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Youth policy in Belgium
ISBN 978-92-871-7377-5
Council of Europe Publishing
This report is part of a series of international reviews of national youth
policies carried out by the Council of Europe in collaboration and consul-
tation with government agencies and ministries responsible for the develop-
ment and implementation of youth policy, as well as with non-governmental
youth organisations. The reviews are carried out by an international team
which outlines the strengths and challenges of the countries’ youth policies
in a constructive manner, drawing where appropriate upon broader inter-
national evidence and debate.
The international review process was established to fulfil three distinct
objectives:
– to advise on national youth policy;
– to identify components which might combine to form an approach to
youth policy across Europe;
– to contribute to a learning process in relation to the development and
implementation of youth policy.
€21/US$42
http://book.coe.int
Youth policy in Belgium
The Council of Europe has 47 member states, covering virtually the entire
continent of Europe. It seeks to develop common democratic and legal prin-
ciples based on the European Convention on Human Rights and other refe-
rence texts on the protection of individuals. Ever since it was founded in
1949, in the aftermath of the Second World War, the Council of Europe has
symbolised reconciliation.
9 789287 173775
Prems 112512
Council of Europe youth policy reviews
Prems 112512 GBR 2546 YouthPolicyInBelgium 7377 COUV 16x24.indd 1 03/05/2013 17:06:51
Youth policy in Belgium
It’s more complex than you think!
Gazela Pudar
Leena Suurpää
Howard Williamson
Manfred Zentner
Members of the international review team:
Georges Metz (CDEJ] (Chair)
Bjorn Jaaberg Hansen (CDEJ)
Jorge Orlando Queirós (CDEJ)
Kyrylo Ivliev (Advisory Council)
Camelia Nistor (Advisory Council)
André-Jacques Dodin (Secretariat)
Gazela Pudar (Researcher)
Leena Suurpää (Researcher)
Manfred Zentner (Researcher)
Howard Williamson (Co-ordinator)
Council of Europe youth policy reviews
Council of Europe Publishing
Check cover page
French edition:
La politique de jeunesse en Belgique – C'est plus compliqué que ça !
ISBN 978-92-871-7632-2
The opinions expressed in this work are the responsibility of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the ocial policy of the Council of Europe.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be translated, reproduced or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic (CD-Rom, Internet, etc.) or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the Directorate of Communication (F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex
or publishing@coe.int).
Cover design: Documents and Publications Production Department (SPDP),
Council of Europe
Layout: SPDP, Council of Europe
Council of Europe Publishing
F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex
http://book.coe.int
ISBN 978-92-871-7377-5
© Council of Europe, April 2013
Printed at the Council of Europe
Contents
3
Contents
Acknowledgements ..........................................................................5
Chapter 1 – Introduction ................................................................7
Chapter 2 – Youth policy in the Flemish Community ............... 19
Chapter 3 – Youth policy in the French Community .................47
Chapter 4 – Youth policy in the German-speaking
Community ................................................................75
Chapter 5 – A case study – dealing with youth
unemployment ........................................................ 101
Chapter 6 – Conclusions and recommendations .......................111
Bibliography ...................................................................................121
Acknowledgements
5
Acknowledgements
The Secretariat of the Youth Directorate (now the Directorate for Democratic
Citizenship and Participation) and the members of the international review team
would like to thank the many people in Belgium who extended a strong welcome
and personal hospitality over and above their professional co-operation and
collaboration with the review process. In particular, we would like to thank the
senior ocials from the three Communities – Jan Vanhee (Flemish Community),
Francoise Crémer (French Community) and Armand Meys (German-speaking
Community) – for oiling the wheels in the planning and organisation of the team’s
visits and the wider review process. Like many things in Belgium, this was not
straightforward but eective collaboration within Belgium and between those
in Belgium and the co-ordinator of the review made it possible. In particular,
JanVanhee anchored the lines of communication and, when necessary, went the
extra mile to ensure that arrangements kept to time and task. We all know that
this is embedded in Jan’s character, but we thank him all the same.
We would also like to thank the European Union National Agencies for the Flemish
Community (Koen Lambert) and the French Community (LaurenceHermand and
Thierry Dufour) for hosting a number of meetings and for making their premises
at the Coordination Agency for International Youth Work (JINT) and the Bureau
International Jeunesse (BIJ, or International Oce for Youth) available to the
team for both relaxation and reflection.
Beyond these named individuals, who have been valued colleagues on the
European stage in relation to youth policy as well as constructive protagonists
for the youth policy review of Belgium, there are many more who took the time
to meet us and furnished us with supplementary information. We applaud the
commitment of all three ministers responsible for youth issues; they are very
much “hands-on” and informed of the challenges to which there needs to be
an evolving response. We welcomed the opportunity to meet with the three
Community youth councils, both independently and under the auspices of the
unocial J-Club, which brings them together to construct, when possible, a
shared position on federal, European and international matters. And, nally,
we want to express our appreciation to all those policy makers, managers,
administrators, practitioners and researchers, both in the youth eld and
Youth policy in Belgium
6
beyond in arenas that aect young people, who contributed to the review and
who contribute in their dierent ways to the lives of young people in Belgium.
Introduction
7
Chapter 1 – Introduction
Some background to the Council of Europe international reviews of
national youth policy
C’est plus compliqué que ça. “It’s more complex than you think.” This was the
recurrent response to attempts by the Council of Europe international review
team to clarify and conrm their understanding of a range of core youth policy
issues in Belgium. The team itself was a complex construction, in an attempt
to respect and respond to the specic political, geographical, linguistic and
cultural characteristics of Belgium. Routinely, an international review team
comprises six or seven individuals: nominations by the statutory bodies of
the Youth Department (part of the Directorate of Democratic Citizenship and
Participation) of the Council of Europe – from the governmental committee
and from youth organisations, a member of the Secretariat, two or three youth
researchers or youth experts, and, in the past few years, the co-ordinator of the
review process, who himself is active in youth research. The nominee from the
inter-governmental steering group on youth (the CDEJ) is the designated chair
of each review. But with Belgium it was dierent. The international team for the
youth policy review of Belgium was composed of no less than 11 individuals –
three from each of the statutory bodies (though one of the youth organisations’
nominees, regrettably, was not able to take part), three youth researchers, the
representative of the secretariat, and the co-ordinator.
The rationale behind this constellation was that the international team
would be able to divide its focus, engagement and, critically, understanding,
between the three language communities (which are also formal administrative
Communities) of Belgium. In a sense, this meant conducting three rather
separate “mini-reviews”, though the smaller teams were not so rigid that its
members had no opportunity to witness youth policy activity in other parts
of Belgium. Indeed, arrangements explicitly sought to provide as many team
members as possible with some opportunity to gain at least a “feel” for youth
policy in contexts other than the one on which they were primarily focused.
Aer all, a central tenet underlying the Council of Europe international reviews
is that a team is interested in the lives of all young people within the boundaries
of the country under review, not just those dened by administrative, cultural
Youth policy in Belgium
8
or political borders. Given the experience in many of the countries previously
reviewed (for example, Estonia, Romania, Slovakia, Cyprus and Moldova), this
has been an important, principled stand.
The international review of youth policy in Belgium
But of course Belgium is, arguably, both dierent from as well as more
complicated than that! Though its political and linguistic communities do anchor
the core of “youth policy” – at least in its sense of being cultural and educational
practice – the international review team also had to take account of regional
activity and responsibilities that aect the lives of young people and, indeed,
policy and practice within the municipalities of Belgium. We attempt, with some
anxiety and caution, to map this framework in our opening chapter, which seeks
to capture those “youth policy” matters that remain at the federal level, while
also delineating how other such responsibilities are divided between other
administrative levels. These are addressed at dierent points in subsequent
chapters. Whatever our eorts, we are humble enough to acknowledge that the
situation is probably “plus compliqué que ça”!
The international review of national youth policy in Belgium is the 18th such
review to be conducted by the Council of Europe. Each has contributed to the
overall objectives of the review process and provided lessons that have shaped
the evolution of the review process itself. The objectives are threefold:
– provide a constructively critical perspective on the country under
review;
– learn from the country under review, through examples of good practice
or specic youth policy challenges;
– develop a European framework – not a blueprint – for thinking about
youth policy.
A Council of Europe international youth policy review now takes some 18 months,
not counting the intention to have a follow-up two years later. The rst review, of
Finland in 1997, took six months. That review was a venture (or adventure) into
the dark. There was no model to follow. Gradually a process model has been
established, but it is not cast in stone and is, almost every time, subject to revision
for a variety of professional and pragmatic reasons. Initially, the early reviews
built up a body of knowledge and understanding of “youth policy”, though this
was constructed on a somewhat ad hoc basis and disseminated solely through
written (national and international) reports and through a presentation to the
Joint Council of the Youth Department of the Council of Europe (the joint meeting
of the European Steering Committee on Youth – the CDEJ – and the Advisory
Council on Youth, representing youth organisations). There was no preliminary,
preparatory visit. There was no identication of priority issues. There was no
national hearing. There was no follow-up. Aer seven reviews, a clear framework
for understanding and reviewing youth policy had emerged (see Williamson
2002):
9
Introduction
– concepts of “youth” and “youth policy”;
– legislation and nance;
– structures for delivery;
– policy domains;
– cross-cutting issues;
– research, training and dissemination.
This was, broadly, the framework that informed the deliberations of the next
seven international reviews and they added further substance to it. For example,
the influence of faith or military issues on “youth policy” had merited little
attention, and were perhaps not important in the early reviews (of countries such
as the Netherlands, Sweden or Spain), but they were more than signicant in the
reviews of countries such as Malta, Cyprus, Armenia and Moldova. However, it
became increasingly apparent that, in trying to cover everything, there was a
risk of the international reviews interrogating nothing. The terrain for the reviews
had become too broad, at the expense of depth. In order to address this, recent
reviews have sought to focus on a small number of priority issues identied by
the authorities in the host country and to highlight a small number of additional
issues considered by the international team to merit in-depth commentary and
reflection.
In the case of Belgium, the internal priorities identied were as follows.
In the Flemish Community
– The divide in the level of schooling which causes a political and socio-
economic dichotomy
– The ideological and cultural divide which means that (still) some target
groups are not reached: does multiculturalism work?
– The role of the government/public authorities: to what extent should
it be steering; what is it the citizen can and/or should expect? The
positioning of youth work in society?
In the French Community
– The Youth Policy Plan is currently under preparation in the French
Community. The Cabinet of the Minister for Youth would like to get
feedback, comments and suggestions on the methodology, content,
process on the way.
In the German-speaking Community
– Development of flexible instruments and methods, enabling a
comprehensive and quality youth policy, based on knowledge and
information – therefore:
– two main projects of the actual youth policy: a) reform of formation
and training (in youth work) of young people, youth workers, youth
Youth policy in Belgium
10
leaders and b) creation of a new framework for/of youth policy.
Both should be reached by:
– the new funding decree for youth work. This decree started in 2012.
It will allow a better transversal approach in order to respect in a
more holistic way young people’s lives, enhance participation of
young people and participation of the youth sector in the design and
in the implementation of youth work, allow evaluation on the basis
of quality and not only on the basis of quantity, and reinforce the
participation of the municipalities in design and implementation of
youth policy.
Specificities of Belgium
Belgium was the rst federal country to be subject to an international review.
Thus, while “structures for delivery” had always exercised the minds of
international review teams, the Belgian context produced dierent challenges.
Previously, central decision making on youth matters had sometimes experienced
diculties in cascading to remote rural municipalities in the absence of
eective regional structures (e.g. Sweden), had lacked the municipal capacity
to make things happen (e.g. Lithuania), or had been at least partially blocked by
autonomous regional structures (e.g. Spain). In Belgium, the international team
encountered relatively autonomous authorities with dierent responsibilities
for dierent youth issues that in turn were quite independent from, overlapping
with or complementary to activity taking place at other autonomous levels.
There were times when even Belgian colleagues, sitting alongside members of
the international team at presentations, appeared bemused by this complexity.
They might have previously taken it all for granted, but now seemed to realise
how it might look through the eyes of outsiders. Paradoxically, perhaps, our
presence compelled the Belgian authorities to make the seemingly familiar
strange – to explain what hitherto had been apparently quite self-evident.
And it is that “stranger’s eye” that is brought to bear by the international review
team on Belgium, as a whole and in relation to its maze of constituent parts:
communities, regions, provinces, the federal government and the municipalities.
The international review took place as Belgium “celebrated” well over a year
without a federal government1 while sustaining itself economically, politically,
culturally and socially in dicult times. There is a stoicism, as well as humour, in
the land of Magritte, as Pascale Delwit, professor of political science at the Free
University of Brussels noted as a tentative coalition government was eventually
formed:
Belgium is the capital of surrealism, and this long political crisis was typically
surrealist, accompanied by a kind of general calm among citizens. When there was
a hung parliament in 2010 in the UK, aer six days people were saying “What’s
1. A government was nally formed – aer 535 days – at the end of November 2011.
11
Introduction
happening?” Here it lasted more than 530 days, with no mass movement in the
streets, a calm pragmatic population that accepted the surrealist elements.
It is not our business to engage with the politics of Belgium, but we would
wish to note a number of things that do bear on the idea and practice of youth
policy. First, across the borders and boundaries that separate Belgium in many
dierent ways, a discernible and laudable commitment to young people – in
employment, health, education and leisure – shines through. The opportunity
structures for most young people in Belgium would almost certainly be the envy
of many young people elsewhere. Second, even without a government, Belgium
discharged its presidency of the European Union (shortly before the review, in
the second half of 2010) with a sequence of outstanding events committed to
young people: on youth work, children’s rights, youth employment and youth
mobility. For these events, it included not just the 27 members of the European
Union (EU) but also additional member states from the Council of Europe. Few
outsiders would have guessed at the persisting, possibly even strengthening,
divisions within Belgium itself. And this is the third point: Belgium lies at the
heart of Europe, and Brussels is the headquarters of the EU. No one who knows
anything about Belgium can escape the paradox that the unifying and integrating
aspirations of Europe, through the EU, take place within a country that is itself
“split” in a variety of ways. However controversial, it may take a “stranger’s eye”
to highlight some of the inconsistencies, and perhaps inequalities, for young
people that arise from living in one part of Belgium rather than another. That is
a legitimate concern of an international review of national youth policy. We have
always asked host countries to forgive our mistakes but to consider the issues
that we raise. Here, perhaps, we should ask Belgium to temporarily fold up some
of its traditional and established political umbrellas in order to view various
professional and practical issues for young people through our lens, even if, for
political necessity if not professional rationality, those umbrellas have then to
be extended once again.
Three different approaches to youth policy
In a somewhat narrow conceptualisation of “youth policy”, there are three
distinct approaches in Belgium, developed under the auspices of the Flemish,
French and German-speaking Communities. So, as strangers, we repeatedly
wondered if there is any sense in which young people, or indeed any people,
have an identity of “being Belgian”:
More than ever, Belgium has become a place where people from the four corners of
the world, with the most diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, meet ... [but] Few
people in our country are really confronted with diversity. We are living parallel lives
(Meys and Loopmans, no date).
These words, in some senses, capture the Belgian reality and the Belgian
paradox, though they are of course not unique to Belgium and might indeed
be applied equally to many other countries in Europe. As noted above, lying at
the heart of Europe and centred by the European capital of Brussels, Belgium
Youth policy in Belgium
12
clearly does attract a diversity of peoples and promotes – in a very particular
sense – diversity through complex political and administrative arrangements
that respect the language and culture of its constituent “communities” yet also
cement a range of divisions:
The national culture of Belgium is a synthesis ... where one nds the genius of two
races – the Romance and the Germanic – mingled, yet modied by the imprint of the
distinctively Belgian. It is in that very receptivity – the fact that it has absorbed and
unied the best elements of Latin and Teutonic civilization – that the originality of
the Belgian national culture resides.
These distinctive marks of national culture, denoting the unity of a people, and
serving, both in the Middle Ages and today, to distinguish the Belgian nation from
the other nations of Europe, may be described as a common desire for independence
and freedom, a jealous regard for those popular rights which serve as a guaranty of
the continuance of independence and freedom, and a deeply religious spirit (Van
der Essen 1916, p.4).
Sometimes it is useful to step away from the specic context under discussion
and to illustrate a point by reference to other circumstances. In his majestic book
Being Danish (Jenkins 2011), the sociologist and anthropologist RichardJenkins
discusses the paradoxes of identity. Had he been writing about Belgium, he
would have had to take on and consider a more formalised, as well as less
formal, range of identities: being Belgian, being Flemish or Walloon, being
from Brussels or German-speaking Belgium, being Moroccan, being from Ghent
or Liège or Sankt Vith, being something else. As Jenkins notes in the context
of Denmark, where the focal geographical and cultural point of his study was
Skive in Jutland, there are many levels of “Danish” identity. The same goes for
Belgium.
