For the next two years, EPTO will be involved in a transnational project called « YouthInfo: Future Youth Information Toolbox » organised in partnership with ERYICA (European Youth Information and Councelling Agency) and with the 7 following partners :

Creativitas, Lithuania

Åbo Akademi University, Finland

Youth Work Ireland, Ireland

Jugend- und Familienstiftung des Landes Berlin, Germany

Bundesnetzwerk Österreichische Jugendinfos, Austria

Labdaros ir Paramos Fondas "Jauniems", Lithuania

National Youth Council of Latvia, Latvia

The main aim of this project is to increase the quality and outreach of the youth information services. This will be done by creating and applying user-friendly youth information methods, which will be identified by evidence-based research and piloted at local level.

Therefore this project targets to: 1) research and understand youth information needs by building on existing research design (ERYICA, 2013); 2) explore possibilities for applying future foresight in the youth information work and provide insights on what challenges in the field are to come; 3) develop, co-create and pilot 3 open user-friendly, evidence and future based youth information services, that could be used by local youth information providers; 4) empower youth information workers and peer educators to use participative peer-to-peer approaches in delivering youth information services and therewith increase the reach-out and awareness of young people on specific topics; 5) build political awareness on the impact of youth information and counselling and support development of national youth information structures in Latvia and Lithuania.

In this project, EPTO will provide « expeertise » in building a training course for empowering youth peer educators to use services created and to multiply them to rather marginalized target audiences. This will be evaluated throughout the project and presented in a high-level visibility event, that will bring policy-makers, practitioners, young people and researchers to highlight the impact youth information and counselling services have. Further dissemination activities will ensure that the insights from research, guidelines on how to conduct foresight activities, information services and the peer-to-peer training course are sustainably used by ERYICA and EPTO network members as also other practitioners and researchers.

Should you help us researching on young people needs in terms of youth information and councelling, please take a moment to fill in and/or diffusing the following short-survey : https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/275LJSL