers.
In this project cooperation, a handbook was developed on the topic of recognition of competences in a scientific and at the same time easily understandable manner for a broad target group.
The handbook is a quality development tool for the initial and further training of youth workers. It contributes to the transparency and recognition of their competences and offers an overview of the current professional discourse. For that, findings from formal higher education qualifications for youth work are linked with those from the non-formal field. Thus, valuable perspectives for future qualifications and recognition projects can be developed.
The handbook “Qualified Youth Workers for Europe” is freely available in German and English as a result of the project.
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2_aufZAQ_Competence_Framework
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The handbook consists of three parts:
Part 1 “Qualified Youth Workers for Europe – A handbook for the recognition of competences”:
This part shows the relevance of recognition and transparency of competences of youth workers. It provides insight into the substantive discourse. Basic terms are defined. It highlights what recognition means and what political developments are behind it. An overview of already existing possibilities for the recognition of competences then leads to the two competence models.
Part 2 “aufZAQ competence framework for child and youth work – an overview”:
The second part provides an overview of the aufZAQ Competency Framework for Youth Work. It is considered a binding standard for the area of youth work in Austria. It enables the classification of competences in youth work at qualification levels II to VI of the European Qualifications Framework (EQF). In addition, this part describes the scientific procedure in the development of the aufZAQ competence framework.
Part 3 “Youth Work Qualification Profile – Required competences of full-time skilled workers in youth work”: The third part gives an introduction to the Youth Work Qualification Profile. This is a competence model for full-time skilled workers in youth work in Germany. It is also based on the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and makes acquired skills connectable to a university level – and thus formal – education sector. It also encourages reflection and discussion of the professional self-image of full-time skilled youth workers.