Youth Work Expert Meeting, The innovative role of municipal youth work in partnership with education, employment and social welfare, Tilburg ( Netherlands) 27-30 June 2016 Today, Monday 27 June, Ana Lucas, Chief of the Youth and Sport Department of the Municipality of Portimão and Silvia Pieretto, DYPALL Membership Officer, arrived in Tilburg (The Netherlands) to attend the Expert Meeting on Youth Work, organized by the Dutch Youth Institute (Nederlands Jeuden Instituut ) and the R-Newt Youth Centre (Municipality of Tilburg). Since the start, the meeting “The innovative role of municipal youth work in partnership with education, employment and social welfare” adopted innovative approaches like of having two participants from the same municipality attending the seminar, one from the local authority and the other from a civil-society organization active in the field of youth. The focus is indeed to foster cross-sectorial cooperation among local actors in youth work: the programme will explore innovative approached within municipal youth work in cross-sectorial cooperation with other sectors like education, work, (health-)care, income, housing, leisure activities and more to strengthen collaboration between youth policy, youth work and young people. Leaving no time to small talk, the organizers put us directly into the local scene of youth work in Tilburg: we had dinner at the R-NewT centre entertained by talented young people singing live and dj’ing, and served at candle light by the boys and girls attending “Chef’s Level”, a 1-year study-work programme for young people, 18 – 27 years old, not in education or employment, that provide an interactive and hands-on hospitality training, qualifying as cook and host level 1. It was a truly amazing experience that showed in practice the results of the work of the centre and their “presence approach” that consists in staying young people in the street, in the youth centre and every where else they are, to gain their trust and to support them in discovering and putting to good use their talents. Find out more about the R-Newt Youth Centre in Tilburg and the “presence approach” in this video >