Youth work quality tools in 15 European countries (2025)

This study explores what quality means in youth work across Europe, highlighting diverse approaches, shared principles, and gaps, while offering practical insights for policymakers and practitioners to better integrate the perspectives of young people into quality frameworks.

How is quality defined in youth work? What features does quality youth work show? European youth policy has addressed two approaches: quality youth work and the quality of youth work over the years. This study explores how the quality of youth work is conceptualised and supported in 15 European countries. It highlights the diversity of approaches to quality tools in Europe and identifies common themes within. While national-level frameworks are the most common, only a few countries have developed models that respond to local contexts or directly incorporate the perspectives of young people. Overall, quality tools tend to prioritise structural features over practice perspectives.

The study identifies eight overarching themes shared by at least five quality tools or frameworks. Despite a shared European commitment to quality youth work, the study reveals gaps in conceptual clarity and relatively little attention paid to beneficiaries’ perspectives. The first part of the study offers an analytical outlook on quality, and the second part consists of descriptions of quality tools or frameworks in 15 countries. Whether you are a policy maker or youth work development expert, the variety of approaches can inspire you to reflect on the quality framework you are working with, how it can integrate better practice perspectives and, crucially, perspectives of young people as beneficiaries of youth work.