Training Course “Focus on Youth: Service Design and Co-Creation”

From the 4th until the 11th of November 2019, the first Training Course of the project “Focus on Youth: Service Design and Co-Creation” took place in Daugirdiškės (Lithuania). DYPALL Network is partner in the project, coordinated by Participation Agency (Norway), together with Institute For Policy Research And Analysis (Lithuania), IDEA Lab Foundation (Poland), and Institut Za Mladinsko Politiko (Slovenia).
The main objective of the project is to develop and try out new approaches on youth work, mainly youth centered service-design, co-creation and participation.
We would like to look into the theory of service design to improve understanding of how youth move between different youth service providers and to identify different crucial breaking points where youth are left in vulnerable situations with limited or lacking support of the well-fare system. We want to investigate how professional youth work and non-formal education can support services and youth in developing solutions for strengthening these breaking points.
During the first Training Course, therefore, we explored theories of participation, the concept of service design, we designed our user persona and their journeys and we explored strategies for co-creation.
In addition, we developed practical skills in graphic facilitation and we analyzed the impact that architectural designs can have on service design.
The week was enriched by Study Visits to Kaunas 2022 (responsible for the programs related to Kaunas 2022 – European Culture Capital) and to Volfas-Engelman beer factory (with their innovative, user-centered research process), as well as by a free afternoon in Vilnius.
Special thanks to the Municipalities of Lagoa, of Sintra, and of Cascais, as well as to the high school “Poeta António Aleixo” for their participation in the training.