FINAL LOCAL ACTION PLAN
1. Name of the city and contact information of persons giving the report
City of Gothenburg, City Office, Susan Runsten, SE-404
Phone +46 31 368 02 51 , mail: susan.runsten@stadshuset.goteborg.se
82
Goteborg
2. Explain briefly how the report was drawn (for instance: “draft by core group,
then Local Support Group discussion so and so participating”…etc)
We addressed the need to discuss the final report at our LSG meeting January 20. The
decision there was to have a special meeting to draft the report and to invite the people
that have been most active in My generation to that occasion. The final report meeting
was held February 11. A core group of seven people attended this three hour long
meeting. Not everybody showed up that where invited. The young people, education and
business society where not represented.
We started the meeting by looking back at our Future Dialogue March 6, 2009. What did
“the voices” say at that time and what has really happened since then? Will the things
we wished for have come true 2012? And what of those things coming true is due to the
participation in My Generation?
We reflected on this in terms of Outreach, Education/Employment, LSG and LAP. Susan
was after that assigned to complete the report.
3. SUMMARY: Expectations and achievements of MY GENERATION in your city (i.e.
which questions did you want to address, how you went about them, what was
achieved, main learning points, shortcomings, conclusions) (1 page)
Please check if you answered ALL the sub-questions!!
The overall priority for the City of Gothenburg according to the MG baseline study was
to improve our knowledge, efforts and organisation in regard to youth challenges and
potentials during their prolonged establishing period.
Through the exchange of knowledge and experience with the partner cities in MG, the
Local Support Group and various initiatives from the city office the knowledge of youth
challenges and potentials have been improved. As a result of our participation in MG
new possible efforts and cross-sectoral work have also been proposed in the Youth
Appendixes that are our Local Action Plan.
Gothenburg choose the Education-Employment theme as the main one in MG and also
had the opportunity to host a meeting in September 2009 on Education-Employment.
Through this work three main areas of development have evolved. These are informal
learning, better connections between education and business community and young
entrepreneurship.
West Swedens ESF managing authority has been active in MG. Parallel to this
participation they also had a call for proposal specifically targeted at young people. The
city of Gothenburg has many youth focused ESF projects running at the time. Quite a few
of these project leaders have also been active in our LSG meetings.
Being part of My Generation made it possible to compare ourselves with other cities. To
see what we do good and what others do better. To be inspired by good practice and to
disseminate our own good practice. To come up with new ideas for our local work and
joint ideas on further collaboration. To be sometimes strengthened and other times
questioned in our views and ways of doing things.
The strongest message that came through to us was the one on co-creation. Another
strong MG message is the one on finding better connections between different actors
and sectors in order to promote the positive potential of the young generation.
Being a partner in MG gave us a framework to start working with better coordination
and a whole city perspective on youth issues in Gothenburg. We did this through our
LSG but also through the work with our LAP.
4. TRANSFORMING OUTREACH: Work on transforming Outreach. Outreach might
have been your main theme, or in a secondary role. In any case we need to know
(1) What have you done in transforming Outreach, explaining also: (2) How have
young themselves, the city & local, education & business community (possibly)
been involved? (1-3 pages)
Please check if you answered ALL the sub-questions!!
Outreach has not been our main theme and it is a bit hard to put a finger on what it has
really been about. Equally it is a bit hard to say what we have done in transforming
outreach.
At the Future Dialogue in March 2009 the local community voices spoke about the need
to get focused on shared aims and cooperate to reach these aims for the youth work in
the city. The voice emphasized the involvement of young people in this and the need to
increase our understanding of young peoples needs. At the same time young people
needed to deepen their knowledge of working life and employers needs. One way of doing
this was through better cooperation between schools and business society.
One clear message that came through in the future dialogue from the young voices was
that the young people wanted to be taken more seriously and that their opinions should
be valued higher. They wanted to be involved in the planning and decisions of activities
targeted at themselves. They also perceived that adults were prejudiced towards young
people and wished instead to develop a mutual dialogue between generations.
At our LSG meeting in October 2009 the LSG members where divided into three working
groups following the MG themes to work on the LAP. One group got the task to look at
the Outreach-Youth Involvement theme. Another at Education-Employment. A third
group worked with the Coordination and whole city perspective. Before the LSG meeting
the city office had prepared a “map” for each theme with key words based on things
already said and work already done so far in MG. For Outreach-Youth Involvement these
key issues where:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Both way dialogue