If you are a young person in contemporary Belgium, some levels of identity
are, inevitably, going to be more important than others. What will certainly be
signicant, whether or not you know it, will be the fact that you are subject to
policy attention and service delivery on matters that concern and aect you,
from a complex range of sources and levels – European, Federal, Regional,
Community and elsewhere. As an individual young person, you probably accept
what you have, positively or grudgingly, and are largely unaware that young
Belgians elsewhere in Belgium may have rather dierent “oers” directed
towards them. But we, as an international team of outsiders looking in, are
interested in both the existing oers available to young people and whether
or not young people throughout Belgium have the same, or equivalent, access
to support and opportunity. It does not take long to discover that structures,
frameworks and institutional relationships are indeed complex but despite (and
certainly not because of) the complexity, they usually appear to work. At least
that is the repeated internal assertion – youth policy, in its dierent forms across
the communities, is considered to be sensible, rational and unproblematic.
Nevertheless, it is the role of an international review to raise questions, plant
thoughts, and advance issues where it considers that youth policy is perhaps
13
Introduction
not as robust and equitable as proclaimed – between and within dierent
administrative contexts and political arrangements. During the international
review, it became apparent that a great deal of policy, for young people and
beyond, is currently subject to reflection, revision and reform. We hope that our
observations, where relevant, contribute to those debates.
The nal point here is about the international review process itself. Most
of the international team arrive “cold”, relatively or completely unfamiliar
with the country concerned. Some will have done a bit of homework on the
Internet and perhaps through other media, and usually, though this was not
the case for Belgium, they will have had the opportunity to read an internally
produced National Report (instead Bel gium provided a mountain of alternative
paperwork throughout the review process). Members of international reviews
cannot help but become permanently attached to countries under review,
and that commitment and attachment, coupled with the review activities
themselves, produces an impressive body of knowledge in a surprisingly shor t
time. Subsequently, there can b e disputes, even “batt les”, bet ween the freshly
informed review team and those from the host country who defend themselves
from attack on the grounds that the international review team does not really
understand. Clearly, matters of factual error should be (and are) corrected as
part of the process, but perceptions and perspectives do require debate, even
if criticisms are ultimately abandoned, ignored or sidelined. The important
point on which to conclude is that international reviews are never intended
to undermine domestic youth policy in the country concerned. Both those
inside the countr y and those in the international team share a common agenda
and joint commitment. So while there is a moment in the process where they
may have to agree to disagree, when it comes to presenting conclusions to
an international audience, the position is one of joint endeavour. The late
Peter Lauritzen, who co-ordinated the reviews in the early 2000s, described
the relationship succinctly as one of “critical complicity”, the foundation of
which lies in the mutual desire to improve the framework of opportunity and
experience for young people both in the country hosting the review and in
wider Europe.
The federal structure of Belgium
“People who really understand the system are quite rare”, the international
review team was told at an early point in its deliberations. Below we strive
to penetrate the complexity of the constitutional structure of Belgium and
cautiously attempt to provide a “simple” picture that may assist the outsider in
making some sense of what everyone agrees is a complex system. Nonetheless,
as another respondent observed, “It may be a complex system but it is still
functioning” – even without a government! Indeed, it does work, according to
the recent Better Life Index from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD), on which Belgium performs exceptionally well (see
box):
Crénage "Optique" pour ce
paragraphe sinon des mots sont trop
serrés.
Youth policy in Belgium
14
Belgium performs very well in many measures of well-being, as shown by the
fact that it ranks among the top ten countries in several topics in the Better
Life Index.
Money, while it cannot buy happiness, is an important means to achieving
higher living standards. In Belgium, the average household earned 26 008
USD in 2008, more than the OECD average.
In terms of employment, nearly 62% of people aged 15 to 64 in Belgium have
a paid job. People in Belgium work 1 550 hours a year, one of the lowest rates
of the OECD. 63% of mothers are employed aer their children begin school,
suggesting that women are able to successfully balance family and career.
Having a good education is an important requisite to nding a job. In Belgium,
70% of adults aged 25 to 64 have earned the equivalent of a high-school
diploma, around the OECD average. Belgium is a top-performing country in
terms of the quality of its educational system. The average student scored 506
out of 600 in reading ability according to the latest PISA student-assessment
programme, higher than the OECD average.
In terms of health, life expectancy at birth in Belgium is 79.8 years, half a
year above the OECD average. The level of atmospheric PM10 – tiny air
pollutant particles small enough to enter and cause damage to the lungs – is
21 micrograms per cubic meter, and is close to levels found in most OECD
countries.
Concerning the public sphere, there is a strong sense of community and high
levels of civic participation in Belgium. 93% of people believe that they know
someone they could rely on in a time of need, just above the OECD average of
91%. Voter turnout, a measure of public trust in government and of citizens’
participation in the political process, was 91% during recent elections; this
gure is one of the highest in the OECD. In regards to crime, 7% of people
reported falling victim to assault over the previous 12 months.
When asked, 76% of people in Belgium said they were satised with their life,
much higher than the OECD average of 59%.
Nonetheless, there are still many complexities in Belgium that need to be
unravelled and understood. Given the potential for multiple identities within
Belgium, and the recurrent messages of division and separation around
language, administrative “communities”, regions and, inevitably, politics, the
international team – aware of recent well-publicised issues concerning Flemish
separatism and student protests around political inertia – raised the matter of
Belgian identity and citizenship. The response received was instructive:
Regarding citizenship, there were the protests largely orchestrated by young people,
where the message was that they wanted to live in this country and felt that politicians
were putting too many barriers between the communities. Political gures are being
taken to task by young people. Young people have a stronger European awareness
than older generations: they are travelling across borders much more easily than
15
Introduction
before. The structures of Belgium can seem a bit feudal to them. Admittedly this is a
particular category of young people: students from universities, not the vocational
schools, or immigrant youth. So it may be just one particular perspective. We don’t
actually have an overview of what all kinds of young people in Belgium are thinking.
We had a far from consistent message on this front. Indeed, there were oen
countervailing views about the extent to which young Belgians were “travelling
across borders”, particularly inside the country. But the observations above
do point to the importance of not homogenising young people, a growing
proportion of whom, coming as they do from immigrant backgrounds, may not
have a natural aliation to either of the two dominant language communities in
the French Community and Flanders. As – if that is the case – they disperse from
their current concentration in Brussels, existing separations may become more
diluted, rather as has happened – albeit for rather dierent historical reasons –
in the context of New Zealand, where the traditional tensions between Maori and
Pakeha2 are of little interest to immigrants from Greece, Vietnam or Indonesia.
It is clearly not the role of the international review team to comment evaluatively
on the political, administrative and constitutional arrangements of Belgium,
and we tread carefully in describing them below, except insofar as they enhance
or limit the social conditions of young people’s lives. Those conditions do vary
across Belgium, according to the dierent priorities and policies established by
the various levels of decision-making authority that prevail.
There have been various “rounds” of reform of the state of Belgium, a country
that has a long history of foreign occupation and which is oen described
as forming the boundary, or the bridge, between northern and southern
Europe, most sharply epitomised by a Dutch and French dichotomy. Indeed,
dierences in language, political orientation, civic arrangements and religion
converge geographically on Belgium, a situation paradoxically compounded
by the contemporary designation of Brussels (de jure just the city of Brussels
municipality but de facto the Brussels Region) as not only the capital of
the federal state of Belgium (and, indeed, the capital of Flanders and of the
French Community) but also the centre of what is currently a European Union of
27countries.
Belgium is a federal state composed of three Communities, three Regions and
four language areas. Clearly dened competences are distributed among the
three levels of governance, though the picture is rendered both more simple
and more complex by some adaptations to this general rule. For example, since
the geographical boundaries for the Flemish Community and the Flemish Region
are co-terminus, responsibilities have been combined and unied. By contrast,
there are specic French language “facilities” within the nine municipalities of
2. These relate to the wording of the Treaty of Waitangi, 1840, which ceded Maori land
to the United Kingdom – the Maori thought they were ceding "governance"; the English
translation proclaimed the securing of "sovereignty"! This has been a bone of contention
ever since.
Youth policy in Belgium
16
the German-speaking Community and related language facilities for a number
of specied municipalities adjacent to the boundaries between Flanders and
the Walloon Region (Wallonia, or Wallonie). There are two French-speaking
municipalities adjacent to the boundaries of the German-speaking Community
which have German-language facilities, and between the French and German-
speaking Communities of Wallonia. Figure 1 depicts the federal structure of
Belgium.
Figure 1: Federal structure of Belgium
The Flemish Community (lighter), comprising ve provinces and 308municipalities
with some six million inhabitants, lies to the north of the country. The French
Community (darker, with ve provinces, 262 municipalities and a population
of around 3.5 million) lies to the south and the German-speaking Community
(some 74000 people living in nine municipalities) to the east. The Brussels
Region (in the centre, a Dutch/French bilingual area comprising just over one
million people, is positioned geographically within Flanders, surrounded
by the Flemish Brabant province. It comprises 19 municipalities and is not a
province. Alongside Wallonia (made up of the French and German-speaking
Communities) and Flanders (co-terminus with the Flemish Community), it
is one of the three Regions of Belgium. Within the Brussels Region, both the
French and Flemish Communities have their own “intermediary” institutions for
administrative purposes. These sit below the Community level but above the
municipal institutions. We were told that Brussels has four administrations:
French and Flemish, French only and Flemish only: there is the Brussels-Capital
Region, with its parliament and government responsible for matters of regional
competence, and then there are the three Community institutions, the French
Community Commission (CocoF), the Flemish Community Commission (VGC),
and the Common Community Commission (Cocom).
One respondent, when discussing Brussels, did acknowledge:
It is really dicult ... the administrative structure in Brussels is really complicated,
even for us! And at the moment it could actually be a bit easier because the
Minister for Youth in the French Community is also a member of the government of
the Brussels Region. But the issues are dierent between Wallonia and Brussels,
especially because of the young population in Brussels [where between one third
and two hs are under the age of 30].
Crénage et espace entre les caractères
modiés sur cette ligne pour qu'elle
paraisse moins serrée (la maquette est
prévue sans césures)
17
Introduction
The federal state has powers over matters such as foreign aairs, nance,
justice, defence and social security. It also has “residuary powers” over matters
that may be new challenges for the country, such as migration, refugees
and asylum seekers. Beyond these overarching internal and outward-facing
responsibilities, policy is the responsibility of Regions and Communities, while
some implementation is carried out at provincial and municipal levels.
One helpful way to think about the responsibilities and competences of
the three Regions and three Communities (despite the fact that, in Flanders,
these are merged) is as follows. The Flemish, Walloon and Brussels Regions
have competences related to land: e.g. housing and the environment. The
Flemish, French and German-speaking Communities have competences relating
to persons: e.g. culture, education, the use of language, youth policy and
protection, and some aspects of welfare and public health. In the Brussels
Region, as a bilingual (Dutch- and French-speaking) area, both the Flemish and
French Communities make provision in these policy domains.
Neither Regions nor Communities are more important than the other. Legislative
power, determined under the Belgian Constitution, is distributed across the
dierent levels of competence. Although there are some exceptions, both
specic “youth policy” and wider policies that relate to young people are largely
the responsibility of the three Communities. It is therefore here that we will
start, with some detailed analysis of the Flemish, French and German-speaking
Communities in turn, accommodating where necessary or relevant comparative
commentary and reference to the Brussels Region (which has its own distinctive
complexities, but within which both the French and Flemish Communities have
specic competences, signicantly in the youth eld).
Readers may note some dierences in style, structure and approach in these
three substantive chapters. This is, in part, because they were draed by
dierent people, but it is also because youth policy derives, as anywhere else,
from distinctive ideological, political, philosophical and cultural traditions,
especially, as one colleague put it rather bluntly but illustratively, the contrast
between Anglo-Nordic pragmatism and French/Latin abstraction! This is a point
from which – especially in the context of Belgium – there is absolutely no escape.
However, the focus and content of the three substantive chapters also diers on
account of the questions to which each Community wanted the international
review team to pay particular attention. The custom of the international review
process is to seek three particular policy priorities, but in the context of the French
Community only one was chosen – albeit an overarching scrutiny of the youth
policy sector and its future, as embodied within the Youth Plan. The questions
proposed by the Flemish Community and the German-speaking Community were
more detailed and related to more specic topics, contexts and levels of youth
policy. This was a third, important, reason for the dierent approaches and
reasoning advanced by the rapporteurs in their distinctive contributions.
Finally, it is important to register what the international review team did not
manage to do, see or hear. In just two visits, especially on account of the
Youth policy in Belgium
18
particularly complex policy structure of Belgium, it is clearly quite impossible
to cover the whole eld of youth policy with its diverse levels, competences
and practices. In the very early planning for the review, various models for
approaching it were discussed. These included quite separate reviews of the
three Communities and a larger number of visits. For various reasons, other
options were rejected as either inconsistent with the principles of country reviews
or as impracticable given their nancial and human resource implications. In
the end, the international review team committed itself to a comprehensive
agenda of visits and discussions with engaged authorities and practitioners
(as well as with a few young people). Nevertheless, inevitably, there were
gaps in these endeavours. Structurally, there was relatively little contact with
the provinces and (with some exceptions) with municipalities. Substantively,
the international review team sometimes gained the impression that group
matters related to immigration and ethnic diversity were easily overlooked or
considered too delicate to be discussed. There were other sub-groups with
possible distinctive problems and challenges that seemed to be unobserved
and almost “passed over” in the youth eld; gender issues are one example.
Certainly, no comprehensive information was provided on these matters. Other
arguably important youth policy issues that were marginally presented to the
international team included health; housing; substance misuse; sport, arts and
media-related issues (including social media); and sustainable development
and environment. It needs to be said, of course, that any broadening of the
basis of inquiry, within the parameters available, inevitably reduces the depth
to which such inquiry can go. Early international reviews of national youth policy
by the Council of Europe did seek to traverse an ever-expanding menu of issues;
more recent reviews have agreed on a focus with the host authorities which
necessarily le some issues by the wayside.
One particular area of omission struck us as especially important to mention.
No comprehensive information was provided on the issues related to youth
cultural engagement outside recognised youth organisations and young
people’s own spaces and activities. This was particularly true in the context of
the French Community. However, the French Community has a strong tradition of
connecting youth and cultural policy approaches and domains, which provides
an excellent platform for conceptual and political innovations in terms of youth
engagement. The French Community could, indeed, be in the forefront in the
European debate when it comes to the quest to rethink the conception of (and
philosophies behind) youth cultural participation.
With these necessary caveats and explanations, the international review team
hopes that its observations will oer a platform for a productive debate around
the paths required to further develop constructive and opportunity-focused
youth policy throughout Belgium.
Youth policy in the Flemish
Community
19
Chapter 2 – Youth policy in the Flemish
Community
Flanders spreads across 13 522 km² in the north of Belgium, and comprises
41.5% of its territory. Its ve provinces Antwerpen, Limburg, Oost-Vlaanderen,
Vlaams-Brabant and West-Vlaanderen are divided into 308 municipalities.
Over six million inhabitants live in Flanders, about 58% of the total Belgian
population. Of those who live in Flanders, 6% do not possess Belgian nationality.
The Flemish capital Brussels is also the capital of Belgium. Antwerp, with more
than 480000 citizens, is the largest city in Flanders, followed by Ghent, Bruges
and Leuven. The ocial language is Dutch.
The Flemish Community denes youth as the age group up to 30 years
old, although dierent denitions are used in specic contexts. There are
approximately 2.1 million young people in Flanders, representing 34% of the
Flemish population in Belgium.
Unlike the French Community and the Walloon Region (which are separate
administrative levels), the Flemish Region was ocially merged with the
Flemish Community in 1980, with one parliament and government, exercising
both Regional and Community competences. Hence, in the Dutch-language area
a single institutional body of parliament and government is wholly empowered
except for federal and specic municipal matters. The Flemish Community
exercises its powers over the territory of Flanders and in the bilingual Brussels-
Capital Region (usually shortened to the Brussels Region).
The Flemish Parliament has 124 members from nine dierent parties and
represents the highest legislative body responsible for passing acts of
parliament. Since 2009, a coalition of three parties (Christen-Democratisch en
Vlaams, Socialistiche Partij – Anders and Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie) under the
Minister-President Kris Peeters governs the Flemish Community. The Flemish
Government consists of 13 ministries covering 13 policy areas, though it has
only nine ministers at present. One of these policy areas is culture, youth, sport
and media, the ministry for which is in charge of youth policy in the Flemish
Community. The current Minister for Education, Youth, Equal Opportunities
Youth policy in Belgium
20
and Brussels3 is also in charge, from the Flemish Community side, for the
co-ordination of policy towards the Brussels Region.
