Youth Forum works with the EU-COE partnership to tackle social inclusion for young people

The European Commission and the Council of Europe (CoE) met with youth policy experts, researchers and practitioners in Strasbourg this week (30th September - 2nd October), for a seminar on ‘Mapping barriers to social inclusion for young people in vulnerable situations’ which will lead to a report to be published soon.

The expert seminar was organised by the ‘EU-CoE Youth Partnership’, which aims to coordinate the two bodies’ youth-related work. The Partnership focuses on participation/citizenship, recognition & quality of youth work and social inclusion, with the focus of this week’s session on the latter. An expert team, including the European Youth Forum, has been commissioned to map existing obstacles to social inclusion for young people and to identify policy responses that could overcome these barriers. 35 representatives of youth research, policy and practice from over 20 European countries gathered last week to assist with this process.

The discussion centered around six key areas - employment, education, housing, health, citizenship and culture – using a rights-based approach. The Youth Forum contributed by bringing its data and expertise on the challenges faced by European youth, focusing in particular on access to quality, inclusive education; quality jobs; active participation and citizenship.

The Youth Forum is pleased to contribute to this important work, as social inclusion of young people is amongst its key priorities and is particularly important in the aftermath of the economic crisis, when young people are suffering from unemployment, poverty and discrimination. The first draft of the mapping report is due to be published by the EU-CoE Partnership soon, and will be informed by the debates and contributions of the expert seminar.