Young role-models and leaders
Participation, responsibility and trust
Long term engagement, sustainability
Combat prejudices
Feeling safe and included
Cross-over cooperation
Possibility to influence
The working group met several times and discussed these key issues, formulating goals,
current status, obstacles, development potential and actions. The findings where
presented at the next LSG meeting December 2009.
In spring 2010 a case study on the Young & Safe Collaboration and Backa Base was
produced. Gothenburg also participated with broad delegations at the Glasgow and the
Gdansk meeting on Outreach.
To be a part of the LSG and to participate in the Outreach meetings, especially the one in
Glasgow, have helped to clarify how the local work needs to be developed in order to
reach young people in the risk zone. The social service needs to use more untraditional
methods, stepping out of the office, meeting young people where they are. Finding
solutions that fit into their world. This realization was a good tool when things got out of
hand (cars on fire etc) in the city ditrict of Backa for instance. As an example the social
service at one point choose to use money they had to work with the young to employ 10
of the youngsters for six months instead of what they would have done traditionally.
Transforming outreach has in this way been about exploring new ways of reaching out.
To work with prevention and long-term efforts is much better than reacting to bad
things when they have already happened. Sport clubs and other associations play an
important role in this work. This we already new, but it has been good to be
strengthened in this belief. Unfortunately, recent data shows that the social service tend
to use more and more money to enforcement actions at the expense of prevention.
For the Young and Safe Collaboration the meeting in Glasgow led to an invitation to
Falkirk in Scotland where they got to present their work to the city. Some if the projects
that the Young and Safe Collaboration have initiated 2009-2010 have been inspired by
My generation outreach action. Following the meeting in Gdansk a collaboration between
Riga and Gothenburg was also initiated focusing on youth participation and democracy.
This is a project that will start in 2011 and involves young people visiting each other in
these two cities.
A youth association named My Generation was initiated by a group of young people
active in My Generation 2010. One idea they had was to develop youth acitivites in Upp!s
premises in evenings and on weekends. It has been a bit hard to get the association
started. Especially since Helen, who had the task to support this initiative, left to do her
PhD in London.
The need to transform the work the city is doing to reach young people age16-20 that is
not in school and not working has been identified by the city office. An investigated is
currently being carried out.
5. EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT: Work on transforming Education and
transition to Employment (“E/E”). E/E might have been your main theme, or in a
secondary role. In any case we need to know (1) What have you done in
transforming E/E, explaining also: (2) How have the young themselves, the city &
local, education & business community (possibly) been involved? (1-3 pages)
Please check if you answered ALL the sub-questions!!
At the future dialogue the education voice spoke about the need to develop better
cooperation between different professions and not work in a contra productive way.
Individually based support and alternative roads to fulfill your education was
emphasized. Företagarna, Ung Företagsamhet and Manpower gave voice to the business
society. They spoke about the need to improve communication between the young and
the employers, to fight discrimination and prejudice and to find new tools that help the
young to get a foot into a working place. The need to develop a more creative and
inclusive labour market that utilize young peoples potential, skills and ideas was also
expressed.
Since Gothenburg choose this theme as the main one in MG we also had the opportunity
to host a meeting in September 2009 on Education-Employment. Preparing this seminar
meant dealing with a lot of practical issues such as venues, food and transportation.
However, it also helped us to highlight three main focus areas within our theme
Education-Employment: Informal learning, Connections between education and business
community and Young entrepreneurship. Preparing the study visits, city-guiding and
workshop presentations resulted in new connections and involvement in My Generation
of new actors in the Goteborg landscape.
The case study on Education-Employment was initiated by our LSG in an attempt to get a
better understanding of how informal learning is understood and worked with in the
city. This was done with the aim to further visualize and develop informal learning in our
future work. The discussions and documentation the case resulted in form a good
platform for innovative action on documenting and evaluating informal knowledge. The
results was presented at the September seminar 2009 in Gothenburg.
The LSG working group that focused on the Education-Employment theme for the LAP
had the following key issues to tackle:
1. Entrepreneurship ,
2. Informal knowledge,
3. Validation
4. Education better adapted to the needs on the labour market,
5. Better connections between schools and business society
6. The potential in using young peoples engagement and desires as a driver
7. Alternation of generations
8. Internships with good quality
The working group discussed goals, current status, obstacles, development potential and
actions regarding these topics. Among other things this was pointed out:

