Written by Nik Paddison
The International Youth Work Trainers Guild organised an activity under the Erasmus+ Accreditation in the field of Youth funding, titled “The Trainers Community Lab”. A group of trainers came together in Italy to explore what community can or should mean for youth work trainers in Europe. In line with the aims of the European Youth Work Agenda, the activity was a step towards supporting the role, recognition and community-building of trainers in the youth sector.
The Trainers Community Lab took place in the Italian mountain village of Lusevera, which is situated in the upper Torre Valley, in the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. For the activity, that happened from the 12 to 18 June 2026, the Guild brought together twenty trainers with varying degrees of experience. Some worked regularly at the international level, some were in pools of trainers of international non-governmental youth organisations, and some had only ever worked at the national or local level for their own youth organisation. A few worked full time as trainers while the majority were either in study or were employed in another profession (most linked with young people; teaching, social work, etc.) and so worked as trainers occasionally.
The aim of the Lab was to explore and critically reflect on the concept of “community” and to identify what is needed for youth work trainers to develop a global “community” in order to provide appropriate recognition, support and professional development. The methodology was based on an approach called Human Centred Design.
The starting point was to explore the actual community the group were living in for the 5 days, the village of Lusevera. The trainer team provided guidelines and the group set out to identify the core elements that made the people of Lusevera a community! This included the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual… Participants highlighted things like the church, the bar, road signs in different languages, notice board, beautiful garden competition, the museum, the desire to give objects and knowledge to the museum, hospitality, trust, different associations, the boundaries (official and unofficial), events, collaboration, divisions, isolation, no shop, homemade products, exchanges of homemade products, cultural harmony and divides, age, gender… All of the identified elements were added to a map of the village.
The following day the participants were tasked with translating those elements into the context of the trainer world. What does each village element represent in the context of the European trainer community.
The group explored this idea and came up with different metaphors. The church held a central place in the community, both its physical presence, the bell ringing throughout the day, the Mass on the Sunday that many villagers attended. This could be the Erasmus+ Youth programme, something central to most of us and our work. The co-op bar that was run by different members of the village could be the Guild. The village noticeboard, the SALTO newsletter promoting training courses, youth exchanges, and conferences. The museum, the trainer collective knowledge. The boundaries, who is a trainer and who not… The metaphors are without end.
Once the metaphors were completed, the group further analysed them and came up with ten elements that contribute to the sense of community for trainers in Europe: Core values, social mission, support systems, relationships, personal well-being, motivation, professional ecosystems and networks, and expertise and methodologies.
Over the next two days the group explored these ten identified elements through empathic interviews and empathic mapping (a core part of the Human Centred Design methodology). The interviews are ways for the participants to push each other deeper into understanding the issues they have highlighted, and the mapping is a way of recording that information. This allowed them to highlight a number of different issues that they as trainers felt are blocking development, support and recognition of trainers.
In small groups the participants selected a core issue and worked to break it down into sub issues or the causes of that issue. The thinking behind this is that the core issue is often so big it is not practical to try and tackle, whereas the sub issues or causes are more within our capacity to do something about.
Again, in small groups, the last part of the process was to select one of the sub issues and come up with a strategy for tackling it. The participants selected five issues and produced five strategies that they felt would be a support to the trainer community in Europe.
The Trainer Spotlight
This would showcase, once a month, a selected trainers human journey, lessons learnt, and levels of competence and experience. The Guild would coordinate a rotating peer committee of three senior trainers to validate nominations and document pedagogical achievements. If their practices are in-line with European trainer quality standards, the recipients would receive a prestigious Sell de Calidad (quality seal).
The Spinach Strategy
The proposal here is to further develop the Guilds trainer Trio support system. It wants to develop a mentorship and supervision programme where experienced trainers offer support and time to less experienced and emerging trainers. It wants the Guild to provide focus and support to trainers from minority backgrounds and identities. Finally, it proposes the Guild develop and implement competence building activities such as trainer skills workshops and a training for trainers.
Uptera
The proposal here is to create an online community where trainers, youth workers and participants can meet in the same digital space to exchange experiences, tools, voices and ideas for better youth projects. It would consist of Polls – a way to map needs, trends, feedback and community priorities. Testimonies – stories and project experiences. Articles on different practices, and a Toolbox – ready-to-use tools, templates, activities and methodological resources for practical use.
Scholarship for Emerging Trainers
This was developed by two emerging trainers and reflects their desire to have an opportunity to attend a training course as a ‘trainee’ and to have their travel, board and lodging paid, along with receiving a small fee. It is very similar to the concept of job shadowing but specifically for youth work trainers.
Mentoring Programme for Emerging Trainers
A structured mentoring programme where experienced trainers guide less experienced trainers through observation, co-facilitation, feedback, and reflection, transforming individual experience into collective professional growth.
These outcomes are being taken to the Guild to explore the possibilities of further development.
Both the European Youth Work Agenda and the Roadmap benefit from a stronger community of trainers. This can be seen under the Agenda priority area “Quality Development” and the Roadmap areas of the “Youth Work Core” and “Youth Work Environment”. Trainers provide the education and training of youth workers that leads to the ongoing professional development of youth workers. Trainers are employed to run training courses on the topics such as the values and ethics of youth work, intercultural learning, advocacy and lobbying. The role of the trainer is to support the development of quality and standards, and the recognition of youth workers and their profession.
The priority area of the Agenda, “A common direction for the youth work community of practice” and the Roadmap area of “Youth Work Systems” see the trainer as a key stakeholder. Youth work trainers are constantly reflecting on how they can contribute towards the development of youth work, either as individuals preparing a training course or as a group on conferences and seminars such as Bridges for Trainers or the Guild’s, Trainers Forum.
Finally in terms of the Agenda’s “Promotion and Recognition” priority area, youth work trainers are indirectly making youth work more visible and better understood through the training courses they are working on.
Under the topic of recognition, the dimension of self-recognition is important here. It states that “…recognising who else is part of the community of practice and recognising what it is they do. Self-recognition includes being able to gather evidence of what it is we do.” There is a strong belief among many trainers of the need for greater recognition and support for the role of trainer in the youth sector. The Trainers Community Lab is a small step in that direction, it showed the importance of the work of youth work trainers and highlighted some of the needs being experienced by trainers across Europe.