Each policy area is supported by a civil service department and autonomous
agencies. The departments oer support and advice to the ministries on
policy making, while the agencies provide services to citizens, companies
and organisations, implementing policy. The Agency for Socio-Cultural Work
for Youth and Adults is directly responsible for developing and implementing
youth policy. The Agency consists of a Division for Youth and a Division for Adult
Education and Local Cultural Policy. Other important areas of youth policy, such
as education, health and employment fall within the competences of other
ministries: the Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry of Welfare, Public
Health and Family, and the Ministry of Work and Social Economy.
When it comes to bilingual Brussels, the Flemish side is governed by the Flemish
Community Commission, which consists of a legislative body, the Assembly,
and an executive body, the Board. The Assembly consists of 17 Dutch-speaking
members of the Brussels Region, while the Board consists of Dutch-speaking
ministers and secretariats of state for the Brussels Region. The body responsible
for youth is the Directorate General of Culture, Youth and Sports. Almost all the
municipalities of Brussels have a youth alderman.
Youth policy and legislation
The Flemish Government carries out several important tasks regarding youth
work and youth policy, amongst which the most important are preparation,
execution and evaluation of policy, and following legislation, the regulation and
nancing of youth work.
The government develops youth policy documents which present the overall
vision for youth and children’s rights policy. An essential characteristic of
Flemish youth policy is implementation through explicit measures such as acts
or decrees. The government tends to regulate every specic eld of youth policy,
as dened by its Youth Policy Plan, with decrees, which creates a complex and
closed structure of regulations, leaving unrecognised forms of youth work without
support. Decrees dene the instruments of youth and children’s rights policy
and the funding of local and provincial authorities and youth organisations.
The Act on Flemish Youth and Children’s Rights Policy denes instances of youth
work and recognises institutions and organisations involved with young people
and also children’s rights policy, dening at the same time the allocation of
nances within the system. This decree, adopted in 2008, perceives the policy
for youth and children’s rights as:
3. The overlapping responsibilities sometimes vested in a single minister can assist
“permeability” among the competences attached to dierent levels and locations of
governance, and between Communities and Regions; the French Community Minister
responsible for youth is also responsible, from the French-speaking side, for Brussels.
21
Youth policy in the Flemish Community
the integral and integrated vision of children and young people and the systematic
planned measures of a government based thereon, aiming to produce an explicit
eect on youth, with special attention to the International Convention on the Rights
of the Child.
The act also species instruments for the implementation of youth policy,
wherein the Flemish Youth Policy Plan is the most important instrument.
The act denes the process of adopting the Flemish Youth Policy Plan, which
operates on a four-year cycle. The Flemish Government has to present the plan to
the Flemish Parliament no later than 18 months aer the start of each term. The
current Youth Policy Plan is valid for the period 2011-14 and includes 24strategic
goals and 76 operational goals with proposed accompanying actions. During
its adoption, various stakeholders were consulted and involved, such as the
Flemish Youth Council, experts on youth aairs, the associations mentioned in
the act, as well as local and provincial authorities and the Flemish Community
Commission in Brussels. Eight working groups were formed to work on the
dierent themes, steered by the planning team (with both governmental and
non-governmental representatives) which was responsible for the quality of the
plan.
The themes encompassed are:
– participation & information
– education (both formal, informal and non-formal)
– health & sport
– social inclusion
– employment
– creativity & entrepreneurship
– youth & the world
– volunteering.
The dra document was disseminated for public consultation, and to advisory
councils, before its adoption. The EU Youth Strategy 2010-184 provided the
framework and guided the specication of the strategic goals.
The post-consultation Youth Policy Plan represents a comprehensive document,
encompassing a general vision on youth and children’s rights, dened as
follows:
The Flemish authorities start from the assumption that every child has talents and
develops inclusive and holistic policies aimed at:
4. The European Union Youth Strategy has eight “elds of action” within a strategic vision of
promoting opportunity, access and solidarity with young people. It was approved through
the European Council Resolution on a renewed framework for European co-operation in
the youth eld (2010-2018).
Youth policy in Belgium
22
– giving a voice to children and young people
– creating a physical, material, social and cultural context in which equal talents
get equal opportunities
– sustainability and solidarity
The Youth Policy Plan also articulates four desired social eects and outcomes
on children and young people within the policy period:
– all children and young people with the same talents get equal
opportunities;
– opportunities for the development of children and young people increase;
– children and young people get (more) space to be non-adult;
– children and young people participate fully in society.
The document interprets youth policy as transversal policy5 which includes not
only the area of “culture, youth, sport and media” (where youth policy is included
within the 13 policy areas of the Flemish Government), but also other policy
areas such as social inclusion, employment, health and housing. It is envisaged
that each ministry takes on its own responsibilities and denes tasks linked
to the implementation of specic goals within the Youth Policy Plan, while the
Minister for Youth is in charge of overseeing the process and reporting on the
plan’s implementation to the government. Youth policy is based on the group
policy approach, which permeates almost every other policy sector, focusing on
youth as a specic group.
Besides the Flemish Youth Policy Plan, the Act on Flemish Youth and Children’s
Rights Policy envisages three more instruments of youth policy:
– impact study of new legislation on children and youth (JoKER): this
species that any dra act aecting people under the age of 25 and
submitted to the Flemish Parliament has to be accompanied by a report
regarding its impact on children and youth;
– contact points for youth and children’s rights and a co-ordinating
administration: all bodies of the Flemish Government have to appoint one
sta member as a contact point for youth policy. These individuals should
be involved in the monitoring of and reporting on the implementation of
the Youth Policy Plan and are responsible for estimating the impact of the
policy of their institution on young people;
– Youth Progress Report: a scientic report, to be produced every ve
years, describing the state of youth in the Flemish Community.
The Act on Flemish Youth and Children’s Rights Policy also denes the conditions
for the recognition and consequent subsidisation of youth organisations at
5. Transversality is especially important for young people on the margins, who could
benet the most from such an approach. It was recognised at EU level in November 2007
as the desirable approach by the Council of Youth Ministers, who adopted conclusions on
a transversal approach to youth policy, with a view to enabling young people to full their
potential and participate actively in society.
23
Youth policy in the Flemish Community
the Flemish Community level. Funding conditions at the local (municipal) and
provincial level, as well as Brussels, are dened through the Act on Municipal,
Inter-municipal and Provincial Youth and Youth Work Policy, adopted in 2003
and last revised in 2006. The main objective of the latter act is to stimulate local
youth policy by prescribing the obligation of the local and provincial authorities
to develop local/provincial youth policy plans. The act denes youth as those
between 3 to 25 years old, unlike the Act on Flemish Youth and Children’s Rights
Policy. Local youth policy plans are developed for a period of three years (ve for
Brussels) and provincial plans for six years. During the youth policy plan denition
process, local/provincial authorities are expected to include local youth work
initiatives, youth policy experts, youth councils and children and young people.
The denition oered in the Act on Municipal, Inter-municipal and Provincial
Youth and Youth Work Policy dierentiates between “youth work policy”, which
is dened as the set of policy measures taken by local/provincial authorities
with regard to local/inter-municipal/provincial youth work, and “youth policy”,
which is seen as the set of policy measures taken by local/provincial authorities
with regard to all the living circumstances of children and young people. It is
evident that youth work policy is perceived as a part of broader youth policy.
The Flemish Government sets the priorities of youth (work) policy for a certain
period, usually two years. For the period 2008-10, the priority was “youth work
infrastructure and youth information”, while for 2011-13 it is “security youth
work infrastructure and youth culture”. Those priorities are to be taken into
account by the local/provincial authorities when developing their youth policy
plans. Local and provincial authorities receive funding based on the number of
children and young people living in their areas. The government also allocates
additional resources for the implementation of actions responding to priorities
and for municipalities scoring high on specic socio-geographic indicators.
The Act on Youth Accommodation Centres is the second decree in the scope
of Flemish youth policy which denes subsidy conditions for the so-called
supporting structures of youth work, such as hostels and youth accommodation
centres. Also, there is an Act on the Camping Equipment Lending Service
which regulates lending of equipment to youth organisations. Finally, the Act
on Participation is a cross-sectoral decree focusing on participation in culture,
sport and youth activities by specic target groups. Initiatives related to the
youth policy are youth laboratories, the goal of which is to stimulate and
guide disadvantaged groups (mostly immigrants) towards inclusion in youth
organisations.
These ve acts, including the Act on Flemish Youth and Children's Rights Policy,
represent the basis for the distribution of the youth budget, which amounted to
€61.5 million in 2011. The major proportion of the funds (63%) was distributed
in accordance with the Act on Flemish Youth and Children’s Rights Policy,
while 35% was intended for the implementation of the Act on Municipal, Inter-
municipal and Provincial Youth and Youth Work Policy.
Youth policy in Belgium
24
Youth work in Flanders – development
Participation in youth work is more than simply taking part or having a say.
Engagement in any form of youth work involves a process of conscious, critical
self-reflection that can only be voluntary. Also, youth work engages with young
people as they begin to explore boundaries and examine their self-perceptions
and the perceptions of others. Youth work is a specic activity that focuses
on young people because they are in the process of creating themselves and
developing the knowledge, skills and dispositions needed for lifelong reflection,
learning and growth. This is especially the case in Flanders where traditional
youth work, meant primarily as youth movement activities,6 represents a “third
pillar of socialisation”.
Flanders possesses a strong history and culture of youth work and youth
movements. Youth movements were even declared as the most perfect form of
youth organisation by the National Youth Council, the body established in the
mid-1950s, which involved experts on youth and representatives of major youth
organisations. From its inception, Flemish youth policy was built on the concept
of youth organisations as the pillars of youth work. As Van Gaens (2010) reported
to the workshop on the history of youth work in Europe, participation policies
went only as far as “participation to the activities of youth organisations”, but
not of the young people themselves in the Flemish Community.
However, with an increased rate of immigration, Flanders became home to a large
number of young people from dierent backgrounds, and with dierent values
and habits. This situation, together with an increase in grassroots youth groups
and new social movements, demanded new forms of youth work and youth
organisation, apart from traditional youth movements. Youth clubs and houses
were formed during the 1950s, while in the 1970s a new category of youth work
(i.e. advisory, information, training centres) materialised and received support
from the government, oen targeting particular groups perceived as deprived.
These changes have slowly led to the professionalisation of youth work, which is
presently perceived as another important characteristic of Flemish youth work.
However, youth work was not dened before the 1990s; it was little more than
a collective name for dierent ways of working with young people and youth
activity, concerning primarily member organisations (e.g. youth movements,
youth branches of adult organisations and students or special youth movements
which brought young people together for specic purposes such as music or the
arts), youth services and umbrella youth organisations.
The 1990s saw the emergence of a focus on youth work by the local authorities,
which received much more responsibility for subsidising local youth
6. For example, the Scouts and the Chirojeugd Vlaanderen, or Chiro.
25
Youth policy in the Flemish Community
organisations, transferred from the Flemish Community. For the rst time, in
1993, according to Van Gaens (2010), a denition of youth work was included in
Flemish legislation, depicting youth work as:
Group oriented socio-cultural initiatives based on non-commercial objectives for
or by young people, who participate voluntarily in this initiative, in their leisure
time and under educational supervision; this work is being set up by private youth
associations or by municipal public authorities.
Youth policy in this decade favoured group-oriented youth work and gave new
momentum to traditional forms of youth organisation, aer it had experienced
a decline during the 1980s. However, youth work organisations had to split up
their non-youth work activities (around education, welfare, and health) in order
to get funding, which created great dissatisfaction among youth workers.
In spite of eorts to shi the scope and focus of youth (work) policy from
youth organisations to broader youth activities, the international review team
could clearly perceive a rm understanding of youth work as that comprised by
traditional youth movements (such as the Scouts and the Chirojeugd Vlaanderen,
or Chiro). Coussée (no date) also points this out when he speaks about media
coverage of youth work, noting that “it is striking how these messages again
and again establish the image that “youth work” is synonymous to “youth
movement” (especially in Flanders) or structured leisure programmes”. He
distinguishes so-called “general youth work” encompassing more traditional
forms and “specic youth work”, which is more social work targeting young
people. The general intention behind this distinction is to use specic youth
work as the channel towards traditional youth work, meaning “real youth work”.
Some of these distinctions are listed in Table 1 below.
Table 1: Characteristics of general and specic youth work
General Specic
Participants Middle class Vulnerable groups
Youth worker Young people, volunteer Young adults, professional
Frequency Once a week, weekend Each day, not always weekend
Radius of action Leisure time, recreation
Adjusting and compensating for
decient experiences in family or
school
Activities Structured programme Unstructured, open
Educational
philosophy Holistic Specic
Position
in community Splendid isolation Uncomfortable inclusion
Source: Coussée (no date).
Youth policy in Belgium
26
These distinctions also point to the division among young people between
middle class youth (Flemish origin, white, Christian) and working class youth
(lower class and predominantly migrant youth). According to a report,7 the
“hereditary” character of youth organisation membership is increasing, since
80% of youth leaders have at least one parent who was a member of a youth
movement. These youth movements represent some kind of “third pillar of
socialisation”, contributing to the education of young people in addition to
family and school. This feature of the youth movements may be less evident
than it was in the past, but it remains relatively unchanged in the Flemish
Community, where young people tend to follow parental patterns in engaging
with youth movements. It was also noted that youth movements do not join the
youth organisation networks, except for their umbrella organisations, though
they do engage with the youth councils, which are oen seen by others in the
eld as youth movement councils.
Smaller organisations usually performing specic youth work are able to reach a
more diverse public. This is especially the case with organisations working with
disadvantaged youth. But at the same time, they are confronted with insecurity
regarding sta/leaders and funds.
“Neighbourhood” is another important concept in the scope of youth work, as
perceived by the international review team during its two visits. Neighbourhood
refers to the closest surroundings of young people and it is recognised as the
key eld for their inclusion in Flemish society. Practice shows that this kind of
approach has its advantages, linked to the familiarity of youth workers with
particular surroundings and their easier access not only to young people but also
to their families and friends. This approach enables youth workers to get closer
to young people and secure their condence, which is one of the crucial factors
in working with them. On the other hand, the international review team felt there
were certain weaknesses in the neighbourhood approach, referring particularly
to the (en)closure of the neighbourhood. Youth work in the neighbourhood
that is focused on engaging young people and building connections inside
the neighbourhood does carry the risk of preventing young people from “going
out”, arguably producing certain kinds of parallel communities within Flemish
society. Sociologists have identied the potential value of social capital – the
networks that can sustain people in an era of individualisation – but the concept
has been developed to suggest that while some social capital can be “bridging”
(enlarging connections and broadening prospects and possibilities), other
social capital can be “bonding”, almost trapping people within the comfort
zones of the familiar and thereby limiting aspirations and potential opening up
to new horizons. Youth work in certain contexts can almost collude with such
entrapment within supportive but disadvantaged and enclosed neighbourhoods.
The structure of youth work in the Flemish Community today is illustrated in
Figure2.
7. Youth movements in Flanders: a survey of groups, leaders and members, by the Flemish
authorities. A synthesis of this report was provided to the international review team.
27
Youth policy in the Flemish Community
Figure 2: Organisational structure of youth work/policy in the Flemish
Community
Source: Flemish Community authorities.8
The direct participation of young people in youth policy preparation and
implementation is encouraged through the youth councils at Community,
provincial and local level. The Flemish Youth Council represents young people
and youth work at the level of the Flemish Community. Council members are
elected every three years at a public congress, aer a public call for applications.
It has between 16 and 24 members, and at least one third has to be under
25years of age. Members come from the youth organisations (50%) and young
individuals who are interested in participating in the Youth Council’s work. The
8. In the response to the dra international report, the Flemish authorities noted that “a
lot of other youth (work) varieties” were missing from this chart. The chart was, however,
provided by the Flemish Community. The international review team has no other sources,
since it only visited clubs at the local level.
Flemish Community
Kenniscentrum
kinderrechten
(Knowledge
centre for
children's
rights)
Steupunt
Jeugd
(Youth support
centre)
VVJ
(Association
for Flemish
youth services
and youth
advisors)
VIP Jeugd
(Flemish
information
point youth)
JINT
(Co-ordination
agency for
international
youth work)
Flemish institutions for youth or children's rights policy Flemish Youth
Council
Sector
upper
local
National organised youth work
"Participation and information" organisations
Cultural-educational organisations
JACS (Youth
Advisory Centres
-> welfare)
Youth services Youth clubs Youth movements
JIPS (Youth
information points) Youth councils
Sector
local
Youth policy in Belgium
28
Youth Council’s task is to give policy advice on matters related to youth, on its
own initiative or on request from the Flemish Government or Parliament.
