YOCOMO - Designing Programmes attitudes - European Training Strategy

Designing programmes

…involves a good understanding of the different groups and environments that youth workers operate in. This precondition is essential to being able to develop and design programmes, whether they have an explicit educational purpose or not. Youth workers apply non-formal learning values and principles in the programmes and respond to the needs and realities of young people, which are more complex in an international context. This competence area includes, implicitly, an awareness of how designing programmes can involve addressing political, societal, technological and cultural issues in youth work and how it can be opened up to the wider community.

The single attitudes are summarised in different headlines that illustrate what “designing programmes” means for youth workers attitude-wise. The “clusters” do not name attitudes as such; these can be found through clicking on the lists.

Programmes need to be designed with a focus on the learners. + -

Translated into attitudes, this means:

willingness to see the whole picture of all individuals in a group
to display genuine interest in the group’s needs
readiness to research and incorporate community needs into a programme design
readiness to connect the group process with the wider community

Ambiguity and ‘the unexpected’ are part of the reality of non-formal learning. + -

To deal with this, the following attitude is helpful:

readiness to accept and face unexpected factors that can influence the design of the programme

Different educational approaches and new developments are important for the practice of non-formal education. + -

The attitudes needed are:

willingness to research and stay up to date with the newest developments in non-formal learning
readiness to face challenges to one’s own views and approaches to learning and education

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