A Companion to the ECYC MOOC

“Youth Work as a Preventative Practice against

Radicalisation and Violent Extremism”

Compiled for a Training of Trainers, Sibiu, Romania 2018

Radicalisation, Violent Extremism and Youth Work
Budget cuts reducing the capacity of youth services, the rising profile of fringe ideological groups and the recent
terror attacks in Europe and around the world have left young people in a space particularly vulnerable to violent
extremism and radicalisation. Youth work has the proven potential to act as an effective preventative practice in this
area but needs support to do so. This publication, with the accompanied digital library, aims to provide youth
workers with both an introduction to key concepts and the access to further publications for a deeper dive into
concepts and responses.

The European Confederation of Youth Clubs

ECYC represents a European network of youth work and youth club organisations that practice and promote open
youth work and non-formal education. With 19 nationally represented organisations in 18 Council of Europe
member-state countries, reaching over 1.2 million young people, the organisation has at its heart the supporting of
youth clubs and other forms of neighbourhood youth work.



The vision of the European Confederation of Youth Clubs (ECYC) is to empower young people through open
youth work and non-formal learning in order to promote democratic and civil society and to encourage young
people to be actively involved in their communities.



Involving young people and helping them to participate actively in their community is the leading principle of
Open Youth Work as delivered by ECYC members. ECYC uses open youth work and non-formal education
methods in providing young people with the skills and knowledge to make their own informed decisions.

ECYC Work Plan: Youth Work as a Preventive Practice against Radicalisation and Violent
Extremism

Supported by the Council of Europe, this two year work plan is a European approach to youth work in the prevention of
processes of violent radicalisation of youth leading to extremist violence, with a special focus on youth work principles,
sharing of practices and communication of the role of youth work in these prevention processes.

Throughout 2017 - 2018, various projects and activities making up this work plan will have lead to new tools and
synergies that will offer lasting support to young people and youth workers at national and regional levels. The ultimate
goal of the implementation of this work plan is to ensure that the services that are provided for and with young people
are as good as they can be, and that these services continue to meet the changing needs of young people in developing
. the skills and qualities they require, so that they can grow up to live happy and fulfilling lives

The activities in this work plan are made possible through the support of the European Youth Foundation of the Council
of Europe, la Fédération des Centres de Jeunes en Milieu Populaire, Romanian Youth Non-Governmental organisations
Forum (RYNGOF) and Future Capital Romania
 Section One: Contextualising the Conversation

This section relates to Module one and contains essential background information on the topic of
radicalisation as well as the sociological and psychological perspective on key factors which can lead to
radicalisation.

Being radical is not inherently negative

Radicals are responsible for expanding the right to vote to women, forming international human rights
treaties and indeed any significant social or political change positive or negative. Being radical is not
negative!
Radicalisation is simply the process of an individual begins to adopt an increasingly extreme political,
social or religious ideals and aspirations. Radicalisation becomes concerning when individuals are
radicalised towards violent extremism. In other words when a person adopts a system of beliefs which
they feel justifies using violence to undermine the social or political status quo.

Old concept, New causes

Violent extremism and radicalisation are unfortunately not new topics in Europe; what is perhaps new are
the composing factors; the push and pull factors linking to young people engaging with extremism today.
For example: the rise of social media means fringe ideologies now have a platform to access young
people and funding cuts have reduced the capacity of youth organisations to act as a preventive practice.

What causes Radicalisation?

The path to radicalisation is unique to each individual but commonalities exist. A non exhaustive list of
common causes:
● Personal grievance Harm inflicted upon oneself by an outside party. This initial offence triggers
other psychodynamic mechanisms, such as thinking in more stark in-group and out-group terms.

● Group grievance The dynamics are similar to those that are primed by personal grievances; the
difference is that the subject perceives harm inflicted on a group that she belongs to or has
sympathy for.

● Slippery slope/Sunk Cost Gradual radicalisation through activities that incrementally narrow the
individual’s social circle, narrow their mindset, and in some cases desensitise them to violence.

