In period of August 23 and September 2 this year Youth Power has organized “Strategic Planning in youth peer-to-peer networks” training course within Erasmus+ programme. This activity took place in Split where 33 participants from all over the Europe gathered to improve their skills and competencies in the field of strategic planning that will later lead them to improved strategic vision and developed plans for each of their organisations.
How this training course looked like?
In the first two days they have done some teambuilding activities. Later they have been more focused on tools for strategic planning and their application in youth organisations and peer-to-peer networks. With various workshops, participants had opportunity to learn what is the process of strategic planning and how to prepare plan for it. After they got main knowledge that they needed, later they dived into the tools for strategic planning and have done stakeholders analysis of participating organisations. One whole day was focused on meditation as an introduction to the tool: Two simple questions. This tools is used for strategic planning but also can be useful for overviewing current personal and organisational work and growth. On the last two days they started with a simulation of developing strategic plans for two organisations, giving an opportunity for participants to apply their knowledge acquired since the start of this training course. They also worked on developing follow-up sessions to be implemented in local communities.
Other objectives of this training course were:
1.) To enhance cooperation between our youth workers and organizations,
2.) To improve our local and international teamwork by getting to know stages of group development and how to communicate in an assertive and effective way,
3.) To share info about our organizations, their visions, missions and values,
4.) To get to know the importance of the strategic planning process and how and why it can benefit our organizations,
5.) To provide youth workers with practical tools of Strategic planning which they will be able to use in the future and which will contribute to their professional development and also to organizations’ development,
6.) To explore the Erasmus+ program as a tool that can help to achieve the objectives of our Strategic Planning,
7.) To reflect on the experience of the learning process using the Youthpass certificate and frame of 8 key competencies.