The Flemish Youth Council has provided over 50% of its advice on its own
initiative thus far, but does not follow up on its impact since it does not possess
evidence on how much of its advice has been accepted. This perception raised
some debate at the national hearing, and the point was claried in a subsequent
written note, stating that “the impact of the advices is monitored in a yearly
report. In general, there is a proper impact on the policy of the minister of youth.
On the broader elds of Youth Policy (50% of the advices), the impact is not
always satisfactory”. However, the international review team was not given any
such information during either of its visits.
The funding of the Youth Council is dened through the Act on Flemish Youth
and Children’s Rights Policy, which prescribes that between 1% and 2.5% of the
distributed youth work budget should be allocated to the Flemish Youth Council
(this amounted to €632000 in 2011, or 2.22% of the youth work budget).
Municipal youth councils are dened through the Act on Municipal, Inter-
municipal and Provincial Youth and Youth Work Policy. Local authorities and
provinces must have a youth council if they want their youth policy to be funded
by the Flemish Government. In practice, however, the international review team
did not manage to evaluate the role of the local youth councils or their impact,
which seems to fall very much below these expectations. The team noted that
there are no communication channels (at least not direct or formal) between the
Flemish Youth Council and local/provincial councils, and it did not learn about
any kind of initiative to empower these bodies from the Flemish Youth Council.
Aer the national hearing, we received information that:
these tasks are le to a particular organisation “Karuur”. This organisation is
subsidised by the Flemish Government to support the local youth councils. Karuur
takes part in the General Assembly of the Flemish Youth Council and has a close
communication with the Flemish Youth Council.
When the issue of the rather “patchy” representation of young people at
municipal level was raised by the international review team with the Flemish
Youth Council, the response was brusque: “There is an ocial youth council
in every municipality in Flanders”, though it was then conceded that possibly
“some are not very active”!
Flemish institutions involved with youth and children’s rights policy represent a
specic form of youth work. They cannot be classied as youth organisations in
the traditional meaning of voluntary-based organisations or non-governmental
organisations (NGOs), since their boards sometimes include governmental
representatives among others, even if only as observers (exceptions are VVJ and
KeKi, described below). The question of the independence of their work was one
of the main issues during the rst visit of the international team to Flanders,
when the international team had an opportunity to meet representatives of
all these organisations. They, through their practice, represent services of the
29
Youth policy in the Flemish Community
government directed to youth workers and youth organisations, and they are
recognised as such in the Act on Flemish Youth and Children’s Rights Policy.
The Flemish Youth Support Centre (Steunpunt Jeugd – SPJ) is the knowledge and
expertise centre for youth, youth work and youth policy in Flanders, working to
contribute to the performance of youth work at all levels through the development
of methodologies, training, research and support services for its members. The
general assembly consists of 50 members, drawn from “national organised
youth work” comprising 120 youth organisations. The Board of Administration
comprises elected members from the general assembly, youth policy experts
and observing members from the public administration. SPJ received €993000
from the youth budget in 2011 to support its activities, as dened in the tri-
annual policy note approved by the Minister of Youth.
The Association for Flemish Youth Services and youth advisers (Vereniging
Vlaamse Jeugddiensten – VVJ) is the organisation that draws together Flemish
municipal administrations as members through their youth service or youth
ocials. VVJ supports the preparation and execution of local youth policy, striving
for more, better and broader local youth policy in Flanders. VVJ is nanced by the
cities, municipalities and provinces that pay an annual membership fee, and by
the Flemish Government, which provided it with €352000 in 2011.
The Flemish Youth Information Point (Vlaams Informatiepunt Jeugd – VIP
Jeugd) was set up by the Flemish Government in 2006 as a network of youth
information points aiming to oer complete and coherent information to young
people on any possible issue as well as to improve the competences of youth
information workers. The network includes 60 points, which are oen embedded
in the local youth service or advisory centre. The target group is young people
between 12 and 25, divided into three age groups (children 8-11, teenagers
12-15 and young adults over 15). VIP Jeugd received €598000 from the Flemish
Government in 2011.
Finally, there is JINT (the Coordination Agency for International Youth Work).
JINT is focused on international co-operation and supporting the international
mobility of young people, as the knowledge and expertise centre for international
mobility of young people and international youth policy. JINT is also the national
agency for the Flemish Government for the EU Youth in Action programme and
the Eurodesk national partner. JINT develops a policy plan every three years,
which is the basis for the agreement with the government and ensuing subsidies
(€872000 in 2011).
Besides these organisations, there are two platforms formed by the government
with the goal of providing evidence for policy and co-ordinating eorts in youth
research in Flanders as support to youth policy. These are the Kenniscentrum
Kinderrechten and Jeugdonderzoeksplatform.
The Children’s Rights Knowledge Centre (Kenniscentrum Kinderrechten – KeKi)
is an interdisciplinary centre, supported by an inter-university platform of
researchers aliated with ve research institutions from Flanders. KeKi aims to
Youth policy in Belgium
30
collect and disseminate knowledge on children’s rights, generated by national
and international scientic research. It was established by the Act on Flemish
Youth and Children’s Rights Policy, operating from 2010.
The Youth Research Platform (Jeugdonderzoeksplatform – JOP) is an inter-
disciplinary co-operation between three research groups, initiated by the
Flemish Government in 2003, to stimulate systematic and interdisciplinary
attention for youth research. JOP tends to systematise and analyse existing
Flemish research on youth as well as conduct new research, creating a platform
with information on children and young people that is accessible to all relevant
and interested parties (JOP was not part of the youth work structure presented
in the visual scheme of Figure 2).
The Act on Flemish Youth and Children’s Rights Policy provides criteria for the
operation of and project subsidies for “nationally” organised youth associations,
dened as:
a non-prot-making association which, according to its objectives – as formulated in
its articles of association – and its activities, is active in youth work with participants
from at least four provinces in the Dutch language area or at least three provinces in
the Dutch language area and in the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region.
There were 66 “national” youth associations subsidised in 2011 through this
act. These organisations receive basic structural grants (€55 000 per year)
which take the form of an administrative grant. Additionally, and based on a
predened programme, organisations can also receive variable grants for
particular activities.
Besides “national” associations, the act recognises 11 associations for cultural
education whose eld of work is the enhancement of cultural competences and
stimulation of creativity. These organisations receive only variable grants, the
same as 25 associations for participation and information, whose aim is the
enhancement of youth participation and catering to informational needs. In order
to qualify for the subsidies, organisations have to develop policy memoranda,
which dene their activities for a three-year period, and sign agreements with
the Flemish Government on their implementation.
The act also denes project grants up to €50 000 per year for organisations
which do not fall within the three previous categories subsidised through the
act, aimed at supporting artistic projects, experimental youth work initiatives,
projects stimulating youth participation and information and international
initiatives.
At the local level, there are over 5000 youth organisations and other youth
initiatives. These are nanced primarily by local or provincial authorities. The
most numerous are, expectedly, youth movements, which make up almost
40% of all youth organisations. Political youth organisations, young people’s
movements and youth houses/clubs each comprise slightly less than 10% of all
organisations.
31
Youth policy in the Flemish Community
Evidently, the youth work system has been fully developed. The government tends
to dene and include various forms of youth work in the decrees that are outlined
above. The international review team encountered a highly structured system in
which every unit has predened tasks and responsibilities. This situation led
to an impression that grassroots movements and bottom-up initiatives are rare
and hard to reach, despite attempts to do so. In such a predened structured
system, it was hard to perceive the individual young persons with their desires
and expectations. Young people almost get lost in the articulation of regulation
and structures, though these clearly have youth, and youth work provision at
their heart. Nevertheless, the paths for those young people who want to become
involved and active are provided and prescribed by the system itself, which
makes it dicult to contemplate the place and position of a youth initiative that
is not recognised within the specication of the decrees and the boundaries
of the structures. However, the international team has noticed dierences in
approach among local communities. In Antwerp for example (also the European
Youth Capital for 2011) the municipality played a role in organising and nancing
youth work, recognising the need for smaller groups. But there is a downside,
or at least a point of concern, regarding the development of quality youth (work)
provision so tightly bounded by formal regulation.
Other policy fields affecting young people
Youth education
Education serves as a means to gain knowledge and acquire technical
competence, developing at the same time one’s personality. Education
should help youth develop values, decide what they want from their lives and
careers, and achieve success in their elds of interest. It also plays a crucial
role in socialising youth into mature individuals who are responsible citizens
of society.
As Coussée et al. (2010) states, “youth work, being such a social practice,
facilitates the negotiation between individual aspirations and societal
expectations”. This means that young people’s leisure time can be used to give
them the opportunity to develop creativity and exercise new responsibilities.
During the international review visit, we oen heard that youth work activities
should complement formal education and serve as method of non-formal
education or learning.
Education in Belgium is compulsory up to the age of 18 years, and it is free of
charge. The act on Equal Opportunities in Education, adopted in 2002, denes
the right to enrolment, whereby each pupil has the freedom to choose a school.
It also envisages the establishment of local consultation platforms involving
education stakeholders in order to ensure the right of enrolment and to
co-operate in implementing a local policy on equal opportunities in education.
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Youth policy in Belgium
32
The act stipulates extra support for additional needs provision in schools with
additional teaching periods or additional teaching hours per teacher.
Education plays an extremely important role in the Flemish Community; it is
allocated 40% of the total budget. The nancing system of the recognised
schools is based on the social prole of the enrolled pupils. Schools get more
funds if they have more pupils meeting one or more of four dened indicators
predicting their performance. These indicators include the level of education
of the parents, the home language, family income and the neighbourhood
setting.
There are three educational networks in the Flemish Community:
• GO!educationispubliclyrunneutraleducationorganisedbythepublic
body called “het GO! Onderwijs van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap”, which
is under the governance of the Flemish Community.
• Publiclyfundedandruneducation(OGO)includesmunicipaleducation
organised by local/provincial authorities. This network is led by two
umbrella organisations: the Educational Secretariat of the Association
of Flemish Cities and Municipalities (OVSG) and the Flemish Provincial
Education (POV).
• VGOschoolsarepubliclyfunded,butprivatelyrunthroughindividuals
or private organisations. They are mainly Catholic schools. The Flemish
Secretariat for Catholic Education is the umbrella organisation for
these schools. There are also Protestant, Jewish, Orthodox, and
Islamic schools, as well as schools which adopt particular educational
methods known as “method schools”.
Dutch is the ocial language of education in Flemish Community. However,
additional resources are allocated to the teaching of migrants who do not
speak Dutch as a mother tongue, as part of the equal opportunities policy of
the Ministry of Education and Training (Eurybase 2009/10). Ocially however,
there are no legally recognised minority languages in Flanders. As of 2004, the
teaching of French as a second language has become compulsory from the h
year of primary education in Flanders.
The international team had an opportunity to meet representatives of the
educational system in Antwerp. During this meeting, experiences about
migrants’ inclusion into the schooling system were discussed. In spite of
the personal commitment of responsible persons, the team was le with the
impression that the eorts in this area are limited to certain schools.
The educational system in Flanders is organised into several levels, as illustrated
by Figure 3.
33
Youth policy in the Flemish Community
Figure 3: Education system in the Flemish Community
Source: www.ond.vlaanderen.be/English
The Flemish Government promotes participation in the eld of education, which
is operationalised through central participation structures involving relevant
stakeholders (councils VLOR, VLIR, VLHORA, VOC) and several forms of local
participation structures. In the rst three levels of education, school councils
are obligatory. Their duties are linked to the general right to information and
these school councils exercise an advisory and consultative role. Besides
school councils, the Act on Participation denes educational councils, pupil
councils, parent councils and parents’ associations as possible forms of
participation in decision making on education. For higher education, there are
student councils operating in each university or college. The Act also envisages
negotiating committees, academic councils and works councils as forms of sta
participation in the workplace.
The structure of nursery, primary and secondary education recognises the
dierence between mainstream education and education for pupils who need
special help. However, in spite of compulsory schooling, drop-outs still occur.
Flanders copes much better with the school drop-out issue, which amounted to
8.5% in 2008, compared to 19.9% in Brussels and 15.2% in Wallonia. Flanders
has also dened a new legislative framework which guarantees that all pupils,
compared to 76% so far, are active full-time in order to prevent and diminish
early school leaving.
SPECIAL EDUCATION
TERTIARY EDUCATION
SECONDARY EDUCATION
HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION ACADEMIC EDUCATION
4th stage vocational
3rd stage general art technical vocational
2nd stage general art technical vocational
1st stage AB
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION
PRIMARY EDUCATION
NURSERY EDUCATION
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Youth policy in Belgium
34
Additionally, there are programmes designed to bridge the gap between early
school leaving and the labour market. Regular secondary education oers full-
time and part-time programmes, while the Vocational Education and Training
programme (VET) is designed to provide second-chance opportunities in
centres for adult education, the training centres of the Flemish Employment
and Vocational Training Agency (Vlaamse Dienst voor Beroepsopleiding en
Arbeidsbemiddeling – VDAB) and the Flemish Agency for Entrepreneurial
Training (Syntra Vlaanderen). The international review team met with the network
of six organisations oering so-called “personal development pathways” in the
Integration Centre Foyer, which is part of the network. This alternative learning
system was established by a decree in 2008. The network’s organisations work
primarily with adolescents who are socially vulnerable and not yet able to work
in the market economy. The organisations are funded by the government, based
on the number of hours a young person is engaged. Funding is limited at the
level of Flanders and distributed among cities. However, it was not clear how the
criteria for the allocation of resources are dened and how they can be changed.
The review team had the impression that youth work is not recognised as a tool
which can contribute greatly to the formal educational system. This raises the
question of whether the value and visibility of non-formal and informal learning
for young people is recognised. This should be enhanced by recognising the
achievements of young people and those active in youth work and youth
organisations.
Youth employment
Youth employment is one of the most important pillars of social inclusion of
young people, and consequently, it is an extremely important aspect of youth
policy. Joint recommendations from the Belgian Presidency EU Youth Conference
on Youth Employment include the following:
Youth workers and career advisers should have a more important guidance role in
informing and supporting young people on labour market issues through the use
of non-formal education and with the help of new exciting tools, information and
support structures.
The labour market in Belgium has faced additional challenges due to the world
and European economic crisis, which initially aected employment in Flanders
much more than in Brussels or Wallonia. However, employment rates in the
Flemish labour market returned to previous levels in the rst quarter of 2011.
Compared to Brussels and Wallonia, Flemish provinces have signicantly lower
unemployment rates, ranging from 5% in Flemish Brabant to 7.8% in Antwerpen
and Limburg. There is a public employment service, VDAB in Flanders, as well as
ACTIRIS in the Brussels Region, the task of which is to implement active measures
in the eld of employment at the regional level. Their functioning is complex,
since unemployment benets are controlled by the National Employment Oce,
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35
Youth policy in the Flemish Community
creating in this way disparity between employment and unemployment policy
(see Chapter 5).
Following general indicators, the youth unemployment rate in Flanders increased
signicantly between 2008 and 2009, from 10.5% to 15.7%. At the same time,
however, the youth unemployment rate in Wallonia was 30.5% and in Brussels
31.7%, which shows the comparative advantage of living in Flanders. As might be
anticipated, the unemployment rate among low-skilled youth (39.6%) is higher
than among high-skilled youth (11.6%), according to labour force statistics in
2010.
Brussels has a signicantly higher unemployment rate of 31.7% within the
youth population, while the general unemployment rate is 20%. This situation
can be partially explained by the fact that the job demand in Brussels relates to
high-quality jobs, while many job-seekers there, especially young people, are
under-qualied. The high unemployment rate in Brussels has more structural
characteristics compared to Flanders, due to the high proportion of low-skilled
individuals. Also, there is a signicant requirement for bilingual employees (able
to speak both French and Dutch), whereas 90% of low-skilled young people do
not speak more than one of these languages in Brussels. The Brussels Region
has set up a database bringing together data from all employment-related
institutions, in order to develop and provide a better match between labour
market demand and those in search of work.
Brussels attracts a signicant number of workers coming from the other two
Regions of Belgium, but there is relatively little movement between Flanders
and Wallonia, and from Brussels to Flanders. Another concern is unemployment
among young immigrant communities in Belgium, with a 28.1% unemployment
rate, three times higher than for non-immigrant communities, with an even
worse situation in Brussels.
