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Youth Work Managers’ Pathway to Strategic Digital Youth Work
Youth Work Managers’ Pathway to Strategic Digital Youth Work
Content
This activity combines all badges developed from the key digital youth work resources on the Digital Youth Work platform, specifically designed for youth work managers.
It supports you in developing a strategic, resilient, and partnership-driven approach to digital youth work within your organisation. By completing this activity, you will strengthen your ability to integrate digital strategies into programmes, build strong teams, and ensure quality and impact in the digital transformation of youth work.
By completing this activity, you will:
- Adopt a strategic approach to using playful digital tools to strengthen teamwork, communication, and problem-solving.
- Build a clear, values-based digital strategy for your organisation.
- Forge sustainable partnerships with local organisations and experts.
- Support young people in applying their digital skills for positive change.
- Contribute to a resilient, strategically minded youth work organisation.
- Understand the building blocks of digital youth work strategy and apply them in practice.
- Recognise the importance of quality assurance in digital youth work and learn structured ways to collect feedback and evidence of impact.
- Reflect on your engagement, learn from others’ experiences, and contribute collaboratively to a practical, youth-centred digital strategy.
Get inspired
This pathway draws on insights and resources from European and international reports on digital youth work strategies, including:
- European Guidelines for Digital Youth Work.
- Report on Digital Youth Work – National Strategies.
- Developing Digital Youth Work: Policy Recommendations and Good Practices.
- Digital Competences and Capacities in Youth Work.
These resources highlight how managers can align digital strategies with organisational values, quality standards, and long-term sustainability.
Take action: reflect and collect.
This activity invites you to complete the Digital Youth Work activities and gather the badges most relevant to management and strategy. Along the way, you will:
- Analyse your organisation’s digital practices.
- Co-design a draft digital youth work strategy with your team.
- Engage with case studies and examples from across Europe.
- Document and share your reflections with peers.
Claim open badge recognition.
By completing this activity and earning the related badges, you will qualify for a “Strategic Digital Youth Work Leader” meta-badge. This badge recognises your contribution to building a resilient organisation, forging partnerships, and leading the digital transformation of youth work in line with quality standards and youth-centred values.
Who created this resource?
This meta-activity has been developed by the Digital Youth Work partnership and Cities of Learning partners, based on resources available through www.digitalyouthwork.net.
- Awero, Lithuania (Project Lead)
- Breakthrough Foundation, Netherlands
- Curaçao Innovation & Technology Institute (CITI)
- TiPovej! Zavod - Institute for Creative Society, Slovenia
Next steps
Use your badge collection to:
- Embed your organisation’s digital strategy into practice.
- Share your insights and learning with colleagues, partners, and funders.
- Mentor other managers and youth workers in developing their own digital youth work strategies.
Get activity badge
Strategic Digital Youth Work Leader Get this badge
Awarded to youth work managers who complete a structured learning journey across multiple digital youth work themes. This badge recognises your leadership in building organisational resilience, forging partnerships, and embedding digital strategies that are values-based, inclusive, and sustainable.
Skills and experiences gained:
This badge is aligned with the Digital Capacities of Youth Work Organisations framework, covering key dimensions of organisational development in the digital age:
- Strategic Capacity – Building and implementing clear, values-based digital strategies; recognising the importance of negotiation, long-term planning, and systemic development.
- Partnership and Collaboration – Forging sustainable partnerships with local organisations, experts, and communities to expand digital youth work opportunities.
- Programme and Service Design – Adopting playful digital tools in youth programmes to strengthen teamwork, communication, and problem-solving.
- Quality and Evidence – Collecting feedback and measuring impact through structured processes; recognising that digital youth work quality varies across contexts.
- Youth-Centred Empowerment – Supporting young people in applying their digital skills for positive change and ensuring their voices are central in digital strategy development.
- Organisational Resilience – Contributing to a strategically minded and adaptable organisation able to thrive in changing digital environments.
This badge demonstrates your commitment to strategic leadership, organisational development, and digital transformation in youth work. The Cities of Learning Network partners recognise this achievement and issue the badge based on reflective evidence and completion of key activities.
Tasks
Task no.1
Evidence verified by: one activity organiser
You will earn the Strategic Digital Youth Work Leader badge after completing Digital Youth Work activities and earn badges tailored to management and organisational strategy.
Activity:
- Complete at least 60% of activities relevant to youth work managers on the Digital Youth Work platform.
- Collect and claim the corresponding badges for each activity.
Unlocking the meta-badge:
Once you have gathered your badges, reflect on your overall leadership journey:
- What strategic capacities has your organisation developed?
- How have you embedded digital youth work into your organisational mission, values and practices?
- What partnerships and collaborations have you strengthened through this process?
Add evidence:
Submit a reflection (written strategy outline, video presentation, or case study) that demonstrates how your organisation has progressed in digital capacity and strategic development.
Skills
#Excellent Level. Runs digital youth work activities that are based on the guidelines of organisation, the ideas of young people, and on the principles set by the national and European organisations.
#Excellent Level. Engages young people on equal footing in the planning, running and evaluation of digital activities; they are an integral part of the strategic approach to digital transformation.
#Excellent Level. Implements a process, designed with organisation, through which assess together with young people the individual and organisational priorities/needs connected to digital transformation.
#Excellent Level. Supports young people and other youth workers to set goals for meaningful digital youth work, assess them and reflect jointly on the outcomes.
#Excellent Level. Shares practices, as a member of a network, which meets regularly and aims at developing digital youth work.
#Good Level. Plans and implements multiple digital youth work activities, using a diversity of digital tools
Organisers
Digital Youth Work Resource Hub
Awero not-for-profit organisation manages this platform and develops it together with leading educational organisations. The European Union's programme Erasmus+ granted co-funding for building the first version of this platform. Contact support@awero.org.
Platform
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