● Love/Emotional Bonds Romantic and familial entanglement is often an overlooked factor in

radicalisation. Several violent extremist organisations, especially at their origin, owe their
structure to a tight-knit group of friends who share religious, economic, social, and sexual bonds.
 ● Risk and status Within a radical group, high-risk behaviour, if successful, offers a pathway to
status insofar as it becomes re-construed as bravery and commitment to the cause.

● Unfreezing/Prison Radicalisation Loss of social connection can open an individual to new ideas
and a new identity that may include political radicalisation. Isolated from friends, family, or other
basic needs, individuals may begin to associate with unlike parties, to include political, religious,
or cultural radicals.

Misconceptions around poverty and mental illness

The association between radicalisation and poverty is a myth. Many terrorists come from middle-class
backgrounds and have university-level educations, particularly in the technical sciences and
engineering.There is no statistical association between poverty and militant radicalisation. Likewise,
though personal psychology does play a significant part in radicalisation, mental illness is not a root cause
of terrorism specifically or ideological radicalisation broadly. 


Preventing violent extremism and radicalisation

Support for those who are vulnerable to radicalisation is best approached at the closest level to these
individuals. This requires close cooperation with local authorities and civil society. National and
international institutions and bodies can coordinate polices, share information and determine good
practice however preventive and indicative action is best delivered at a local level. Youth services and
youth workers are ideally placed to act as preventive practice.

Key policy and research actors

The Council of Europe, Radicalisation Awareness Network and European Union as well as many
academics are engaged in the topic of RVE. Publications by these organisations and institutions can be
found in the ECYC online library (on the ECYC Website you can find an aggregation of publications on
the topic of radicalisation, youth work and more. This can also be found on the USB drive which came
with this booklet).
 Section Two: Youth Work as a Preventive Practice

What is the role of youth work and the role of the youth worker in preventing violent extremism and
radicalisation?

● As a vulnerable group, young people are a focus in the prevention of RVE and the value of youth
work here lies in accepting the need for flexibility and addressing the young person's reality.
● Youth workers can detect early signs of radicalisation and offer alternatives. They can act as role
models or mentors and can also facilitate a young person engagement with experts.
● Youth workers are trained and experienced in working with youngsters on many problematic
topics and can transfer these skills.
● To contribute to the prevention of radicalisation combat and prevent violent extremism and
radicalisation, youth workers and need recognition and tools to empower them to prevent violent
radicalisation and young people need quality support services and safe spaces for dialogue and
personal expression.

Three broad forms of youth work intervention:

● Generic Youth work’s contribution at a generic level is about equipping young people with the
life skills that contribute to their democratic resilience and strengthen their democratic values
● Targeted Prevention aims to reach young people who show tendencies towards or are interested
in antidemocratic, extremist ideologies (or fragments of these ideologies) and propaganda. They
can furthermore be close to extremist groups or have already been in contact with such groups
● Indicated Prevention targets young people who are already engaged in an extremist group or
with extremist ideals and who want to drop out (or who are regarded as being open to receiving
support for dropping out). This prevention work should only be provided by experts and youth
workers who are specifically trained for this.

Key Resource:

The contribution of youth work to preventing marginalisation and

violent radicalisation
A practical toolbox for youth workers & recommendations for policy
makers:
Results of the expert group set up under the European Union Work Plan
for Youth for 2016-2018
 Section Three: Building Young People’s Resilience

What is resilience?
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity and describes a process in which people can
overcome or resist negative influences that block emotional well-being and/or achievements.

Approaches to build young people’s resilience to radicalisation through Youth Work:

Making a connection with young people through good design and a young-person centred approach;
- In other words facilitating interventions which are designed to build resilience to extremism and
making sure to actively target and involve young people in their design and implementation.
- Engaging young people in the process of design and implementation can help to undermine factors
which can lead into extremism. Factors such as low self esteem, young people lacking a sense of
achievement and not feeling they have a place in society.
- This links into Civic Youth Work (Section Six)

Facilitating a safe space for dialogue and positive interaction;

- In order to create a dialogue conducive to building resilience youth services and youth workers need to
ensure that the environment offered is a ‘safe space’. This will help to allow for all young people in a
group to be able to take part in discussion, especially if conversation trials to controversial issues.
- This is particularly important in the context of work targeted at building resilience to extremism
because young people may be reluctant to engage with the issue or have a history of disengagement
from formal learning.
- Creating a ‘safe space’ can mitigate factors which may push young people towards extremism by
providing an opportunity for them to explore grievances and ensure their voice is heard.

