Gamification for Developing Essential Competencies in Youth Work

Background The 6 project partners carried out an online needs assessment in September 2020 answered by 70 youth workers ( 62 from Romania, Portugal & Spain). 88.6% of the respondents worked with disadvantaged youth. Conclusions of the needs assessment identified two keys needs: 1) Gamification of youth work: all respondents agree or strongly agree that it is an important element for youth work, but only 28,6% mentioned that can find gamification tools that develop competencies. 93% of the respondents mentioned the need to participate in gamification training. 2) Competencies development: youth workers stated that most needed competencies for the youth they work with are (in order of importance): decision making, empathy, management of emotions, civic involvement, self-knowledge and creativity, with a general focus on personal development. The developed IOs have been designed so that to address the two areas and key competencies. Partners have built upon the common stringent development needs of youth and developed a series of modern educational instruments to be used in the youth field. Objectives The general objective of the project was to develop youth workers’ capacity to improve the quality of programs aiming at developing key competencies that lead to a successful life and instill in youth core values of fairness, social justice, involvement in the community, by learning gamification & game design for developing & delivering innovative curricula. The complementary expertise of consortium members has been put together in a project aiming to: - Develop a series of original and innovative learning tools to support youth workers in delivering & creating quality educational programs for youth by using gamification in different education-al sectors - Foster the development of key competencies & values for min. 420 youth involved in gamification processes - Raise awareness & knowledge regarding gamification use in youth work through face-to-face & online dissemination of project outputs Implementation 6 partners from 3 countries developed a set of activities responding to 3 objectives in order to impact youth workers community through direct training, participatory piloting of gamified learning and development of a set of gamified, innovative learning materials available for free in English and 3 partners language. The project has been deployed the following 9 key activities within 26 months of implementation: A1. Project management A2. Development of gamified learning contents (GLC) on key competencies A3. Piloting GLC materials A4. Training programme for youth workers implementation A5. Development of the educational board game A6. Board Game and GLC implementation A7. A7. E-learning modules (tutorials) on Gamification of learning processes and Board game use in youth work at community level, in highschools and universities A8. Monitoring and evaluation A9. Communication and dissemination Achievements A full package of gamification and (board) game based learning have been developed and is available free of charge in 4 languages to be used with and/or for 14-24 y.o. youth of different socio-economical backgrounds and other specificities, in a wide range of contexts: - A Gamified Learning Contents on 10 Key Competencies (GLC) - An educational Board Game developed based on the key competencies described in the GLCs - A set of Guidelines on how to co-create gamified contents together with participants in nonformal and formal contexts & Principles of gamifying learning processes in youth work - An E-learning module (tutorials) of Gamification of learning processes and Board game use in youth work at community level: in NGOs and other community contexts / in schools and highschools / in universities The instruments have been tested by 18 youth workers trained in an experiential training and mentored in using gamification and game design educational products; promoted towards over 400 young people; disseminated towards over 110 stakeholders within 3 multiplier events and are available online on the elearning platform (www.learning.raa.ro) to be used freely by over 7000 youth and youth workers.