“Supporting the Transition from Education to Employment of youth at Risk”.

Since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008, youth unemployment has escalated in the EU and in 2014 was 26.3 % for those aged 15-19, 20.6 % for the 20-24 age group and 13.6 % for those aged (25-29). Among young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs) the EU percentage has decreased a bit since its peak of 13.1% in 2012 to 12.5% in 2014 but it still remains at significantly high levels. Within the EU there are large variations between member states with Italy, Bulgaria and Greece hovering around 20% whereas NEET rates in Netherlands and Denmark do not surpass the 6% mark. Supporting NEETs in reentering the labour market and tackling youth unemployment as a whole, is a top priority in the EU agenda.

Regarding the strong relevance of youth work with these issues, an expert group report on the contribution of youth work in aiding with the transition from education to employment concluded among other that:

1. Youth work has the potential to reach and empower diverse young people, including NEETs, and can be your partner in facilitating their integration into the labour market.
2. Youth work develops the life management and social skills of young people which assists their transition to the labour market.
3. Youth work unlocks the potential of young people and increases their motivation to actively enter the labour market.

In this context, the overarching objective of the STEER project is to unlock and utilize the aforementioned potential of youth work in facilitating the transition from education to employment among young people experiencing unemployment and NEETs. This will be achieved by training youth workers on how to develop and deliver comprehensive and tailor made transition planning to the target group. The partnership is made up of 6 partners from 6 countries all of which have experience in project-related areas, such as youth work, training NEETs and unemployed youth, Youthpass frameworks, developing technologies and ICT tools for learning, mainstreaming, evaluation and dissemination.