Belgian legislation envisages special assistance for unemployed youth aer
schooling. They receive so-called “waiting allowances” which provide them
with the means to live until they secure employment. The state also denes
incentives for employers hiring young, lower educated people through the
programmes ACTIVA and Win-Win. ACTIVA’s aim was to cut the cost of recruiting
young workers under 26. Employers that engage a person younger than 26with
a maximum of secondary education are entitled to a monthly allowance
between €1000 or €1100 for a period of 12 months. Job-seekers who nd a job
keep part of their unemployment benets, which employers can deduct from
their net wage. At the beginning of 2010, a new recruitment plan, Win-Win, was
introduced to bolster the existing ACTIVA scheme. Table 2 depicts the schemes
available for unemployed youth.
Youth policy in Belgium
36
Table 2: Schemes for unemployed youth in the Flemish Community
Programme
Activa –
aged under
25
Activa Start
– aged under
26
Win-Win –
aged under
26 (no higher
secondary-
education
diploma or
certicate)
Win-Win – aged
under 26 (not
in possession
of any diploma
or certicate
above higher
secondary-
education level)
Period registered
as a job-seeker 1 year
Within 21
months of
completing
full-time
education
3 months 6 months
Allowance €500 €350 €1 100 €1 000
Period for which
the allowance is
payable
Month of
recruitment
+ 15 months
Month of
recruitment +
5 months
24 months
(in 2010)
12 months
(in 2011)
24 months
(in 2010)
12 months
(in 2011)
Source: EEO Review (2010).
Flemish cities are developing and funding various programmes to combat
youth unemployment and support transition from the education system to
the labour market. The city of Antwerp subsidises Youth Competence Centres,
where young people work with counsellors in order to build awareness about
the competences acquired through free time and “spare” activities, thereby
improving their educational and labour market position. Similar initiatives
also exist in Brussels. However, questions remain as to the scope of these
programmes and how many people they reach relative to the total population of
vulnerable youth. Flemish municipalities also provide the most underprivileged
young people from the age of 18 upwards social welfare benets via the Public
Social Welfare Centre (Openbare Centra voor Maatschappelijk Welzijn – OCMW).
Social inclusion
Social inclusion is dened at the EU level9 as a process ensuring that persons at
risk of poverty and social exclusion be given opportunities and means necessary
for a full participation in economic, social and cultural life and achieving living
standards and welfare considered normal in the society they live in. It ensures
their enhanced participation in decision-making process which in turn aects
their rights and exercise of basic rights.
9. Denitions from the European Commission and Council of the European Union’s 2004
Joint Report on Social Inclusion, http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/soc-prot/ soc-
incl/nal_joint_inclusion_report_2003_en.pdf
37
Youth policy in the Flemish Community
The social inclusion process should empower citizens to take an active approach
to all aspects of social life. This includes access to education for children and
adults alike, access to labour markets even without higher education or despite
having some form of disability or belonging to a minority, and access to health
care and social services.
Obstacles to social inclusion can exist at the institutional level (discrimination,
lack of infrastructure, absence of services, etc.), community level (prejudice,
marginalisation), or individual level (lack of education, withdrawal, rejection,
fear). Therefore, it is important to identify groups at risk from exclusion, as well
as the social, political, cultural and economic processes that may lead to (re)
production of exclusion. Combating discrimination and poverty, usually caused
by the lack of employment, are two important pillars of the process of social
inclusion. According to the Factsheet on Social Inclusion/Equal Opportunities
in Belgium10 80% of students over 20 years of age in Belgium believe that
discrimination based on ethnic origin is widespread in their country, which is
11% above the EU average. A similar situation exists with regards to religious
discrimination, as perceived by the Belgian population. Since Flanders includes
several major cities with large migrant populations, combating social exclusion
is very important.
In 2006, the Flemish Minister of Culture announced a new Flemish Plan of
Action for Interculturalisation, covering the elds of culture, youth work and
sport from 2006 to 2009. The plan calls for positive action to address the under-
representation of people with diverse ethnic-cultural backgrounds in subsidised
activities in the sectors mentioned above. The main aim is to provide for the
participation of people with migrant backgrounds on the boards of cultural,
youth and sports organisations and institutions, representing at least 10%
of posts. These measures are meant to lead to a permanent and growing
interculturalisation in all sectors. In the new Policy Agreement 2009-14, the
Flemish Government advocates an “innovative, lasting and warm society”.
Integration of the ethnic-cultural minorities is perceived as a chance to realise a
more cohesive and respectful society.
At the Community level, the institution responsible for social services for young
people is the Youth Welfare Agency (Jongerenwelzijn) within the Ministry of
Welfare, Public Health and Family. The agency’s mission is dened as follows:
Together with our partners we organise quality prevention and assistance to children
and young people in problematic living conditions in order to maximize their chances
of personal development.
The Youth Welfare Agency co-ordinates prevention policy and provides
assistance to minors through committees for special youth care, social services,
and legal assistance and arbitration committees. Furthermore, the agency
10. Youth Partnership, Council of Europe, http://youth-partnership-eu.coe.int/youth-
partnership/documents/Questionnaires/Inclusion/Belgium.pdf
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Youth policy in Belgium
38
provides support to partners in the private sector to provide guidance to young
people with problems. These services are recognised and subsidised by the
agency which specially encourages innovative youth care projects. As well as
the agency, there are several other institutions under the Ministry of Welfare,
Public Health and Family which young people can approach in case of need (for
example, the Flemish Agency for Persons with Disabilities, and Public Psychiatric
Care Centres).
During the visits of the international review team in Flanders, we were informed
about the existence of regional integration policies, but without specic
measures directed towards young people. The international review team had an
opportunity to meet representatives of the Centre for Equal Opportunities and
Opposition to Racism, which is a public institution created by law, promoting
equal opportunities and ghting any type of exclusion, restriction or preferential
treatment. The centre oversees the upholding of the fundamental rights of
migrants, analyses the nature and content of migration flows, and bolsters
the ght against human tracking. Co-operation with the Flemish Community
is described as successful, since the centre is a member of the Commission
on Diversity and Equal Opportunities in Education, the goal of which is to
resolve conflicts relating to inequality, racism or discrimination, as well as
the Commission on Pupils’ Rights, which aims to resolve conflicts relating to
enrolment at school. Also, together with the Flemish Government, the centre
is working on promoting teacher diversity, taking up the educational aspect
of intercultural diversity as a topic in teacher training courses and advocating
inclusive education.
In the Flemish Community, considerable importance is placed on intercultural
education, which emphasises students’ ability to deal with other cultures in a
respectful way, as well as to recognise and appreciate diversity. As additional
support to social inclusion and education, the Flemish Ministry of Education
and Training provides additional funds to schools catering for a higher number
of disadvantaged youth, for three consecutive years. Through the Act on
Equal Opportunities in Education, schools can receive subsidies which allow
them to work on preventing and combating developmental and learning lags,
and providing for language skills, intercultural education, social-emotional
development and the participation of parents and pupils. In order to qualify
for funds, schools have to cater for a minimum 10% of young people from
disadvantaged groups at the elementary and rst levels of secondary education,
or at least 25% at other levels of secondary education. Schools can also use
these resources to engage a special needs co-ordinator, who is responsible for
policy co-ordination, guidance for pupils and teachers, as well as communication
and co-operation with the bodies included in the system.
As the international review team learned during its visit to Antwerp, where we
had the opportunity to meet representatives of the schooling system, one of
the main indicators of disadvantage is linked to an immigrant background.
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Youth policy in the Flemish Community
Integration Services, the rst step for migrants to Belgium, directs parents and
pupils to specic schools where social programmes for disadvantaged youth
exist. However, the international review team was informed about the lack of
capacity in schools with these programmes for minorities. The gap between the
schools enrolling Flemish-origin young people and those involving migrants
and lower-class pupils is documented and readily observed. Since parents have
the freedom to choose schools for their children, they usually favour those
schools enrolling pupils of similar status, thus creating “Flemish schools” on
the one hand and predominantly “migrant schools” with various ethnic groups
on the other. On account of this, Antwerp has developed a programme called
“Schoolbridge” whose aim is to build bridges between schools and socially
vulnerable young people and their parents.
About 10% of the population living in Flanders possessed foreign nationality
at birth or at least one parent with foreign nationality, while 5.8% have foreign
nationality. The migrant issue is especially characteristic of the bigger cities in
Flanders (Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent). Almost one third of the population
of Brussels comes from abroad. These cities also have increasing numbers of
young people. The two issues – migration and youth – are clearly interlinked; a
signicant proportion of the growing numbers of young people in urban settings
come from minority groups. In 2008, 28% of Brussels’ inhabitants were of non-
Belgian origin, with 15% in Antwerp and 9% in the third largest Flemish city,
Ghent. Migrants from outside of the EU are mostly from Morocco and Turkey,
but there is also increased migration of young people from eastern Europe
and the new EU member states of Bulgaria and Romania. They are oen in the
risk category and can be considered vulnerable. Therefore, Brussels’ as well
as Antwerp’s youth policy plan denes important “hot issues” for the youth
population in the specic context of large cities, focusing on diversity and
accessibility in Brussels and improved, accessible leisure activities in Antwerp.
There are many organisations and networks whose work is directed towards
disadvantaged groups of young people. The international review team visited
some of these organisations in Antwerp and Brussels.
JES stadslabo is a social prot organisation, operating in Brussels, Antwerp
and Ghent, which aims to increase opportunities for young people so they can
benet more from creative leisure time activities, employment and training,
participation in society and policy making. JES is recognised as a national youth
organisation by the Flemish Community. Its main activities include training,
labour-market counselling, outreach work, and cultural projects. It reaches
approximately 70000 young people every year. The organisation co-operates
with other NGOs, including networks of youth centres, municipal departments
for education and culture, and the Flemish employment service. JES is one of the
few organisations we had a chance to meet which has diversied its sources of
income; today it receives funding from 90 separate sources.
Besides JES, the international review team visited several youth clubs and
centres developing various activities and programmes supporting the personal
Youth policy in Belgium
40
development of young people, focusing predominantly on migrants in their
neighbourhoods (e.g. Habbekrats, Zappa, Kras Noord in Antwerp, and Chicago
in Brussels). These centres are active mostly in the poorer areas of the cities:
in districts with higher population densities, larger numbers of poor people,
the highest unemployment rates, and bad housing situations. They work on
the integration of disadvantaged young people, involving them in activities in
the neighbourhood. Such activities are important for young migrants as a rst
step towards integrating into Belgian society, where they can feel welcomed
and appreciated. Usually, they combine work in the facilities situated in the
neighbourhood and an outreach approach using youth street workers who
establish contact with young disadvantaged persons on the spot, following
their development and building closer relations. However, their work has limited
scope when it comes to social inclusion in Belgian society. The international
review team came to the conclusion that there remain very limited connections
between young people of Flemish origin and migrant youth. Flemish youth is, as
already pointed out, oriented to the traditional forms of youth organising (youth
movements), while disadvantaged groups are directed towards professional/
categorical youth work, which – at least in theory – should serve as a bridge to
voluntary youth work.
The attitude of voluntary youth work within youth movements is not negative
towards the inclusion of vulnerable young people (including those from migrant
backgrounds) and those movements claim that they are open to disadvantaged
groups (for example, Chiro in Antwerp). However, they are not actively recruiting
these groups, conrming that the attitude towards diversity is rather passive
(“we are open to it, but not actively seeking it”). This was especially visible
in the visit to Kortrijk in western Flanders. The youth-related stakeholders are
convinced that disadvantaged groups are more dicult to reach because of the
lack of diversity in the area, nancial restrictions, and the faith aliations of
dierent groups of young people.
Challenges perceived
As part of the review process, as we have noted in the introduction, the
host country has the opportunity to identify a number of issues which are of
particular interest for youth policy in that country. The Flemish Community used
this possibility to search for answers to three questions.
– What is the divide in the level of schooling which causes a political and
socio-economic dichotomy?
– The ideological and cultural divide which makes that (still) some target
groups are not reached: does multiculturalism work?
– The role of the government/public authorities: to what extent should it
be steering; what is it the citizen can and/or should expect? What is the
positioning of youth work in society?
41
Youth policy in the Flemish Community
During the two visits to Belgium, the international review team encountered a
variety of activities implemented in the eld of youth policy and a strong culture
of youth work in Flanders. We learned that the Flemish Community is guided by
the principles of good governance and sustainable civil society, the promotion of
participation, active citizenship, and inclusion as the highest values and policy
outcomes. The strong commitment to taking care of young people was observed
and acknowledged. However, the international review team would also wish to
raise some observations regarding youth policy, specically youth work in the
Flemish Community as meriting more robust debate:
– The international team had some diculties with the term “youth
organisation”. In Flanders, this term has two possible meanings:
“youth movement” and “youth service organisation”. There is a clear
distinction between voluntary/traditional youth work organised in
the youth movements whose main aim is the organisation of youth
leisure time and specic/categorical/professional youth work. The
latter is mostly oriented to the servicing of youth work organisations
on the one hand, especially at the Flemish Community level (e.g.
VVJ, VIP Jeugd, Steupunt Jeugd) and to working with disadvantaged
young people (e.g. youth services, clubs, centres) at the local level.
This very well organised and established system leaves very limited
space for new organisations which have to prove themselves rst
in order to get recognition and consequently nancing, although
there are opportunities at the local level through implementation of
the municipal/provincial youth plans, which are focused primarily
on leisure activities. It is expected and, to a degree, self-evident
that middle class youth will voluntarily take part in the activities
of the traditional youth movements, just as their parents did. Their
activities, however, as well as those of lower-class youth and migrant
youth who are reached through small-scale initiatives, very rarely
venture beyond their own neighbourhoods. Moreover, these two
sectors have almost no common points of reference or activities
which would contribute to real social inclusion.
– Financing from the Flemish Government provides a stable and secure
situation for organisations recognised by the authorities. This is a
very important feature of Flemish youth work, which builds on the
durable perception of youth work as an additional or third socialising
agent for young people and (unlike many other countries, it should
be noted) it therefore has a very strong position in society. However,
this very formalised and visible system also has its weaknesses,
since it brings into question the independence and autonomy
of youth work. The international review team did not nd many
organisations that have diverse sources of funding, as they lean
mostly on the government for sustenance. Organisations generally
feel comfortable with the system as it is, even when they are not
always satised with its functioning. This is a very sensitive issue
Youth policy in Belgium
42
within youth policy, which always has to strike a balance between
directing and moderating youth activities.
– There are dierences between Community-level youth policy and
local youth policies, as well as predictable gaps between local youth
policies and their implementation. As Karen Evans (1998) astutely
notes, there can be important dierences in the ways in which policy
is “espoused, enacted and experienced”. While the Flemish Youth
Action Plan formulates a view of youth policy as transversal policy,
envisaging responsibilities and tasks for each ministry and applying
the group policy approach, this was not oen perceived at the local
level. Youth policy plans at the local level usually included objectives
referring to youth work as a means for organising the leisure time of
young people, leaving other important elds related to young people
(e.g. employment, welfare, education) outside of the “youth policy”
domain.
It seems that in spite of the promotion of participation, active
citizenship and inclusion as the highest values, there are expectations
that young people should have skills that are “assertive”, “self-
aware” and “proactive” in asking for what they need, contributing
to the idea of so-called “emancipator youth (work) policy”. However,
the international team has perceived that there is local autonomy in
the interpretation of what “emancipation” means and how this is
translated into local youth action plans. Visits to Kortrijk and Antwerp,
in particular, revealed the dierences in the youth policy approach
at the local level. While Antwerp nurtures proactive co-operation
among dierent policy elds important for young people, this is not
the case in Kortrijk, where we observed a strong division of duties
and competences among the dierent policy sectors. However, even
in Antwerp, the co-operation among sectors is rarely formalised,
but depends on the personal initiative of the sta. We also noted
the dierent approaches towards young people in these two cities.
Kortrijk has developed various services and leisure-time activities for
young people who “want to participate”, while Antwerp encourages
a more active approach, which is probably the consequence of the
traditionally high diversity in this city. Youth work is not recognised
enough by those working in the areas of employment and health.
It is evident that activities such as personal development training
undertaken with young people, in order to create pathways to work
or further education, are not considered to be youth work. “Social”
work (such as drugs outreach) is considered employment/welfare
policy and not “youth work” because it deals with all age groups.
The team noted more separation of policy domains at the local level
than at the Community level, which proclaims co-operation and
co-ordination.
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Youth policy in the Flemish Community
– High ethnic diversity in Belgian society, notably in the large cities, is
a constant challenge for public policy, and especially youth policy.
Belgium has carefully developed policies for migrants, beginning
with their entry to the country, and developing various services for
them. The Flemish Community supports several programmes for the
inclusion and insertion of young people in the education system
and labour market. However, there is a perceived divide in the level
and quality of schooling experienced, which causes inequality of
life chances among young people and segregation in lived realities.
