The situation of young people who are in not employment, education, or training — usually referred to in policy, public, and academic discourses as ‘NEETs’ — has received political and societal attention across Europe [1], including Sweden [2] for at least a decade. Conceptually, the abbreviated term ‘NEET’ is typically used to categorise unemployed young people aged 15 to 29 or 34 years who seek work, and inactive non-students who officially neither hold nor look for a job [3]. While this means that the group may include those who enjoy a number of privileges and choose not to engage in education or employment, in the current project we recognise discussions about the broad stroke classification of ‘NEETs’ [4] by limiting our scope to segments of this population that, due to various constraints, lack options and opportunities in life.
According to the most recent data from Eurostat [5], the ‘NEET’ rate varies greatly across Europe, with levels ranging from about 7–11% in the Nordic countries, including Sweden, to about 20–25% among southern countries, such as Italy, Greece, and Serbia. In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the challenges facing this group of young people, more generally, and certain sub-groups, in particular, have become increasingly apparent. Research [6] and youth organisations [7] internationally have thus called for immediate policy action to avoid losing a generation due to the potential long-term consequences of experiencing periods of unemployment during youth and young adulthood [8]. In this regard, all member states in the European Union recently committed to the implementation of a reinforced Youth Guarantee [9]. However, by relying heavily on national public employment services to facilitate the transition of ‘NEETs’ into education or employment, research evaluating an earlier version shows inconsistent results. Specifically, while the guarantee appears to slightly benefit young people who stand quite close to the labour market, it appears to be insufficient to support sub-groups in more vulnerable situations [10, 11].
To create real and sustained change for young people whose educational trajectories, social circumstances, and economic conditions are particularly challenging [12], moving beyond standardised solutions characterised by a premature and largely instrumental focus on getting them to study or work will be essential [13]. In particular, meeting the needs of ‘NEETs’ who face substantial life barriers due, for example, to long-term unemployment, chronic or mental illness, disability, alienation, or discouragement [14] may require more flexible, holistic, and indeed humane approaches [15]. To contribute insights about the workings of such efforts, this protocol presents a project that will evaluate and provide directions for strengthening the delivery and implementation of multi-component ‘(re)engagement’ initiatives, introduced in northern Sweden to the (potential) benefit of young people in vulnerable ‘NEET’ situations [16].
Scope and aim of the project
Beyond being concerned with various behavioural and health-related outcomes, increasing the likelihood of ‘NEETs’ finding meaningful work and engaging in decent jobs by strengthening their employment and educational readiness, typically constitutes the overarching goal of ‘(re)engagement’ initiatives [13, 17]. To facilitate this scope, isolated strategies like one-to-one adult–youth mentoring [18], life skill development through sports and physical activity [19], and academic or work-based learning and training [20] have so far been adopted across Europe and beyond. However, being limited in scope, reports have suggested that such singular efforts may be insufficient to meet the complex needs of young people in more vulnerable ‘NEET’ situations, while initiatives that combine different resources may resonate better with their varied interests, talents, and abilities [21, 22].
Overall, the literature has described how multi-component ‘(re)engagement’ initiatives place an emphasis on personalised and applied learning, practical work experience and skills for social living, whereby professionals offer a range of tailored activities and forms of therapeutic support to the young people [23]. In the Swedish context, these efforts have been defined according to their provision of skill-building and health-promoting activities in combination with forms of holistic, personalised, and coordinated support delivered by authentic, caring, and compassionate adults [16]. Considering the complexity of these initiatives, the potential pathways to success are numerous. However, due to a concurrent focus on their effectiveness or efficacy to reduce youth unemployment, we currently lack insights into and evidence about how, and why, they work [21].
To address these knowledge gaps, the theory-driven realist evaluation methodology, which aims to explore and establish ‘what works, for whom and in what contexts’, may be a useful approach [24, 25]. To the best of our knowledge, only two theory-driven evaluations have assessed the role of multi-component ‘(re)engagement’ initiatives for young people in vulnerable ‘NEET’ situations. In England, a realist evaluation of the nation-wide, now largely dismantled, Connexions service was carried out in 2004 [26]. In Wales, Owen [27] more recently evaluated both the school-based TACKLE programme and the youth-driven EMPOWER programme. Regarding the latter assessment, the study showed (amongst other things) that when young people that are in ‘NEET’ situations are given the opportunity to participate in captivating activities where they have to be present in the moment, mechanisms of engagement and focus are activated. This, in turn, allows them to regulate their emotions and attention (i.e., become focused, mindful, and calm), thus engaging successfully to complete the task at hand.
In contrast to the UK-based efforts evaluated to date, the type of initiatives at the centre of our project does not follow a specified, time-limited format carried out, for example, within the school setting, and neither are the initiatives part of a coherent national establishment. Instead, through what appears to be an organic and highly innovative process, ‘(re)engagement’ initiatives in both rural and urban parts of northern Sweden have (at least for now) developed from, and to meet, a locally identified need. Despite this bottom-up and community-based perspective, the different initiatives, which are typically run and funded by the local municipality, share many similarities in the type of activities and support they provide young people in vulnerable ‘NEET’ situations, as illustrated in our previous research [16].
Project aim
By integrating the realist evaluation [24] and concept mapping [28] approaches (see details below), the project presented in this protocol aims to explore and establish how northern Swedish ‘(re)engagement’ initiatives work, while providing directions for strengthening the delivery and implementation to better meet the needs of young people in vulnerable ‘NEET’ situations. In this regard, the research is a response to the call for rigorous, theoretically driven evaluations, which recognises the value of local innovation and of identifying nuances in service delivery occurring between sites [21]. With a subsequent focus on generating evidence useful for policy and practice by identifying what works to reengage young people, the project will address the following research questions:
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How are ‘(re)engagement’ initiatives in northern Sweden expected to work?
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How are ‘(re)engagement’ initiatives in northern Sweden actually working?
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How can the practices and processes of ‘(re)engagement’ initiatives in northern Sweden be strengthened?