KEKS organisation consists of two interlinked parts:

1. An informal network, KEKS, of organisations engaged in the provision of youth work. The network is governed by a central board, consisting of one representative from each regional board (please see “Our members”).

2. A non-profit NGO, KEKS support organisation, where only the representatives in the central board are members.

The members of the central board and the NGO are subsequently the same persons. All main decisions regarding economy, organisation, etcetera are taken jointly in this group. This way the members of the network have full control over all decisions taken.

The board of the NGO acts as employer for KEKS secretary general, who in turn is responsible for the implementation of decisions taken and for KEKS office and staff.

KEKS organisation is built on dialogue. Most of the work is planned in our regional boards where local needs are discussed and various common activities, e.g. trainings, are organized.

Read more about our organization here.

KEKS vision goes hand in hand with the European charter on local youth work and describes the culture that we want to offer to young people. For that we know – it is our culture, our basic values and approaches, that is our ‘message’ to young people and what they will take with them into the future.

Our youth work vision is an encounter

• That liberates young people’s potential and inherent desire to learn new things and develop.

• Where young people are met as the primary resources in their own lives and as trustworthy and competent partners in the creation of activities and projects

• Where differences are an asset and openness and solidarity comes naturally

• Which takes advantage of young people's will to engage and take responsibility

• Where youth workers stimulate and support young people to realize their dreams and to reach their full potential as individuals and citizens

We are all shaped by what we feel is expected of us as individuals and social beings. Positive expectations and support make us believe in ourselves and become supportive to others. Curiosity and the freedom to experiment will make us confident in wanting to learn and to find our ‘calling’ and role in life. This is the informal learning that we want to take place in youth work.

Read more about how we see youth work in the document KEKS common ground and in the articles under Thinking seriously about youth work.

We all need visions, but they will remain empty words if not kept alive. This asks for more than talking. A living vision requires:

• That it is broken down into measurable long-term aims and to these directly linked short term objectives and action plans

• A structured and every-day present follow up that shows to what degree aims are met and at the same time gathers the knowledge needed to improve.

• Continuous and constructively self-critical analysis and reflection on outcomes together with young people

• Openness and willingness to share knowledge and to learn from others

KEKS long-term aims, the so called Good-enough aims, were decided by the board in 2013. Our ambition was that the aims should be truly governing and easy to convey to staff as well as to politicians and society at large. We were also clear that they should be ambitious. They should respond to high standards and describe a youth work reality that would make real difference in the lives of young people.

Our measurable aims are:

• Deviation from equal gender balance (max): 10 %

• Index, Safety and treatment: 90 %

• Index, Influence and taking responsibility: 50 %

• Share of young people that produces activities: 30 %

• Share activity time produced by young people: 60 %

• Index, Participation (Groups/Projects): 75 %

• Index, Learning (Groups/Projects): 85 %

• Average answer on survey (1 – 5 scale): 4,3

Today we can see that these aims are ambitious but not unrealistic. No single youth work unit has reached all the aims at the same time, best is seven out of nine, but all the single aims have been reached by many units.

Looking at the outcomes, the variation in results between different providers is still rather big. This could of course be perceived as problematic, but above all it is a source for mutual learning and inspiration. The main purpose of having measurable aims is not to enable comparisons with others but with yourself over time. This is the only way to improve, and the strength of KEKS is that we always can convey contacts to someone that has been successful in something that you yourself wants to improve.

Much remains to be done, but we are making progress – and we are able to show it!

Sustainable, knowledge-based development asks for a holistic, constructive and self-critical approach. This is why KEKS works with the development of both competencies and methods as well as of organization and policy. That is also why we adress all stakeholders concerned, from youth workers to managers and politicians.

All our activities are planned in dialogue and based on what we see in The Logbook and in our daily work. KEKS office then coordinates our common efforts and sees to that what we have decided together is implemented according to plan.

Our activities vary in both form and content and the main ones are:

• Development forums - are regionally decided gatherings for staff and managers on various themes, e.g. on how to stimulate young people’s participation, on the European charter or on how to analyze the figures from The Logbook.

• Our yearly conference - is held during three days in late spring in Gothenburg. Last year (2022) it welcomed over 400 youth workers, managers and politicians from all over Europe that took part in plenary sessions, seminars, work shops and study visits. Our next conference is 31 May to 2 June 2023 - See you there!
  You will find more info about the conference here.

• Trainings - KEKS is constantly running various courses and trainings, most of them focused on how to work with young people’s participation and learning.

• Tutoring - many members contact KEKS office for advice or support. Often we ar able to help, but just as often we just convey contacts to another member that we know will be eager to help. As said, KEKS is a network for mutual help and inspiration!

• Mapping - every second year we run a questionnaire, “What is good youth work to you?”, where we map the leisure time habits and interests of young people, asking them how they perceive youth work and how they would want to take part.

• International projects - KEKS has a long lasting experience in running international projects, mainly through Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps. We have arranged seminars, jobb shadowing and study visits and have also ran several big Erasmus + strategic partnerships aiming at developing new tools and methods.