Migrant children oen do not possess sucient language skills
to enable them to follow lessons without additional assistance,
and hence they attend the schools which have developed special
assistance programmes for disadvantaged pupils. Given the freedom
to choose schools, parents of Flemish-background children have
“natural” (and understandable) tendencies to enrol their children
in schools with children of similar backgrounds, which create a
kind of closed cycle of divide. More broadly, minorities are rarely
included in the many decision-making processes that Flanders
seeks to cultivate. The international review team encountered only
one organisation of migrant youth (PAJ – Platform of Ethnic Youth
Operations), only to discover that it is not recognised at the level of
the Flemish Community, only in Antwerp province and the city. Also,
it is indicative that not a single migrant organisation was present
during the national hearing in Brussels.
– In reality, multiculturalism is reduced to communities living
apart together. In this sense, the concept of interculturalism is
perceived as a more apposite depiction of Belgian (or at least
Flemish) society, acknowledging the existence of the host culture
and the influence it has on migrant communities and vice versa.
– Co-operation between Communities in Belgium is very limited. This is
a concern that has a particular resonance in relation to the Brussels
Region, which is subordinated to both the Flemish Community and
French Community administrations. Since Brussels has inordinately
high levels of youth unemployment and a signicant population
of low-skilled youth mostly belonging to migrant communities, a
comprehensive and joint policy is clearly necessary to understand
and combat these issues. As a bilingual city, Brussels requires
adjusted policies which will enable young people to enjoy equal
opportunities when accessing any school, institution or organisation.
At the moment, at least young people attending Flemish schools
have the opportunity to learn both Dutch and French and combine
lessons in their own language with Dutch, which enables them to
enter the labour market as employment seekers with better chances
of nding an appropriate job.
Youth policy in Belgium
44
Recommendations to the Flemish Community
Recommendation 1
The question of recognition of the value and visibility of non-formal and
informal learning for young people should be raised. The international
review team felt that youth work in Flanders is perceived as predominantly
the engagement of youth movements. However, recognising the work and
achievements of young people and those active in youth work and youth
organisations would constitute an acknowledgement of youth work as an
important socialisation tool and part of non-formal education/learning. Youth
work activities should be complementary to formal education and serve as a
method of non-formal education/learning, which can also contribute greatly
to the social inclusion of young people.
Recommendation 2
Recognition of youth work as a non-formal education/learning method requires
establishing measures of the quality of youth (work) provision. Flanders
possesses a developed support system for youth organisations and a strong
eld of youth work oriented towards disadvantaged youth, which guarantees
the expertise necessary for dening quality measures of youth work.
Recommendation 3
Common points of reference should be established among traditional and
specic/professional youth work. The international review team observed
that these two sectors have almost no links which would contribute to their
real social inclusion of young people. Specic youth work should serve as a
bridge to voluntary youth work, but the international review team struggled to
observe this process in practice. The inclusion of vulnerable youth, especially
young migrants, in traditional youth work is a challenge with potential in
Flanders. This issue should be carefully elaborated, since the international
review team felt that leaders of the traditional movements do not know how to
approach the question, in spite of their readiness to do so.
Recommendation 4
Youth policy should, besides setting up a framework for leisure-time activities,
include other important elds relevant to the lives of young people, such as
employment, welfare and education. Youth work organisations have had to
limit their non-youth work activities (around education, welfare, and health)
in order to get funding, which created great dissatisfaction among youth
workers that was expressed vocally during the international review team
visits.
45
Youth policy in the Flemish Community
Although youth policy at the Community level is dened as transversal,
proclaiming co-operation and co-ordination, the international review team
witnessed more separation of policy domains at the local level during
eld visits. Therefore, more attention should be dedicated to promoting a
transversal approach to youth policy at municipal and provincial levels.
Recommendation 5
Young migrants should be more strongly included in decision-making
processes concerning youth policy. Although the international review team
witnessed strong dedication to the improvement of the position of young
migrants in the eld of specic youth work, migrants appear to be rarely
included in the youth policy dialogue. Therefore, concerted eorts should
be made to promote youth work among migrants and empower their
organisations to play a more active part in the youth policy process.
Recommendation 6
Grassroots movements and bottom-up initiatives, as forms which nurture
dierences and creativity among young people, should be given more space.
The international review team felt that such movements were rare and hard
to reach, yet they are important youth initiatives, especially at the local level;
they should be more strongly encouraged and more robustly supported.
Recommendation 7
NGOs, primarily voluntary membership-based organisations, should seek
to maintain a more independent position vis-à-vis the government. The
international review team had some concerns about the independence of
the work of organisations in Flanders. Most organisations receive a high
proportion of their nances through earmarked funds decided upon by the
authorities, which means they could be too dependent. This contributes
signicantly to their stability, but at the same time limits the potential
for independent activities and possible challenges to the directions of
governmental policy. On the other hand, specically focused youth service
organisations should be supported by public money.
Recommendation 8
Youth policy plans should be revised more oen at the municipal and
provincial levels. At the moment, local youth policy plans encompass three
years, while plans cover ve years in Brussels and six years in the provinces.
Since the Flemish Government sets the priorities of youth policy for a shorter
period, it would seem advisable to do the same at the local level.
Youth policy in Belgium
46
Youth policy in Belgium
46
Recommendation 9
The Flemish Youth Council and local/provincial councils should establish
closer links and co-operation. The international review team did not nd
communication channels between the Flemish Youth Council and local/
provincial councils nor any kind of initiative on the part of the former to
empower these bodies during its visits, although we received information on
some initiatives aer the national hearing. Nevertheless, the team believes
that the Flemish Youth Council should claim a more active role and position
itself as a contact point and resource centre for the local/provincial councils.
Recommendation 10
The youth councils should set up a system to follow up on their impact on
decision-making processes. The Flemish Youth Council has initiated more
than half of the advice given to the government, but there seems to be no
information relating to how much of its advice has been accepted. Such
evidence would provide at least some picture of the extent to which the
structured voice of young people is authentically respected.
Recommendation 11
Special attention should be paid to the Brussels Region. The high percentage
of young people, migrants and low-skilled individuals, accompanied by
high levels of unemployment, requires co-ordinated eorts together with
the French Community. The international review team commends the eorts
being made in the setting up of a database bringing together data from all
employment-related institutions in Belgium. However, youth work has the
potential to play a greater role in combating low educational participation
and attainment, and unemployment, in order to support the re-engagement
of many more disadvantaged young people with society.
Youth policy in the French
Community
47
Chapter 3 – Youth policy in the French
Community
The French Community has specic competences within the Walloon Region,
which is the predominantly French-speaking southern region of Belgium, and in
the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. The French Community covers an area of
around 17000 km2, and it has approximately 4000000 inhabitants. The Flemish
Region has merged its institutions with the Flemish Community, whereas the
Walloon Region and the French Community of Belgium remain rather separate.
The Region of Walloon makes up more than half of the territory of Belgium,
but only has a third of its population. Wallonia has 262 municipalities (nine
German-speaking) whereas the Brussels-Capital Region has 19. Legislative
power is exercised by a parliament and a government. Parliament consists of
94members, including the 75 elected representatives of the Walloon Parliament
and 19 French-speaking elected representatives of the Parliament of the Brussels-
Capital Region. The parliament and the government of the Brussels-Capital
Region were created during the State Reform of 1988-89, while the Walloon and
Flemish Region have had theirs since 1980. There are six regional sub-entities
in the French Community: ve provinces (Walloon Brabant, Liège, Luxembourg,
Hainaut, and Namur) and the Brussels-Capital Region. Each of these sub-entities
has competences in the eld of youth, but there is no systematic co-ordinating
structure to guarantee consistency among these entities. The government of
the French Community consists of a maximum of eight members, including the
Minister-President. The government has seven ministers at the moment, one of
them being the Minister of Youth and Youth Welfare. In 2008, 37% of the total
population of the French Community was under 30 years old.
Until the middle of the 20th century, Wallonia was the more prosperous half
of Belgium. Since the Second World War, however, the importance of heavy
industry has greatly declined, and the Flemish Region has surpassed Wallonia
in socio-economic terms. Wallonia has declined economically, and suers
from structural problems which are visible in high unemployment and a high
percentage of low-skilled workers. Wallonia has a lower GDP per capita than
Flanders.
Youth policy in Belgium
48
Aer travelling across Belgium the international review team’s impression
comes close to Marco Martiniello’s (2010) claim that we have entered “a
process of diversication of European diversity”, not only in ethnic or national
terms but also in regional terms. The team witnessed a great variety of cultural
wealth but also regional inequalities regarding opportunity structures for
young people living in dierent parts of Belgium. This is true both in terms of
living conditions, delivery of services and young people’s daily lives. These
dierential possibilities and resources become visible particularly with regard
to young people’s access to education and the labour market, but also in terms
of their societal engagement and inclusion. The education system in the French
Community, according to PISA scores, does not lead to school results as good as
those in Flanders. Unemployment rates in Wallonia are nearly twice as high as
in Flanders. The current situation in the French Community – together with the
world economic downturn, European challenges related to ageing societies and
welfare regimes undergoing fundamental changes – form diverse parameters for
young people living in this part of Belgium.
The need for a comprehensive policy view is evident in Belgium. Our interlocutors
made repeated assertions about vertical and horizontal complexities resulting
in, for example, a problematic gap between educational and employment
systems (see Chapter 5). This observation seems to be particularly relevant in
the Brussels Region where young people are aected by the consequences of
an increasingly competitive educational and labour market as well as urban
segregation. Furthermore, in former industrial settings such as Charleroi there is
now a huge gulf between current labour market structures and the labour force.
A shared concern in the eld is how former industrial sites should face up to
post-industrial conditions, and how this concern applies to the youth sector. As
a consequence of recent structural changes, one third of young people under
25 years receive social benets (integration income) in the Charleroi area. In
the municipality of Couvin youth work professionals expressed anxiety about
growing poverty and a decreasing number of jobs available for local young
people. They were also seriously concerned about young people’s simultaneous
reluctance to move out of Couvin to study and work and their decreasing
motivation to engage themselves in the community.
The insecure position of young people is not related simply to their vulnerable
status in socio-economic terms. It may also imply a certain fragility of social
networks and a loose sense of moral belonging to the community – the lack
of legitimate citizenship in more symbolic terms. The latter dimension of
instability is particularly challenging for the youth eld, especially in the
French Community, where the political and cultural approach has been strongly
anchored within the tradition of citizenship education, as the concept of young
people being educated to be Citizens who are Responsible, Active, Critical and
Solidary (CRACS) reveals.
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Youth policy in the French Community
Youth policy on the move: institutional context
There is an evident need for innovative policy measures to make sense of the
current “social condition”11 of young people’s lives. The French Community, having
traditionally situated youth policy within the framework of socio-cultural policy
spheres (as indeed has the Flemish Community), has taken current challenges
facing young people very seriously. The government of the French Community
has prepared a comprehensive reform plan for youth policy. The government’s
Youth Plan is a welcome initiative to better recognise and deal with current key
issues of youth policy. The Youth Plan has been the primary concern also for the
international review team, as the Cabinet of the Minister for Youth wished to
receive comments and suggestions on the content and the processes related to
the reform.
A two-fold aim behind the preparation of the Youth Plan is, on the one hand, to
strengthen the prole of youth policy as a signicant policy sector, and, on the
other, to integrate youth policy more eectively in other arenas of public policy.
Furthermore, the aim is to combine universal and general approaches (youth
service) with more specialised provision (youth welfare and youth aid/protection).
Currently, general youth policy is administered within the government of the
French Community by its Minister for Youth and Youth Welfare (since 2009, youth
policy and youth aid policy are the competences of the same minister), assisted by
various civil service departments. The Youth Service (another English translation
used is Youth Department) is in charge of the implementation of youth policy
in the French Community. The Youth Service is concerned with multiple issues
relating to young people, whether organised or not. However, it has a privileged
relationship with the associations, notably the recognised associations: youth
organisations, mainly composed of youth movements with young people up to 30
years and diverse youth service structures (altogether 92, subsidised by the French
Community with approximately €13700000 in 2010) as well as youth centres,
youth hostels and youth information structures (altogether 193, subsidised by the
French Community with approximately €12032000 in 2010).
There are diverse decrees that concern youth policy implementation at the local
level, such as a decree for youth associations and a decree for youth centres.
Moreover, particular services have their own decree (such as homework schools).
The Youth Service provides nancial, institutional and training support for those
implementing youth policy objectives at the local level. In addition to this, the
Youth Service conducts regular dialogue and consultation with many ocial
11. This was a term rst used in youth policy thinking by Paul Willis in 1984. His “youth
review” for the municipality of Wolverhampton in the industrial heartland of England
maintained that there needed to be a paradigm shi in approaches to youth policy on
account of the fracturing of youth transitions as a result of the industrial collapse and the
resultant marginalisation of the many young people who hitherto, even without formal
educational qualications, would have found work in manual labour and on the factory
floor. Willis P. et al. (1988), The Youth review, Aldershot, Gower.
Youth policy in Belgium
50
representative bodies of the sector: the Advisory Commission of the Youth
Organisations (Commission Consultative des Organisations de Jeunesse –
CCOJ), the Advisory Commission of the Youth Centres and Youth Facilities (la
Commission Consultative des Maisons et Centres de Jeunes – CCMCJ) and the
French Community’s Youth Council (le Conseil de la Jeunesse de la Communauté
Française – CJCF).
When it comes to more specialised provision, welfare-related youth aid,
youth care and the protection of young people and their families in the French
Community derive from a combination of public services and associative,
publicly funded initiatives, with their own decrees. These services are currently
incorporated under one transversal youth policy umbrella, even if they may be
partly administered by the Ministry of Childhood. The Directorate General for
Youth Welfare (Direction Générale de l’Aide à la Jeunesse) manages the services
relating to youth welfare and protection. Important public institutions in this
respect are, among others, the Birth and Child Oce (l’Oce de la Naissance et
de l’Enfance – ONE) and the General Delegate for Children’s Rights (le Délégué
Général de la Communaute Francaise aux Droits de l’Enfant). The International
Oce for Youth (Bureau International Jeunesse – BIJ) is responsible for the
management and implementation of international youth exchanges in the French
Community, in terms of advice, information, training and nancial support of
the projects. The oce is co-managed by the Directorate-General for Culture
and by the Wallonie-Bruxelles International in order to guarantee meaningful
consistency in administrative terms. It represents the French Community of
Belgium in dierent international collaborative structures and is a national
agency of the French Community for the European youth exchange programmes
(currently Youth in Action). Figure 4 depicts the relationships between the
organisations involved in youth policy and work in the French Community.
Rapid changes that characterise the eld of youth policy – and Belgian society
more generally – imply the need for a revised understanding of youth. There are
many dierent conceptions of young people, partly due to the variety of sectors
and decrees that bear on the youth policy eld, and partly due to the diversity of
professional cultures involved. The French Community seems to be rather liberal
in terms of age denitions and, therefore, a unequivocal understanding of
young people has never existed, at least not in any strict form. The international
review team noted the variations within the French Community: for example,
the youth centres that work primarily with young people between the ages of
12 and 26 years; the homework support contexts where the main focus is on
6to 12-year-old children; and the person under 30 years old who is categorised
as young within the framework of youth organisations. The government’s
Youth Plan is designed to focus on young people between the age of 12 and
25 – thus incorporating young adults within the youth policy framework. One of
the strengths of the French Community is its ability to also conceptualise youth
policy matters in generational terms, thus promoting diverse intergenerational
encounters, not only between adults (professionals) and young people but also
between children and youth, or between young people and the elderly.
51
Youth policy in the French Community
Figure 4: Organisational structure of youth policy/work in the French Community
Source: French Community authorities.
Vertical and horizontal complexities: Community and local practices
The federal structure of Belgian society provides both possibilities and
challenges for the implementation of transversal youth policy at the Community
level. Moreover, the federal model contributes easily to hard bureaucracy.
Overlapping structures, contesting decrees, complex funding arrangements,
multiple stakeholders and diversity of training rules produce a challenging
framework for those working in the eld. Fundamental agendas for the work done
under the auspices of “youth policy” also vary. For instance, respondents at the
local level mentioned a tension between economic necessities at the Federal
level and the maintenance of a certain emancipatory spirit when working with
young people at the Community or municipal/local level. A particular case in
this respect is Brussels, where the administrative borders between the Brussels
Region and the services of the French Community situated in Brussels are
complicated from the perspective of young service users.
A careful assessment of the current youth policy structure is strategically useful
since the French Community aims to enhance the co-ordination and consistency
of services provided under the Youth Plan.
Assoc.
Local
PO
CDV
EDD
local
CEDD
FEDD OJ CJ Youth
projects CEC AMO
Assoc.
mobility
Youth
projects
BIJ
Min.
