Blended Course For Youth Workers

Blended Course For Youth Workers

The Leaders4Future consortium recently achieved a major milestone by successfully implementing a comprehensive 30-hour Blended Course across all seven of our partner countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro, Norway, and Spain. This core activity was designed to transform the way youth organisations support and guide young women on their entrepreneurial journeys.

Our Objectives

The primary goal of this course was to build the capacity of youth workers, equipping them with both the pedagogical methodologies and the technical business knowledge necessary to effectively mentor young women. Furthermore, this course served as the official piloting phase for our newly developed Training Materials, allowing us to gather direct, real-world feedback from the professionals who will use them in the field.

The Participants

We engaged a highly motivated cohort of 73 participants. The group comprised youth workers, NGO project officers, non-formal educators, and community mentors. To ensure our methodologies are truly inclusive, the recruitment strategy successfully engaged professionals who either belong to groups with fewer opportunities themselves or work directly with marginalised communities, including those from rural and geographically isolated areas. Demonstrating outstanding commitment, 97.3% of the enrolled participants successfully completed the rigorous 30-hour programme.

The Course

To accommodate the busy schedules of working professionals and remove geographical barriers, the course utilised a highly flexible, hybrid learning methodology:

  • Asynchronous Self-Study: Participants accessed our custom-built digital Open Educational Resource (OER) platform, allowing them to engage with mobile-friendly modules at their own pace.
  • Synchronous Live Sessions: The self-study was complemented by live, interactive sessions (both face-to-face and online) dedicated to high-value peer exchange, practical case-study discussions, and community building.
  • A Dual-Track Curriculum: The training bridged theory and practice, offering modules on mentoring techniques and emotional intelligence for youth workers, alongside “ready-to-use” practical materials for young women covering topics like financial literacy and digital business.

Key Themes Explored

Throughout the training, participants engaged with critical concepts designed to shift their support strategies from giving informal advice to providing structured, psychological empowerment. Key themes included:

  • Understanding the “dual barriers” facing young women, specifically how to address internalised psychological hurdles (like fear of failure and the confidence gap) alongside systemic and cultural barriers.
  • Mastering the European EntreComp and LifeComp frameworks to systematically identify skill gaps and foster resilience.
  • Practising structured coaching methodologies, such as the GROW model, and learning how to facilitate technical business tools like the Business Model Canvas and SMART goal setting.

Looking Ahead: Shaping Future Support

The piloting phase was a success, with participants reporting a profound upward shift in their professional confidence and mentoring readiness. Crucially, the constructive feedback gathered during this course is currently being used to fine-tune and simplify our training resources before their final, open-access public release.

Armed with these newly validated tools and methodologies, our trained youth workers are now fully prepared for the next step: establishing permanent local “Support Points” to directly mentor and empower aspiring young women entrepreneurs in their own communities.

CERTIFICATE TEST

1. How does the role of a youth worker in mindset empowerment differ from that of a technical advisor?
2. Which of the following progression levels is primarily characterised by the learner Taking Responsibility for making decisions and working with others?
3. Which of the following is not aligned with Gender-Responsive Design principles?
4. The entrepreneurial ecosystem is limited to business investors
5. What is the primary reason for the “confidence gap” observed among young women entrepreneurs?
6. Is intersectionality concerned with how multiple identities—such as gender, class, and disability—combine to shape an individual’s experience?
7. When coaching young female entrepreneurs, youth workers should generally advise separating business and personal social media accounts to manage digital risk
8. What is a key benefit of ecosystem mapping for youth workers?
9. During the “Cultivation” phase of a mentoring relationship, what is the main goal?
10. Which of the following best describes the main purpose of Module 1?
11. Can youth workers act as advocates for gender-inclusive entrepreneurship policies?
12. Which competence is focused on reflecting on individual strengths and weaknesses and believing in one's ability to influence the course of events, despite setbacks?
13. The module describes “Imposter Syndrome” as a specific obstacle for women entrepreneurs. What does this term refer to?
14. Which method helps youth workers build confidence and resilience in young women?
15. Communication for empowerment primarily aims to
16. According to the training material, what is the primary purpose of taxation for a country's government activities?
17. Empathy is a key component of Emotional Intelligence. In a business context, what does empathy enable an entrepreneur to do?
18. Gender-Responsive Design focuses only on women’s access to finance, not on social or psychological barriers
19. Policy awareness has little relevance for youth work
20. How many core competence areas does the EntreComp framework identify?
[field id="form_name"]
[field id="form_date"]

Please do not use accents or other special characters

Scroll to Top
Skip to content