Drop outs should have more possibilities to upgrade their education

Better coordination between different labour market interventions

Individually based actions

Everybody should have something to write in their CV turning 20
Gothenburg choose to involve the ESF managing authority in MG. During the MG period
ESF Rådet did a call for proposal specifically targeted at young people. Gothenburg have
many youth focused ESF projects running. Quite a few of these project leaders have also
been participating in our LSG meetings. Navigator, Unga i Jobb and Upp! are examples of
this. These project leaders have also done study visits to other MG cities to learn more
about their good practice. Antwerpens C-stick, Rotterdams Youth Centers (Roger) and
High Five have been popular. The fact that these ESF projects have been represented in
our LSG led to greater awareness and new connections between different labour market
interventions. It also led to new ideas on how to work together. For instance Manpower
and Navigator had an idea on what they wanted develop together.
One difference that has been pointed out by our ESF MA is that cities tend to have
different approaches when formulating their projects. Rotterdam for instance start off
with a good idea/innovation where as in Gothenburg the starting point is often the
definition of a problem (rather than a solution). This makes a significant difference on
what type of projects we run.
Gothenburg also participated with a broad delegation in Valencia September 2010.
Young people, ESF-projects, Social entrepreneurs, MA and the city office was
represented. We found it especially inspiring with the entrepreneurship theme and to
learn more about how Valencia and others worked with that. Gothenburg needs to
develop the work on entrepreneurship on different levels if we are to foster new
companies and job opportunities.
Like for the Outreach theme, being active in the education-employment theme have also
inspired us in different ways to take new actions and explore new ways to develop our
work with youth unemployment, drop-outs and connections with business society. For
example Upp! did something called Framtidskampen focusing on business society, CSR
and getting good internships for a number of talented young people.
Participating in MG has also been a way to highlight and disseminate Gothenburg
projects in Europe. And to get European feed back on what we are doing.
The fact that so many young people from Gothenburg have had the chance to go to the
different MG meetings in Europe is also in itself an action on greater mobility and on
getting experience that you can put in your CV.
As for informal learning MG led us to identify this area as something we need to work
more on. The ESF project Unga i Jobb currently work with this by exploring the method
Open College Network (OCN).
6. LOCAL SUPPORT GROUP. Chapter on your Local Support Group activities
(explain the composition, evolution and main activities of your LSG, and comment
on how useful it has been, and what is the future of this networking. (1-2 pages)
Please check if you answered ALL the sub-questions!!
Gothenburgs Local Support Group had the following meetings:
2009:
March 6, Framtidsdialog, location Teen Dream
May 27, location Meeths salonger
October 12, location City Office
December 16, location Radar 72
2010:
February 2, location Navigator Centre
April 13, location Ung o Trygg
October 7, location City Office
2011:
January 20, location Upp!
One final meeting is planned in May/June .
Between the meeting in October 2009 and April 2010, three working groups had
separate meetings to work with the LAP thematically. We also had a working group that
prepared the Gothenburg seminar in September 2009. Civil servants from the city office
(Susan, Lena, Jan, Helen) have been responsible for preparing and leading the LSG
meetings and the various working groups as well as the documentation of it.
Throughout the project it has been a core group of 10-15 people that participated in our
LSG. It has further been about 15 people that participated more sporadically. We have
kept it pretty open so that new participants could join when interested. Young people,
local stakeholders, youth workers, project leaders, business society and education have
been represented.
A typical agenda for an LSG meeting have had the following topics:

Host of the day intro, about the activities going on for young people in this place

Feed back on a European workshop, study visit, conference etc that did take place
since last meeting

Discussing the focus of a case study, progress report or other MG tasks to be done

Discussing the LAP

Planning activities to come in MG

European Youth Capital
The fact that we had our meetings at different youth oriented working places turned out
to be a good way to learn about each other in the city. New connections and ideas were
created only by travelling around like this together. This exchange of knowledge and
experience would not have happened without the MG framework and has been
appreciated.
In our LAP we explore ways of developing better coordination of the intersectoral youth
issues. Having a group like the LSG could be part of the solution. Perhaps a bit more
formalized (participants being pointed out by senior managers) and given a clearer
mandate and task.
7. LOCAL ACTION PLAN and sustaining the best of MG. (Explain what your LAP is –
The title, is it a part of a city strategy, a youth policy, for whom, what are the main
points goals and responsibilities and next milestones, and comment on the
usefulness of your LAP in sustaining the best of MG and establishing better
coordination of youth activities and policies in your city) (1- 3 pages)
Please check if you answered ALL the sub-questions!!
The youth work in Gothenburg is decentralized and sector divided. This is evident in the
political budget, in the way work with young people are organized locally and on the
strategical level in the city office.
When Gothenburg joined MG we had to put together a handful of civil servants at the
city office in order to cover the whole youth policy area and the MG approach. Late 2008
this group had an idea to propose a youth theme in the follow-up process 2009. The
follow-up process involves asking all our city ditricts, other administrations and
companies how well they are achieving the political aims in the budget. This is done
through quarterly reports.
The youth theme was welcomed and a number of questions were formulated on youth
involvement, cross-over cooperation and outreach in the follow-up reports. The results
were summarized, analyzed and presented to the city executive board quarterly.
During 2009 the pilot project KOMMUT was also conducted. KOMMUT was an attempt to
develop new methods to follow up and analyze young peoples establishing period. Rich
statistical material on certain age groups was used to analyze young peoples different
life patterns and to identify key factors related to education, employment and community
activities that could contribute to successful establishment.
To sum up what had been reported in the youth theme in the four follow-up reports and
to combine this with findings from KOMMUT, My Generation and current research the
city office produced a Youth Appendix. This appendix was provided to all the political
parties in the city executive board as an input to their budget work 2011.
It had a disposition resembling the national youth policy, covering:
1. education and learning
2. work and self-support
3. health and vulnerability
4. influence and representation
5. culture and leisure activities
6. urban development
In each section a description of what came out in the follow-up youth theme, findings in
current studies, KOMMUT and My Generation was presented along with 4-5 points of
development. The document also had a final chapter on the multisectoral dimension of
youth issues and the need for better coordination on a city level.
This Youth Appendix is the most comprehensive product that the city office has
produced to support the politicians in developing a more active youth policy for the city.
However since then we have had elections and new politicians are now responsible for
the youth issues in the city executive board.
In order to offer a repetition and at the same time do a closure on My Generation the city
office are producing a shorter version of a Youth Appendix even this year as an input to
the budget work 2012. This document will be finished this week and will focus on five
development areas with suggested actions:
1. Youth policy in Gothenburg in relation to the national and European strategies
2. Youth involvement and influence – try new methods and create new forums
3. Young peoples equal value – the fact that Gothenburg is a segregated city and
needs to work actively on young peoples equal possibilities
4. Inspiration My Generation – what we have learned through our participation in
this network and how it could be implemented through Upp! and other on-going
initiatives
5. European Youth Capital 2015 – a proposal to start working with ideas on content
and budget for an application to become EYC 2015.
Parallel to this second Youth Appendix a proposal has also been delivered to the
management of the city office, pointing out the need to have a process management for
youth issues at the city office. This is done in a time of a major reorganization of the
office.