Childhood
Min. Youth
& Y. Care
Min. Presid.
Min. Relation
Internat.
DGDE
Serv.
Non Gvt.
Advisory bodies of the sectors
ONE
Organism of public interest
Gen Adm.
Accompagn.
Accueil
Sect. ATL
Sect. CDV
Sect. EDD
GA
education
& research
GA
employees
& civil
service
GA
Infra-
structures
GA
Culture
GA
Y. care,
Sport,
Health
Head Dep.
Observatory for Childhood,
Youth and Youth Care
GD
Culture
GS Inspect
SG EP
Youth Ed. perman Creativity
Organism
of public interest
Gest.
projets
Dir.
CJCF
Youth policy in Belgium
52
The ethos of subsidiarity: isolated or free municipalities?
During visits to diverse local contexts in the youth eld, it became evident
that vertical complexities (Federal, Regional, Municipal) imply particular
challenges when putting horizontal policy services into practice (cross-agency
partnerships).
One particularity in the eld of youth policy across all three Communities is
its strong ethos of subsidiarity. In the French Community, this framework is
based on the co-existence of three main stakeholders: the French Community’s
Government, its public authorities (the Youth Service in particular) and a highly
diverse group of associations with their professionals and voluntary workers.
Non-prot associations are the main service providers at the local level. The
law subdivides the associations into ve major categories: youth movements,
thematic movements, service associations, federations of youth organisations
and federations of youth centres. The principle of subsidiarity means that the
public authorities at the Community level delegate operative responsibility for
the most part to the associations. In addition to the youth organisations, there
are youth centres (oen run by associations), homework schools, and training
courses, as well as individual projects.
The autonomous status of associations is indicative of their potential flexibility.
The principle of autonomy is reflected in the innovativeness of associations,
with their committed sta (both employed and voluntary workers). However,
it may also imply a certain fragility connected with the potentially segmented
character of the sector. Four particular challenges of subsidiarity observed by
the international review team during two visits to the French Community are
discussed below.
Freedom or fragmentation?
First, the sort of negotiated autonomy given to associations as the main service
providers implies the richness of the local youth policy arrangements. It may
also lead to unintended consequences in terms of the application of services.
There is no ocial local youth policy structure in the French Community, and
municipalities dier considerably when it comes to their investment in youth
work. Moreover, municipalities may implement youth policy priorities in various
ways.
This autonomy must be, without doubt, considered a strength as it allows
responses to local specicities. However, the international review team found
there was a potential paradox between autonomy and consistency of services.
There is a risk of reinforcing a dierentiated – and as such, unequal – structure
of services available for young people depending on the local context.
To combat this risk, a process of overall harmonisation of youth policies is being
undertaken. To give one example, an Associative Charter is being produced,
aspiring to a more consistent deal between public authorities and the third
sector. The harmonisation is a delicate matter, particularly in the youth sector,
53
Youth policy in the French Community
which has traditionally been based on a strong voluntary ethos. In the French
Community these reforms have also met with predictable concern amongst
people working in the eld at the local level: how to promote professionalism
without falling into an unhelpful professionalisation of the youth eld?12
All in all, the objective of improving coherence is certainly a relevant step in the
development of transversality at the local level. This is particularly signicant
given the sector as a whole faces challenges of institutional complexity
which are rooted in the particular administrative structures of Belgium. Many
respondents were seriously concerned about the lack of awareness among local
people about the kinds of services that are available; young people (and their
parents) oen do not know where to turn when they need advice or services.
Networking or isolation?
The second challenge of subsidiarity, the autonomy of the municipalities,
which is anchored in the principle of subsidiarity, is a critical matter if it is
connected to a scattered service structure. The French Community has actively
taken this challenge into account. The cabinet advisers of the Minister of
Youth and Youth Welfare informed the international review team about the
system of local co-ordination, implemented in many municipalities (219) in
the French Community by the Minister in charge of Childhood, with a part-time
co-ordinator who, with the assistance of the municipality, creates a committee
with dierent representatives – from schools, free time organisers, associations
and other relevant stakeholders. The Community funds the part-time work of the
co-ordinator. However, the international review team also heard critical views
from those directly involved in the work at the local level with respondents
stating that “municipalities are living in a political vacuum”. By this they
indicated a mismatch between the huge tasks expected of the youth sector and
its scarce resources and weak networking. The international review team saw
several local examples where a non-prot organisation runs a complex set of
services, thus (partly) compensating for the local decit of traditional welfare
sectors (such as social, educational and employment services). There is a clear
need for better dialogue both within and across municipalities. This can be seen
as a particular challenge for diverse advisory committees working in the youth
sector (such as CCOJ and CCMCJ).
12. This is, of course, not just a tension within the French Community of Belgium.
Throughout the European context, but particularly within the EU, as more attention is
paid to youth policy and youth work (with an accompanying debate about recognition and
quality standards), a core site of contention is the debate about the relationship between
professionalism and professionalisation. Given that most youth work, broadly conceived,
is clearly delivered by people working voluntarily, professionalisation is not the issue, but
professionalism is. On the other hand, for the small proportion of youth workers in full-time
paid employment, both professionalism and professionalisation are important platforms
for debate, for the latter enhances pay and conditions, and “professional status”. See the
Resolution on Youth Work produced following the rst European Youth Work Convention,
held in Ghent during Belgium’s Presidency of the EU, in July 2010.
Youth policy in Belgium
54
The French Community emphasises the promotion of networking and
partnerships, for example, in the Operational Plan 2009-13 for the youth aid
sector. The quest for partnerships, however, seems to be mostly limited to an
essentially local approach rather than a broader inter-municipal approach.
As stated in the Operational Plan, networks may acquire an intrinsic value.
Therefore a particular emphasis should be put on the qualitative methodology
of collaboration: which kinds of network structures are needed in practice
(formal versus informal; systematic versus ad hoc)? According to the plan, there
is a particular need for a more comprehensive understanding of professionalism
in the youth aid eld. There is also continuous discussion about the risks
related to the instrumentalisation of the eld, especially that it may become too
harnessed to wider societal agendas rather than focusing on the needs of the
young individual.
Project governance: big tasks, small-scale initiatives
This leads us to the third challenge of subsidiarity, namely the project-based
structure of youth services in the French Community. The international team
witnessed highly creative ways of addressing young people’s living conditions at
the local level. Small-scale projects are, indeed, responsible for complex matters
related to school drop-outs, youth unemployment and other contemporary
welfare-related challenges in young people’s lives. “Someday the tasks must
be re-dened in order to be realistic”, was an observation made by a local
practitioner. The prevailing project-based governance is, of course, by no means
a feature of just the youth sector. It is part of a Europe-wide tendency towards
deregulation, privatisation and competition, and it is increasingly embedded
in the development of project-based welfare structures through commissioning
and contracting.
Moreover, a common concern in the local eld in the French Community,
articulated particularly by those working in the Youth Service, is how to dene,
promote and assess the quality of the projects. There is a system of short-term
assessment (yearly meetings with beneciaries) and long-term assessment
(beneciaries are contacted one to two years aer the project to assess long-
term consequences). In addition to this internal assessment, research-based
external assessment and support is clearly needed. This sort of dialogue
between researchers and practitioners would oer relevant data for discussion
about the better co-ordination between, for example, unemployment policy at
the Federal level and local initiatives, which are at risk of existing in two distinct
worlds (though see Chapter 5).
What constitutes a “youth issue” at the local level? The intersection between
youth, social and educational frameworks
Fourth, the ethos of subsidiarity in the French Community implies autonomy in
the sense that there is no clear inter-municipal coherence as to what constitutes
a youth issue at the local level. Particular attention needs to be paid to marginal
55
Youth policy in the French Community
zones in the youth eld. This may imply associations which are not recognised
youth associations (such as migrant associations) or marginal actors and
issues in the youth eld. One issue that was considered too marginal by our
respondents concerned the participation of young people with disabilities, at
least in the local contexts.
Having provided a somewhat abstract assessment of some challenges of youth
policy within the French Community, we oer a short analysis of how these
challenges concretely characterise youth services at the local level. Through
this analysis we aim to highlight the diversity of successful multi-professional
initiatives at the local level. Moreover, we want to acknowledge the impressive
commitment of those engaged in the cross-sectoral youth eld.
SAS Compas-Format (le service d’accrochage scolaire) represents an eective
combination of the youth work service, youth aid service, the educational
service and social services. It is a local service the aim of which is to take care of
the re-integration of young people into the educational system. It characterises
one of the strengths of the youth sector in the French Community, namely an
innovative mixture of socio-culturally oriented community youth work (work with
groups) and the ght against young people’s exclusion (work with individuals).
This framework was not only presented as a free choice of local authorities, it
was also seen as an economic necessity: “We don’t have resources to maintain
the quality of services alone”.
Homework schools (écoles des devoirs, in Liège) are a signicant service structure
which combines youth work approaches with education in line with the ethos of
l’education permanente. This service is situated metaphorically “in the middle
of community”: at the intersection of school, child policy and child care, youth
work and the family. The challenge of this sector is that it worked for a long time
before being supported by a legal framework. Nevertheless, the sector engages
a large number of stakeholders; currently there are 360homework schools in the
French Community. The service has traditionally been the responsibility of two
ministers – for Childhood and for Youth – though it has been subsidised by the
Birth and Child Oce (ONE). Despite this arrangement, some of those working
in the homework schools were concerned about their poor knowledge about
youth issues. As one person put it, “We do not know anything about teenagers”.
Public social assistance centres (les centres public d’action sociale – CPAS –
in Charleroi) are a particular structure of social services with well-established
contacts with other relevant welfare services such as the labour market sector,
both public and private. Among others, there are social workers, psychologists,
debt counsellors and medical personnel working in these centres. Here, again, the
international review team found an innovative application of the socio-cultural
approach to ght against the vulnerable position of people living in Charleroi.
Diverse forms of community engagement are among the primary objectives of
the work taking place in the Charleroi centre. As one of the social workers there
stated: “Young people do not know much about local structures and structures
Youth policy in Belgium
56
do not know much about young people”. Institutional complexities may hamper
the creation of clear lines around principles of condentiality with young people.
Open youth aid (les services d’aide en milieu ouvert – AMO – in Couvin) is also
a signicant structure combining the principles of prevention and correction.
The rst priority is to help young people thrive in their living environment and in
their relationships with the social environment (among other things, at school,
at home, and in their neighbourhood) by giving them individual assistance,
supporting their projects, helping them to cope with their family and school,
and helping them address administrative and legal diculties. Regardless
of its importance, and the number of AMOs in Wallonia and Brussels (about
6013 in 2010, according to the European Knowledge Centre for Youth Policy’s
Country Sheet on Youth Policy in Belgium), the open youth service seems
to maintain a certain ethos of voluntarism. This implies a particular desire to
secure longer-term professional commitment from the authorities and greater
acknowledgement of the service.
One additional example of the successful multi-professional community
approach in the context of corrective work with troubled and troublesome young
people was found in Saint Servais at the residential institution for youth aid and
correction.
CEDAS (Le Centre de Développement et d’Animation Schaerbeekois, in
Molenbeek, Brussels) is a youth centre in north Brussels, in a poor
neighbourhood with a bad reputation due to a high youth unemployment rate
(about 40% in 2009) and a high proportion of children and youth, among other
factors (Rea et al. 2009; La Situation des Jeunes en Belgique Francophone 2010).
CEDAS is strongly embedded in the values articulated by CRACS. This approach
gives impetus to diverse approaches such as a particular commitment to
receiving inhabitants, a strong emphasis on the identity work of the participants
in the centre, action-based education for diversity (i.e. cohabitation of physical
and moral education), and an enhanced understanding of the community.
The youth centre applies an intergenerational approach to its community work.
The emphasis is on the social rather than biological or legal age, and the house
is open to people from 6 to 81 years of age. There are dierent programmes and
spaces available for separate groups (under 14, 14 to 18, and over 18 years of
age). A life course perspective to the community work is advanced, and local
people seem to continue to visit the house from early childhood onwards.
There is a particular system of tutorship whereby young adults are encouraged
to become tutors for younger people. This kind of intergenerational approach
demands a particular engagement on the part of the people working in the
centre. Indeed, the international review team was impressed by the strong
and long-term commitment among the people working in CEDAS – the same
kind of attitude was evident in many other institutional contexts in the French
Community.
13. In 2012, there were 81 AMOs, according to the French Community’s own review.
2e ligne du paragraphe en "optique"
sinon les caractères paraissent trop
serrés (par contre, on a des boulevards
vu qu'il n'y a pas de césures)
57
Youth policy in the French Community
These kinds of mixed-method approaches to promote transversal frameworks
are courageous. They may also produce certain ambiguities around the
professional identity of the people working in the eld. Due to its current youth
policy reform, a classic dilemma regarding how to conceptualise young people in
the youth eld – as individual clients of the services, as youth cultural groups or
as community actors – seemed to be particularly pertinent in the context of the
French Community. The local professionals talked about the tension between
the political world, depicted as being overwhelmed by the individualised
economic imperative, and the values of social integration and local democracy.
Moreover, the current fragmentation of young people’s life courses demands
particular resources when working with young adults who are easily situated
on the margins of a variety of services. There is contention around the idea of
casting young people out at the age of 18, when support services previously
available for them as “children” are no longer provided.
Other policy fields affecting young people
Education
A successful education and a smooth transition from education to employment
are among the most important issues in the current policy elds concerning
youth. This is true also in the context of the French Community, where the youth
sector has traditionally focused on the intersection between youth and cultural
policy issues.
According to the federal structure, decisions about provision of education
are made by the three Communities. In the French Community, education is
compulsory from the age of 6 to 18. The educational structure is divided into
four categories: kindergarten (2 to 5 years), primary education (6 to 12 years),
secondary education (13 to 18 years), and higher education. Public schools are
free of charge. There is also private education, but this is subsidised by the
Communities, which set its conditions and standards.
Researchers have distinguished three main challenges that young people and
young adults face in the French Community: lack of appropriate education,
unemployment and diverse forms of discrimination on an everyday level
(Martiniello 2010; Rea et al. 2009). One relevant context in this respect is the
crossroads between the elds of education and youth policy. Rea et al. (2009)
state that the education of young people is a selective process whereby social
inequalities may translate into educational inequalities, which in turn reproduce
the former.14 In terms of education, there is a convergence of poor performance
14. See also the report on poverty by the General Delegate of Children’s Rights: Délégué
Général de la Communaute Francaise aux Droits de l’Enfant (2009), Dans le Vif du Sujet.
Rapport Relatif aux Incidences et aux Conséquences de la Pauvreté sur les Enfants, les
Jeunes et leur Familles, Communauté Française de Belgique, Brussels.
Youth policy in Belgium
58
in education, a polarisation of schools into good and poor schools, and weak
ocial recognition of diplomas acquired outside Belgium.
Evidence from a recent report (2011) on educational divergence between
the Flemish Community and the French Community suggests that there is
a signicant educational attainment gap between the Flemish and French
Communities. The dominant view is that poor economic conditions in several
French-speaking areas contribute to a great extent to vulnerable educational
performance. However, challenges do not lie only at the economic level but also
in young people’s local neighbourhoods, linked to the family, teaching sta and
peer environments. One conclusion of this report is that adopting educational
reforms without broader social reforms would simply punish educators for
factors beyond their control.
The OECD’s PISA surveys reveal that there are far more pupils with migrant status
in the French-speaking schools than in the Flemish schools. Consequently,
particular attention should be paid to the integration-related issues in the youth
and educational eld, with a commitment to go beyond institutional cleavages.
Successful examples of the cross-sectoral collaboration between youth and
educational and social services at the local level have been highlighted in
the previous chapter. Moreover, the legal framework manifests the French
Community’s aim to promote not only young people’s skills but also a social
dimension of learning at school. To give one example, the decree related to
positive discrimination at school is an important measure to enhance equality
in the eld of education. The decree provides the criteria for the allocation of
resources to educational institutions (e.g. the proportion of unemployed persons
with respect to the global population; the proportion of foreign nationals).
The conditions of cross-sectoral communication were widely discussed during
the visits of the international review team. Some respondents referred to the
Youth Plan, which they regarded as a strategic document, also in terms of
strengthening collaboration between the education and the youth sectors.
According to them, the relations between the formal and non-formal education
sector are not always constructive. “Schools need to be more open to
citizenship”, stated one of the respondents. The same concern was expressed
by the representatives of CRECCIDE (Carrefour Régional et Communautaire
de la Citoyenneté et de la Démocratie), a non-prot federation which aims to
promote equality and democracy in the context of education in Wallonia. The
engagement with citizenship education of the French Community is reflected in
the strong tradition of a type of lifelong learning, callededucation permanente.