Equipping young people with appropriate capabilities - skills, knowledge, understanding and awareness;
- Placing an explicit focus on ‘harder’ skills, tools and techniques in teaching approaches and
interventions to improve personal resilience and to have real, long-lasting benefits.
- These include leaving young people better able to cope with life pressures and challenges, using critical
thinking skills to appreciate different perspectives and come to their own view, and working well with
peers.
 Section Four: Key Concepts

The following sections details three miscellaneous principles of youth work which can be tools for
preventing violent extremism and radicalisation as covered in Module 6.

Evidence based
- All youth work is guided by a fundamental principle to not do more harm than good. A key check on
whether practice is not breaching this standard and is having a overall positive effect is to base practice
off of evidence. In other words using evidence-supported practice, evidence-informed practice or
research based practice to assure quality.
- Look for research and publications on the topic and engage with peers when planning interventions to
ensure maximum added value of your action.

Civic engagement
- This can be described as ‘individual or collective actions in which people participate to improve the
well-being of communities or society in general, and which provide opportunities for
reflection’ (Innovations in Civic Participation, 2010, p. vi).
- Lister (2007) views civic engagement as an expression of young people as social actors, and the
contributions they already make in society or in their ‘practices as citizens’.
- For others, civic engagement is a ‘bedrock value of democracy’ defined as being able to influence
choices in collective action (Camino & Zeldin, 2002, p. 214). Zaff et al. (2010) highlight that civic
engagement includes the exercise of rights and responsibilities and some concern for the state and
shared fate with one’s fellow citizens.

Critical citizenship
- “Against all forms of active and passive societal and institutional controls, and against the imposition of
one will upon another without recourse or debate, and in the light of the continuing success of
globalisation, corporatisation and militarisation, Critical Citizenship is a framework for finding
strategies to develop awareness amongst individuals and groups to enable them to combat complacency,
and go beyond simple obedient cosmopolitan ways of thinking-acting-and-being, in order to forge a
way of living life that everyone who contends that they are free to pursue their happiness, can and must
struggle with each day.” – Catherine Wyn Sculley, 18 January 2012
- In short critical citizenship is facilitating young people to critically engage with their community.
 Section Five: Youth Work Response - Asset Mapping

Through asset mapping youth workers can analyse communities on their strengths and potentials,
assessing the resources, skills, and experience available in a community. With this information at hand,
youth work can then help to engage a community around issues which concern it and offer an appropriate
set of actions to resolve these issues

This method uses the community's own assets and resources as the basis for development; it empowers
the people of the community by encouraging them to utilise what they already possess.

There are six key assets in any given community: individuals, associations, institutions, physical assets,
cultural assets and their connections.

Asset Categories:

- Individuals: these are their skills, knowledge, networks, time, interests and passions. Young people are
asked what is good about where they live and what they could bring to make life better for their
community.
- Associations: this is not just the formal community organisations or voluntary groups. It includes all the
informal networks and ways that people come together.
- Organisations: this is not just the services that organisations deliver locally, but also the other assets
they control, for example, parks, community centres and faith buildings. It includes staff and their
influence and expertise, which they can use to support new ideas.
- Physical assets of an area: what green space, unused land, buildings, streets, markets, transport are in
the area? Mapping these assets helps people to appreciate their value and to realise the potential
productive uses they could be put to.
- Economic assets of an area: economic activity is at the heart of engaging a community. What skills and
talents are available to be utilised by activists?
- Cultural assets of an area: everyday life is full of creativity and culture. This involves mapping the
talents for music, drama, art and the opportunities for everyone to express themselves in ways that
reflect their values and identities, improves understanding and tackles their lack of a ‘voice’.
 Section Six: Youth Work Response - Civic Youth Work

Civic Youth Work describes a youth work action which fosters young people to engage in their
community be this local, regional, global or online. This community “civic” engagement often leads
towards state “political” engagement. This form of youth work can preempt disillusionment in one's
community or society, a factor in radicalisation and violent extremism.

