Partnerships with Local Authorities – Call For EOIs by Local Authorities and Partners

Deadline: 22-Jun-23

The Council of Europe welcomes expressions of interest from interested local authorities or their partners based in one of its 46 member states.

Enter! is a project of the Council of Europe to identify and support youth work and youth policy responses to violence, exclusion and discrimination affecting young people in Europe, especially in disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

The Youth Department of the Council of Europe encourages and supports local authorities to devise and set in place specific activities which contribute to the implementation of the Enter! Recommendation on supporting access of young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods to social rights, namely through policies, programmes or projects which aim at providing or improving: accessible, affordable, and youth-friendly public services and other measures in the fields of education and training, employment and occupation, health, housing, information and counselling, sports, leisure and culture.

The support measures are on-demand provision of assistance and cooperation by the Council of Europe, which means that upon reception of the expression of interest, the Council of Europe will assess the type of support, expertise and cooperation that can be envisaged with the partnering local authority. The Council of Europe through these support measures would also like to identify and showcase examples and ideas for the practical implementation of the Recommendation.

The support measures provided by the Council of Europe are based on the principle of cooperation and mutually shared interest in improving access to social rights of young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

These support measures consist typically of:

• Sharing expertise and experience
• Institutional and educational support
• Capacity-building activities
• Networking and peer-learning activities
• Advice on policy development or reform

The Roadmap of the Joint Council on Youth focuses inter alia on engaging and liaising with interested local authorities on:

• supporting development of local policies and programmes by offering local authorities expertise and peer support to develop or adapt policies and programmes to address the needs of young people as recommended in the Enter! recommendation;
• creating local committees on youth matters which could consist of youth and local authorities’ representatives.

The programme Youth for Democracy 2023-2024 foresees various to support measures to facilitate access of young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods to social rights such as:

• support to local authorities by a group of experts to implement the Enter! Recommendation
• educational resources on access to social rights for young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods

Types of support available

• The typology of support measures indicated are based on the needs that local authorities expressed or communicated during several meetings within the Enter! project. The list is not exclusive and in case a local authority has another request for support, it can still be expressed as an interest and reviewed based on the objectives of this call.
  • Sharing expertise and experience
    • This may consist of information session which gathers local authorities official, civil society, young people and others. Such sessions should last at least one day, as it It should include:
      • Information about the Council of Europe and its work
      • Information about Social Rights and the concept of Access to Social rights
      • Exploring the Enter! Recommendation practically
    • For such activities the Council of Europe can provide experts in youth policy or youth work and may contribute to the facilitation of the session. The activity should result the local stakeholders understanding better the Enter! Recommendation and explore ways towards its implementation of some of its recommended measures.
  • Institutional and educational support
    • The Council of Europe may partner with a local or regional authority in a project or activity that supports the Enter! recommendation by giving it institutional visibility in its Internet site and including it in the programme of Enter! activities. This, together with the usage of the logo of the Council of Europe, or linking the activity to national youth policy institutions, can help the local partner’s outreach, visibility and recognition.
    • Educational support may consist of providing educational resources and materials or/and experienced trainers, youth workers or facilitators for specific activities.
  • Capacity-building activities
    • Municipalities or public authorities can request for training provision by the Council of Europe. The training activity can be in a form of a specific training course for municipal employees, youth workers or social workers or young people themselves. Such a training activity is preferably lasting for several working days. In special cases it can be in the format of several one-day workshops.
    • The local authorities requesting for this type of support should clearly identify the profile of participants they would engage in the training activity, the expected outcomes well as the technical information necessary for organising such an activity (dates and duration, venue, working languages etc.).
  • Networking and peer-learning activities
    • The Council of Europe can also support local authorities to meet and work with other local authorities or youth and social work centres and learn from their good practices in implementing the Enter! Recommendation. The purpose of this type of support is to provide a direct connection and practical experience for officials or civil servants in local authorities with local authorities already working on similar issues connected with access to social rights.
    • These networking activities may consist of:
      • “study visit”: a representative from a local authority interested to work on implementing the Enter! Recommendation (participant) can be supported to participate on a practical visit to another municipality that has a good practice on access to social rights.
      • -“Peer-learning”: a representative from a municipality that has already worked on implementing the Enter! Recommendation and has practical experience (expert), can be supported to participate on an experience sharing visit to the municipality which is interested in such good practices. By working together within the host municipality, the expert can provide information and practical ideas, which can be beneficial for the host municipality.
  • Advice on policy development or reform
    • The Council of Europe can propose experts from member states and its own pool of youth policy experts to support or advice local authorities in reforming existing policies or introducing new ones according to standards of youth participation, youth policy and youth work. The modalities of policy advice will be negotiated and adjusted to each specific reality.

Eligibility Criteria

• The Council of Europe welcomes expressions of interest from interested local authorities or their partners based in one of its 46 member states. Partnerships with youth or other civil society organisations are particularly encouraged.
  • All expressions of interest must provide information about:
    • the needs of young people and of the local authority, especially in relation to access to social rights and disadvantaged neighbourhoods
    • the motivation and capacity to develop policies, programmes or projects for and with young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods
    • the partners or stakeholders concerned by the measures to be developed, particularly youth organisations, public services, youth workers and youth work providers
    • the type of support or partnership expected from the Council of Europe youth sector.

Details

• The proposed measures should be implemented from 15 September to 30 November 2023.

For more information, visit Council of Europe.