Looking for partners or projects? KEKS office is happy to convey contacts for all kinds of international projects!

• Advocacy - KEKS has, over the years, done many presentations on youth work for various stakeholders throughout Europe. Not the least has this been an important way to inform and engage local politicians.

These are just some of our activities. We also develop manuals and handbooks, engage in research, run thematic networks and work groups on specific issues and much more.

However, most important, this is what we do today! No one knows what we will do tomorrow … because
KEKS is not, KEKS becomes - what we decide together!

KEKS is European forerunners in systematic documentation and follow up and has this way created the necessary preconditions for a truly knowledge-based youth work.

The Logbook is central in achieving this, because, just as stated in the charter, youth work “needs a clear and comprehensive system for documentation and follow up of outcomes, preconditions and work processes in relation to measurable indicators and aims” and “clear procedures for continuous analysis of and reflection on outcomes in terms of how they relate to preconditions, work processes and activities, and the need for further development”.

Knowledge on young people’s needs and living conditions as well as on new innovative methods is of course important, but without knowledge on your own outcomes and what has led to them, your youth work will still be not knowledge- but guess-based.

The Logbook lays the fundament for a knowledge-based organization that can adapt its activities to the varying needs, interests and ideas of young people. At the same time continuous documentation and follow up keeps us focused on the core values that we are to promote; all young people’s participation and learning in a safe and supportive environment. Through The Logbook we get to know to what degree this is the case.

It is adaptable to any kind of organization and is used by both big municipal organizations, like the city of Helsinki, and by small NGOs in rural areas. It gathers statistics on activity hours, number of participants, the degree of active participation and more. It contains web-based questionnaires to young people and a template for registering key figures on economy and target group. At the end of each year all information is compiled into an annual result, showing to what degree aims and objectives are reached, providing all the information needed for analysis and further development.

The Logbook is user friendly and contains a lot of different functions that facilitates both day-to-day youth work and its further development. You will find a complete description of all features and possibilities here.

Working with documentation and follow up, running questionnaires and analyzing results might seem time consuming, but in the long run it proves to save both time and energy. In a knowledge-based organization you don’t have to spent time on endless speculations on young people’s opinions and actions and can instead focus on finding concrete solutions to identified challenges. Being knowledge-based also creates a feeling seriousness and meaningfulness, it reduces conflicts and makes it easier to keep competent youth workers.

The Logbook reveals both strength and weaknesses, but there is a pride in being knowledge-based and able to show to the world that we are really delivering quality youth work. We will never be perfect, but we are steadily getting better.

Youth work is small compared to school and social services. This does not make it less important, but it makes cooperation and speaking with a strong common voice even more important. We need each other, both to develop and to strengthen our position. Everybody has something they need to develop, and everyone has something to contribute. We need you, and we believe that you need KEKS.

KEKS builds on the will and engagement of its members and can best be described as multi-tool for development. To get the most out of the membership and to be able to contribute to our common work, all new members get a thorough introduction to our way of thinking, our tools and our various activities.

Membership in KEKS is open to:

• Municipal departments responsible for youth work

• Non-profit NGOs providing youth work

• Umbrella organizations gathering youth work providers

Membership is not open to single units within municipalities or NGOs.

Since youth work is differently organized and supported in different countries, and since some of our members do not use The Logbook, KEKS has six different options for membership with varying conditions and membership fees. Please read more about our terms and conditions in our membership contract.

Interested? Questions? Please contact us at info@keks.se

At KEKS we have often experienced discussions within the sector as both unclear and incoherent. Almost anything might be labeled as participation, the border between promotion and prevention is floating and the role of the youth worker even more so.

In other words, the sector has had difficulties articulating who we are, where we want to go and what it takes to get there. Concepts such as empowerment and community work have been tossed around, but without robust clarifications on what they mean in practice, and which demands they put on youth work provision.

As a small business with unclear identity, youth work has tried to embrace as much as possible, shied away from clear priorities and avoided any form of 'internal' criticism and questioning. But someone that cannot make their priorities visible will never stand strong nor be able to develop. You can't eat cookies and still have them; you have to choose. If the answer to the question 'What is most important?' is “I don't know”/”everything”/”decide for yourself”, what we then see is not flexibility but lack of both core and integrity.

At KEKS, we have set our priorities. Hence, we were also able to formulate who we are, where we want to go and what is required to get there. However, for this to become clear we must also articulate who we are not, where we don’t want to go and what we shouldn’t do if we are to reach our aims. As said, our sector is not really used to saying no, and this can therefore be perceived as provocative.

The texts you find under Thinking (seriously) about youth work* ... are not provocations for their own sake, but they try to take things to the edge. Have a nice read and please let us know if you have thoughts about what we write or have suggestions for something you think we should write about.

So, thinking (seriously) about youth work …

• … and what governs it

More texts are soon to be published.

* The heading is ‘stolen’ from the very interesting anthology Thinking seriously about youth work, published by the Youth Partnership. You will find it here