- Civic Youth Work Project Example:

- A youth service involving young people in local decision making around the design of a new park.
Giving young people ownership over and responsibility towards their community. Establishing a link
between a young person and their community and undermining the disillusionment at the core of many
instances of radicalisation.

- Case Study: Ireland

- In 2002 Comhairle na nÓg was established in each local authority area as part of the National
Children's strategy. Comhairle na nÓg is Irish for Youth Council. These councils are encouraged to
include the participation of young people from all walks of life and to tackle local issues affecting
young people. These youth councils are often integrated into regional youth services and are funded by
the state.

- Critiques of youth empowerment

- When youth participate in established empowerment programs they see a variety of benefits. The
practices of youth involvement and empowerment become embedded within the organisational culture
and the community culture.
- Adults and organisations also benefit from empowerment programs. The both become more
communicable and responsive to youth in the community, which leads to program improvements as
well as increased participation from youth.
- One major critique of youth empowerment is that most programs take a risk-focused approach. There
has been a major emphasis on what is going wrong for youth in their lives rather than what goes right.
- This portrays young people as a problem that need to be fixed, and displays the process of development
as a process of overcoming risk. This may deter youth from joining youth development programs. The
risked-based model can obscure the fact that adolescence is a time when young people master skills and
concepts.
- Unless effective outreach effort are made marginalised youth, some of those most vulnerable to
radicalisation, can be excluded from these programs.
 Section Seven: Youth Work Response - Narratives and Counter-
Narratives

The world is complex, we process the swathes of information before us by using narratives to organise it.
Society often looks upon people, events and things through the lens of the dominant narrative of the
moment. It is an important role of communities and civil society to help ensure that this dominant
narrative is not harmful nor exclusionary. When a narrative grows to dominance it can exclude minority
narratives and place individuals and groups at disadvantage and in risk.

Radicalism can be understood as an individual subverting the dominant narrative of the moment. Again
this is not inherently negative but the power of narratives can be used to radicalise people towards violent
and harmful ideologies. The media plays a key role in the dissemination of narratives and social media
has allowed radical and dangerous narratives a great potential for reach.

To counter harmful narratives youth work can utilise alternative or counter narratives:

Counter Narratives:
Counter and alternative narratives combat harmful narratives by discrediting and deconstructing them.
This can be done by providing alternative and accurate information, by using humour and appealing to
emotions on the issues involved, and by accounting for different perspectives and views.

Example of Counter Narrative Implementation:

Creating a video of a local migrant who is running a small business and is an engaged figure in their
community and disseminating this amongst the community via social media. Discrediting a harmful
narrative that migrants are lazy and never work.

Key Resource:

“We CAN! Taking action against hate speech through

counter and alternative narratives”

Published by the Council of Europe

 Section Eight: Youth work response including non-Violent
communication

Non-Violent Communication is a form of communication used in many sectors. Implementation in your

work can assist youth workers to connect with young people.

The four pillars of communication under the principles of Non-Violent Communication: Observation,
Feeling, Needs, Requests

