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Guiding at-risk youth through learning to work
Lessons from across Europe

remove obstacles to their employment and employability during the economic
crisis. It is also of paramount importance to promote careers guidance as well as
better interaction between education providers, labour market institutions, social
partners, service users and national authorities.
This Cedefop study draws attention to guidance measures and initiatives
applied across Europe to support school completion and education-to-work
transitions of young people at the risk of dropping out of mainstream education
and training. One of the core messages from the report is that coordinated
approaches must be combined with outreach work to identify and reach those
individuals who are in most urgent need of support (hardest-to-help groups). The
partnership between different parties needs to be based on mutual trust and
respect but also needs to place the interests of the young people first. In this
setting, guidance professionals and teaching staff providing guidance services
should learn how to establish a good working relationship with the at-risk youth.
Further, parental involvement together with competent teachers, guidance
practitioners, youth and social workers, and health care providers, is the
backbone of support in the young person’s transition process.
We trust that this report will inspire future action in the Member States on
improving guidance service provision to support at-risk youth’s smooth transition
from adolescence into meaningful adulthood, with career and learning
opportunities, partnership and parenthood, financial and residential
independence.

Aviana Bulgarelli
Director of Cedefop

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