Gothenburg considers the two Youth Appendixes put together to be our Local Action
Plan. They include the best of MG with suggestions of how it could be used. They also
express an ambition to establish better coordination of youth activities and policies in
our city.
8. LEARNING IN MY GENERATION (Where did MG make a difference – what
additional dimension did it add? What have been your main learning points in MG?
Methods of Outreach, informal learning, youth engagement, connecting to
business… what? Have you learned something important from other sources than
MG that was useful? Where and what could you have learned more? (1-2 pages)
Please check if you answered ALL the sub-questions!!
My Generation is a network for exchange of knowledge and experience between
European cities. When evaluating what difference MG have made and what additional
dimension it added to Gothenburg, we find that this is exactly the contribution.
It made it possible to compare ourself with other cities. To see what we do good and
what others do better. To be inspired by good practice and to disseminate our own good
practice. To come up with new ideas for our local work and joint ideas on further
collaboration. To be sometimes strengthened and other times questioned in our views
and ways of doing things.
The strongest message that came through to us was the one on co-creation. Rotterdams
B&W Next is a brilliant example of this.
Another strong MG message is the one on finding better connections between different
actors and sectors. This was already identified as important in our city, but by being a
part of MG we were inspired to focus more on it. The City Office had specific questions
about this in the follow-up process 2009.
For the people that took part in the exchange, and the young people especially, it has
given a sense of being part of something greater. It has been an experience that you
could not get anywhere else and that could be used in other contexts as well.
Being a partner in MG also gave us a framework to start working with better
coordination and a whole city perspective on youth issues in Gothenburg. We did this
through our LSG but also through the work with our LAP as described above.
Ungdomsstyrelsen is the Swedish government agency for youth policy. They have
published several reports 2009-2011 that our MG team found very interesting. The city
office therefore invited them to Gothenburg on several occasions and arranged open
seminars to learn more about the findings in their reports. These seminars have been
popular. Because of these invitations Ungdomsstyrelsen also learned about My
Generation and incorporated it as a good example of transnational activities in one of
their reports.
Bridging between MG and Upp! is a main Gothenburg strategy in implementing the good
things that came out of MG and build further on the contacts and new connections it
resulted in. See further our enclosed case study that describes this attempt.
9. REFLECTIONS ON THE MG-JOURNEY as a whole (i.e. has the “MG-journey” been
useful for your city? Has the design, ways of working and support in MG been
useful and adequate? How should these kinds of projects be improved in the
future? (1-2 pages)
Please check if you answered ALL the sub-questions!!
The MG journey has been useful for our city. The participants have been affected in their
way of looking at and working with youth issues.
Participants have been inspired to try new approaches. Hopefully our MG ambassadors
will create rings on the water in their work during the years to come.
We have made new friends, progressed and earned new insights.
We have been able to disseminate some of our local activities.
It has been a good learning process within our city and between the partner cities.
One of the MG strengths has been the focus on how to run seminars in a co-creative way,
so that everybody feels engaged and included. It is however an act of balance to make the
meetings youthful and fun and at the same time meaningful for professionals and MAs.
Not in every case has this succeeded. The focus on form sometimes took over at the
expense of content.
At times the meetings could have been a bit tighter, more focused on the common
challenges and possible solutions.
Moore time could have been given to discuss common issues between the cities instead
of talking to each other within our cities.
The experts could have been given more opportunities/space to give the cities feed back
on their on-going work.
10. OPEN COMMENT (perhaps you have something you want to add here as a free
comment)
The author of this report takes the opportunity to inform the MG leadership that she has
got a new job as a project leader for an ERDF project called Urban development in
northeast Gothenburg. She will leave the city office for this new assignment March 1.
Unfortunately she will not be able to attend the final conference in Antwerp, but will
never forget all the MG adventures and friends. Lena will close the project for our part.
Good luck and thanks for everything! I am sure we will see each other again in just a
slightly different context.
Thank you!