Observation:
- Considering facts (what we are seeing, hearing, or touching) as distinct from our evaluation of meaning
and significance.
- NVC discourages static generalisation, rather encouraging a contextual observation of facts.
Feelings:
- These are emotions or sensations, free of thought and story.
- These are to be distinguished from thoughts (e.g., "I feel I didn't get a fair deal") and from words
colloquially used as feelings but which convey what we think we are (e.g., "inadequate"), how we think
others are evaluating us (e.g., "unimportant"), or what we think others are doing to us (e.g.,
"misunderstood", "ignored").
- Feelings are said to reflect whether we are experiencing our needs as met or unmet. Identifying feelings
is said to allow us to more easily connect with one another, and "Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable
by expressing our feelings can help resolve conflicts."
Needs:
- This refers to universal human needs, as distinct from particular strategies for meeting needs.
- It is posited that "Everything we do is in service of our needs."
- Viewing actions and communications in the context of human needs.
Request:
- Referring to requests for a specific action, free of demand. Requests are distinguished from demands in
that one is open to hearing a response of "no" without this triggering an attempt to force the matter.
- If one makes a request and receives a "no" it is recommended not that one give up, but that one
empathise with what is preventing the other person from saying "yes," before deciding how to continue
the conversation.
- It is recommended that requests use clear, positive, concrete action language.
 Section Nine: Support Measures

Supports which exist for youth work action:

Council of Europe: The Council of Europe is an intergovernmental international network of 47 states.

The European Youth Foundation of the CoE provides funding for national and international projects
through the following streams:
● International activity International meeting in Europe which contribute to the work of the youth
sector of the Council of Europe in topic, methodology and with a clear European dimension.
● Annual work plan It is a set of successive activities over a period of one year, interconnected and
which contribute to the same broader aim. Should be in line with what you do and want to
achieve.
● EYF supported annual work plans
● Structural grant The EYF offers two types of structural grants: structural grant for 2 consecutive
years and one-off grant. These are grants for general administrative costs.
● Pilot activity A pilot activity should be an "intervention", i.e. an activity addressing a contextual
societal challenge affecting young people at local level. It should also be based on innovation or
on replication.
● https://www.coe.int/en/web/european-youth-foundation

Erasmus+: A flagship EU project, Erasmus+ financially supports non formal education opportunities for
people under 35 in EU member states and further partnered states. The streams of funding offered are:

• Key Action 1: Mobility of Individuals


This is all about providing opportunities for individuals to improve their skills, enhance their
employability and gain cultural awareness. Under Key Action 1 organisations can apply for funding to
run mobility projects to offer structured study, work experience, job shadowing, training and teaching
opportunities to staff and learners.

Key Action 1 covers the five fields of higher education, vocational education and training, schools,
adult education and youth.
• Key Action 2: Cooperation for Innovation and Exchange of Good Practices

This is all about enabling organisations to work together in order to improve their provision for learners
and share innovative practices. Under Key Action 2 organisations can apply for funding to work in
partnership with organisations from other participating countries.

Key Action 2 covers the five fields of higher education, vocational education and training, schools,
adult education and youth.



• Key Action 3: Support for Policy Reform

This Key Action covers any type of activity aimed at supporting and facilitating the modernisation of
education and training systems. Under Key Action 3, the Erasmus+ programme will fund strategic
activities supporting policy reform across the EU in education, training and youth.

Key Action 3 covers the fields of higher education, vocational education and training, schools, adult
education and youth.


Networks: Beyond purely financial support, international youth work networks like ECYC, and national
networks, can offer logistical support and advice for youth work, projects and actions.

Academia: Some states have invested heavily in research around non-formal education and youth work. This
research and connected publications are often available online (scholar.google.com).

Note:
This booklet is intended to be a broad overview and introduction to the topic, ensuring participants have
answers at hand to basic questions during the training course. Check out ECYCs online library for further
information on youth work as a preventive practice!

Key Working Definitions:

• Radicalisation is the process by which a person comes to adopt increasingly extreme political, social,
or religious ideals. This can eventually result in condonation or support of terrorism.
• Extremism is the holding of political, religious, ideological ideas or actions that are outside the
parameters of the moderate mainstream and not normal, reasonable or acceptable to most people. It is
important to understand that extremism in itself is not illegal but it can act as a pathway to terrorism.
• Violent Extremism is where people seek to justify or promote terrorism or encourage others to commit
such acts.
• Terrorism is the use or threat of action where the use or threat is designed to influence the government
or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and the use or threat is made for the purpose of
advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.