Youth Strategy Coordination

The main concerns of Austrian youth policy are ensuring the well-being of young people and providing them with opportunities for the future. The Austrian Youth Strategy of the Federal Chancellery is therefore designed as a cross-sectorial process together with all federal ministries.

Youth Competence Centre

The operating unit for the Youth Strategy is the Youth Competence Centre in the Federal Chancellery. It coordinates the process, offers knowledge and skills, and establishes contact with experts. The goal of the Centre is to develop a stable network between a diverse group of youth policy stakeholders.

Development Group

Since the beginning, a development group was established to guide the Youth Strategy in its efforts to integrate the Youth Council and extracurricular youth work and maintain the expertise and support of these organisations.

The Youth Strategy development group meets monthly and is comprised of

• the National Youth Council,
• the Centre of Competence for Open Youth work in Austria,
• the Austrian Youth Information Centres,
• the National Correspondent to the European research network,
• the National agency Erasmus+: Youth in Action and
• Employees of the Youth Policy Department and the Youth Competence Centre in the Federal Chancellery.

The development group discusses policy focuses for the Youth Strategy. Based on this core group and the impulses it creates, working groups and round tables with additional stakeholders on specific topics are organised.

Youth Screening

A further instrument of the Youth Strategy is the Youth Screening initiative. It draws attention to the concerns of young people in all areas of politics and the bureaucracy. Within the different administrative departments, the “Knowledge – Transparency – Latitude” process provides for stable structures. A summary of the KTL model is as follows:

• Providing knowledge about the situation, needs and diversity of the target group (young people) as well as about important youth policy stakeholders at the various levels.
• Providing transparency about important youth policy measures, activities and services of the individual administrative departments as the necessary foundation for youth policy coordination efforts.
• Engendering innovative and creative cooperation between elected officials, government agencies, young people and other stakeholders give everyone involved a new kind of latitude.

The Youth Competence Centre supports administrative departments as they make use of this process.

Coordination structure in each federal ministry

To take youth policy as a cross-sectorial issue seriously, each federal ministry established a "youth coordinator", who supports the internal processes and serves as a contact partner for the Youth Competence Centre at the Federal Chancellery.

A coordination group, consisting of all coordinators, secures regular communication and information updates and enables a cross-sectorial exchange of ideas and new possibilities of cooperation.

Contact

Youth Competence Centre
Email: jugendstrategie@bka.gv.at