Youth employment
Alongside with education, youth employment has become a key youth political
issue in the French Community, regardless of the fact that employment matters
fall under the regional competences for the most part. Evidently, this emphasis
reflects an economic crisis throughout Europe, including Belgium. It is also
59
Youth policy in the French Community
connected to an increasingly comprehensive framework of youth policy, covering
transversal areas of young people’s lives.
The international review team became well aware of the ruptures between
education and employment services. Even if there are increasing eorts to
bridge the gaps, debate continues at all levels of society. As highlighted in
this report (see Chapter 5), the youth sector may compensate for the decit of
employment services, both in the Brussels Region and in rural areas. In some
parts of the French Community, local partnerships with employment and training
services as well as with enterprises seem well structured and functioning. In
other parts there seem to be overlaps or gaps as to the division of labour among
dierent partners. The particular issue in this respect, raised during the visits
of the international review team, is the complexity of the unemployment and
social benet systems in Belgium. This complexity is attributed to the fact that
responsibilities are shared by dierent actors. At the regional levels of Wallonia
and Brussels, there are public employment services such as Forem for Wallonia
(le Service Public Wallon de l’Emploi et de la Formation) and ACTIRIS, which may
be considered an important nexus of dierent networks and partnerships.
Moreover, the international team witnessed a certain tension between
increasingly fragmented labour market structures and local projects in terms of
balancing demand and supply. The risk of preparing young people for jobs that
do not exist is, by no means, a particular problem of the French Community. At
its heart is the essential question as to whether the structural problems related
to the labour market position of young people can ever be solved solely by
promoting the skills of the individuals concerned. The team was made aware
of several examples of young people holding multiple certicates who were still
unemployed.
The unemployment rate of young people in Wallonia is more than twice that in
Flanders. It increased between 2008 and 2009 from 27.5% to 30.5%. The youth
unemployment rate is highest in the Brussels Region but the change is slightly
smaller than in Flanders and Wallonia. The same imbalance characterises
the early school leavers’ rate by region: 8.5% in Flanders in 2008 and 19.9%
and 15.2% respectively in Brussels and Wallonia in 2009. A central concern
continues to be high unemployment rates among young immigrants in Belgium
(EEO Review 2010). Moreover, in terms of job security, young workers are over-
represented in the area of temporary work: nearly 65% of temporary workers
are aged under 30. The EEO Review has noted that young people may nd it
extremely hard to escape from this trend.
Key issues for youth policy
In this section, four current challenges of youth policy in the French Community
will be addressed (neighbourhood policy, multiculturalism, youth engagement
and evidence-based policy making). The international review team believes that
all these issues should be seen as political cornerstones of youth policy.
Youth policy in Belgium
60
Neighbourhood policy: an engine or restraint to mobility and openness?
The strong neighbourhood commitment of the French Community has already
been described. Here, some critical points related to this spirit are taken up, in
order to encourage the French Community to develop further their rich tradition,
linked with the neighbourhood and mobility frameworks. Even if mobility inside
Belgium has increased among young people – in particular, Walloons working in
Flanders – there are still rural areas with strictly dened local “comfort zones”.
The areas where people feel safe can be geographically very limited and,
developmentally, very limiting. This issue has been clearly pointed out also by
the General Delegate for Children’s Rights (2009) in the report on poverty of
children, young people and their families.
Those whom the international review team met at the local level seemed to take
considerable pride in their community philosophy. In some rural communities
the idea of promoting young people’s possibilities for international exchange
seemed remote for the people working with young people, and concrete
examples of inter-municipal community work were scarce.15 It was evident for the
respondents in the rural contexts that new measures and methods are needed
to encourage young people’s sense of citizenship in broad terms. However,
new methods, such as social media as one potentially signicant resource for
“enlarged community work” in the virtual spheres, did not seem to be actively
applied.
The question of mobility does not concern only young people. Some local
professionals interviewed were concerned about an overly strong territorialisation
of the project structure, leading to a localised conception of professionalism in
the youth eld. One debate going on right now concerns the correct level of
harmonisation of the competences of the youth sector (the question of training
and qualications): to what extent should training be harmonised in the context
of recognised youth services? In the current situation, there is a common
framework only for the training of those working in the most responsible position
(the head or co-ordinator) in the youth centres. Otherwise the level and quality
of training is mostly a decentralised matter which is determined at the level of
each youth association.
15. Neighbourhood comfort zones really do sustain comfort in uncomfortable times. In the
original “status zer0 studies” (Istance Rees and Williamson 1994, Istance and Williamson
1996), there were dramatic qualitative dierences between the young people living outside
of education, training or employment in the city (studied in 1993) and those in similar
circumstances in the “traditional” communities of the Welsh valleys (studied in 1995).
The former group were isolated, unsupported and oen engaged in “survival oending”,
yet they were optimistic about the future, for they lived in a relatively buoyant economic
environment. The latter group was supported both materially and emotionally by members
of their extended families and was not currently experiencing signicant hardship, but
they were deeply pessimistic about the future in an environment of industrial decay and
high unemployment. They knew that, to stand any chance of a “future”, they needed to
move away, yet to move away or explore opportunities further aeld risked losing the
comfort zone that was currently supporting them.
61
Youth policy in the French Community
The international review team discerned a sort of tension in terms of how internal
and international mobility was discussed and prioritised among respondents. A
19-year-old girl’s statement represents one end of the continuum: “We must rst
work in our own community and aer that we can look at international exchange”.
At the other end of the continuum we had a Youth Council representative who
claimed that “it is easier to have internal mobility once young people have
experienced international mobility”. This inconsistent picture has to do with
the “thickness” of the international relations of Belgian society but also to a
certain “thinness” of Belgian citizenship. International mobility is depicted as
a priority aim for youth policy. Still, only weak links between local youth work
and international programmes were presented to the international team, in the
rural areas. In these contexts the impression was that it is up to young people
how mobile (and multilingual) they want to be. This challenge was recognised
by those responsible for international mobility at the Community level. Each
year around 3000 young people take part in these processes, thanks to well-
designed and committed co-ordination work done within the framework of
the BIJ at the Community level. Around half of the mobility programmes and
projects are realised outside European exchange structures. This reveals the
commitment of the French Community (notably BIJ) to engage young people with
international mobility. However, a signicant question is also whether European
exchange structures are fully able to meet existing challenges related to local
circumstances in the French Community of Belgium, at least in the remote areas.
Multiculturalism: policy frameworks, grey zones
Belgium is a unique country not only for the Belgians but also for its immigrants.
These people encounter three dierent socio-economic circumstances,
institutional arrangements and service structures depending on the Community
in which they arrive. What is more – and even more importantly – they face
dissimilar cultural understandings as to the cornerstones of living together in
a society (citizenship, equality, diversity, discrimination). Martiniello (2010)
states that, in the French Community, the ocial system approximates the
French republican model, where everyone is supposed to be primarily an equal
citizen, and the dierences between individuals according to ethnic origin,
religion, or other factors do not count, at least in political discourse. In actual
fact, in the French Community, there has been a progressive opening towards
more of an intercultural society that acknowledges the need to take diverse
group-based attachments, rights and responsibilities into account.
The challenge that the French Community is facing right now is how to nd a
sensible balance between social cohesion and unity, on the one hand, and on
the other, respect for diversity and awareness of discrimination at all levels of
society. Many Belgian researchers state that there is no cross-sectoral vision
about what should be done with newcomers. Previous waves of immigrants seem
to be successfully integrated and therefore, the problems of current immigration
are not seen as a key political concern in the French Community. Moreover,
due to the federal structure of the country, the question of immigration is very
Youth policy in Belgium
62
delicate, revealing many complexities such as the challenge of multilingualism
that immigrants face, together with many institutional and cultural challenges in
both vertical and horizontal terms.
These questions can also be asked of the youth eld. Immigration and
multiculturalism serve as an excellent example of how complex political
arrangements at the Federal level may lead to scattered policies and segmented
practices at the Regional, Community and Municipal/local level. To give one
concrete example, a school-age young person moving to Brussels from the
Region of Wallonia is required to speak the Flemish language – an ocial
requirement which does not concern the French Community outside the
Brussels Region. Therefore it may be dicult for this person to “t in” in the
multilingual capital. The multilingualism was not only presented as an asset to
the international review team. In spite of being a multilingual society, language
was several times mentioned as a barrier both for internal and external mobility.
Indeed, in spite of the bilingual character of the Brussels Region in statistical
terms, there is a shortage of structured arrangements that would enable real
multilingual encounters in the youth eld.
The international review team visited various local contexts which functioned
according to an “open door philosophy”. This principle implies that services
are open for all young people, regardless of their background. This is seen as
a fundamental prerequisite for also fullling the quest for equality in political
terms. As one youth professional stated, “For us, a young person is a young
person. If we give priority, it is for those more at risk.” This kind of understanding
of equality in terms of an open door philosophy has much potential but it also
has possible drawbacks. The policy frames emphasising equal opportunities
may lead to unequal outcomes and dierentiated opportunity structures if
there is not sucient awareness in terms of the overall stratication of society,
together with the political will for targeted practices and positive action.
Integration policy is, for the most part, a Community responsibility (immigration
is, of course, a federal duty). From the information furnished to the international
review team, it is clear there is no systematic co-ordination between youth and
integration sectors. This poses particular challenges for the youth policy sector,
if it is to make sense of diverse integration-related issues aecting young people
in meaningful terms.
The international review team felt that respondents in the youth eld seemed
rather unaware of the anti-discrimination law implemented in 2007, or this
particular legislation was not seen as imposing on the Community in any direct
manner. However, according to the Report of the European Commission against
Racism and Intolerance, a human rights body of the Council of Europe (ECRI
2009), the persistence of direct and indirect racial discrimination in access to
housing and public services continues to be a problem aecting primarily non-
citizens and people of immigrant background. These matters are to be seen as a
Community competence, as well.
63
Youth policy in the French Community
Regardless of these policy challenges, the international review team visited
many youth houses or projects where the integration of young people from
dierent backgrounds was highly successful. Many times this achievement was
due to the particular commitment of the local sta, together with a particular
investment in local partnerships. These kinds of practices should represent an
institutionalised, and as such mandatory, structure.
All in all, a clear policy framework is an important precondition for the youth
sector to prevent and combat everyday discrimination by and against young
people. This seems to be the case both at the level of training of youth workers,
awareness-raising among workers and young people, or the development of
concrete targeted measures. The special case is Brussels where those who are
foreign-born and of immigrant origin constitute close to 50% of the population.
Brussels is a particular case also in institutional terms because it represents a
crossroads between the Flemish Community view and the French Community
view of how integration should be governed. Moreover, the disputes around the
co-existence of the French and Dutch languages imply particular challenges in
terms of the integration of foreign inhabitants into the capital.
Youth engagement
Successful integration does not concern only welfare-related policy issues
such as integration of young people into education and the labour market.
It implies also an inclusive idea of democracy and the engagement of young
people from dierent backgrounds, at every level of society. This, in turn, is
related to a more fundamental question of how public space is understood in
the French Community. As far as public space is concerned, special attention
should be given to the engagement of “ordinary young people”, youth groups
and neighbourhoods, contributing also to a broad sense of moral belonging
to the community, regardless of the individual’s formal status as immigrant,
unemployed, or something else. The international review team did not have the
opportunity to meet young people outside service structures. Nor, within the
French Community and in its contact with French-speaking Brussels, did it meet
any informal youth groups, acting outside registered associations (i.e. local
youth cultural groups and non-registered organisations working, for example,
against discrimination).
Young people are engaged in their local environments at many levels: as political
actors in dierent decision-making spheres, as beneciaries of services, and as
citizens in numerous formal and informal (youth cultural) milieus, both public
and semi-public. The challenges related to contemporary democracy, from
local to federal, have been taken actively into account in the Belgian youth
policy context, where a lot of attention has been directed towards the creation
of representative advisory committees and councils at the Community level.
Without wishing to underestimate the strong commitment of the people in these
committees and councils, and the signicance of the work they are doing, there
are certain challenges in terms of the consistency of these bodies which should
Youth policy in Belgium
64
be further analysed. One relevant question is how to promote meaningful modes
of engagement among those already inside organised consultation structures
as well as those outside. Migrant youth organisations seem to traditionally be
weakly represented in the French Community Youth Council, and matters related
to migration and integration – to the surprise of the international review team
– do not seem to inform in any signicant way the agenda of the Youth Council.
The French Community addresses many requests to the Youth Council, which is
seen as a key representative body for young people. In the Youth Council of the
French Community, 60% of the members come from diverse youth organisations
or youth movements, 30% come from youth aid and student groups, and
10% come from elsewhere. The relatively high proportion of representatives
of associations has declined since the reforms of 2009, but it remains quite
high. The crucial question is how the current structure of the Youth Council (in
the French Community and elsewhere), combining the idea of associative and
non-associative representation, is able to successfully recognise problems and
possibilities that are relevant to all young people living in Belgium, inside and
across Communities. Moreover, one must also consider the extent to which the
Youth Council – while depending nancially on public authorities – is able to
take up political issues that are declared “too sensitive” at the public level.
The Youth Council gets government support, and as such has to meet a range
of expectations. Nevertheless, it has a potentially powerful proactive role in
elevating signicant issues to the youth policy agenda at the Community level.
Youth Council representatives complained about the diculties in getting in
touch with more “ordinary” young people within the French Community, even
as the international review team heard statements from young people such as
“people of my age (19) don’t have a place in the society” and “there is a lack of
trust and support”. A classic gap between aspirational active citizenship and
lived citizenship (see Hall and Williamson 1999) is telling in this context. One
young person described her collective attachment in the following way: “We are
rstly Belgian. To be Walloon is about politics.” This kind of statement reflects
a particular desire for the current joint actions, and perhaps more, of the youth
councils in dierent Communities (e.g. the informal J-Club arrangements that
deal with federal, European and international issues).
In addition to the Youth Council, there are local youth and children’s councils.
These are potentially open to young people from dierent backgrounds.
However, the structure of local youth councils is informal by nature. The same
challenge concerns young people’s participation possibilities and resources
at school. In the context of local youth work, the French Community decree on
youth centres presupposes young people’s engagement in the planning and
implementation of activities. In other words, one condition for public subsidy
of a youth centre is that young people are included in the ocial working group
and/or administrative committee with a certain percentage of all members. The
international review team did not have the opportunity to talk with young people
involved in this kind of administration.
65
Youth policy in the French Community
When it comes to the Regional level, there are only scarce possibilities for youth
consultation and participation in relation to the political issues. This is a major
challenge in the Brussels Region, particularly if one takes into account the
serious problems that young people face in terms of integration there.
Knowledge in evidence-based youth policy
The federal structure poses great challenges for the collection of adequate data
on the Belgian population. The representatives of the Observatory of Childhood
and Youth state that there is a serious shortage of comprehensive data in more
general terms.16 This concerns also particular topics such as immigration and
integration. According to the 2009 report of the European Commission against
Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), the lack of centralised, comprehensive data is a
major problem both at Community and Federal level. The lack of comprehensive
data is in contradiction with the aim of promoting evidence-based policy
making. However, new instruments are about to be implemented to obtain a
better picture of integration and migration-related topics (i.e. the diversity
barometer, and the record of racist crimes maintained by the federal police). The
Centre for Equal Opportunities and the Fight against Racism plays a leading role
in this context. Data-gathering instruments are not, however, sucient without
political will among politicians, authorities and researchers to recognise and
analyse parallel processes of the stratication and multiculturalisation of society.
The international review team sensed a particular fear among respondents
of stigmatising young people. “We should not stigmatise immigrant youth as
problem youth,” was the answer of one respondent to the question of whether
or not the data available are sensitive enough to recognise discrimination based
on ethnicity and nationality.
The issue of sucient evidence does not, however, concern institutional
arrangements only. The more semantic question of what counts as “evidence”
is as important here. At the level of the partnership between the EU and the
Council of Europe in the youth eld, the importance of youth work has been
recognised, more than in past discourses of European youth policy. Youth work
is now embedded within the European Youth Strategy, though there are still
debates about quite what it means and what its primary purpose is. There is now
a Resolution on Youth Work in Europe, signed o by European youth ministers in
November 2010. In the French Community, as everywhere in Europe, the youth
sector is characterised by a particular dispute between “top-down” evidence
and “bottom-up” experience (see, for example, Williamson 2006). According
to a report assessing practices for using indicators in the youth sector (Ecorys
2011), a challenge for Belgium (and the French Community) is the overemphasis
on administrative indicators, which focus on outputs of the actions undertaken,
compared to wider indicators which would describe the situation of young
16. The Observatory of Childhood and Youth is a department of the Ministry of the French
Community of Belgium. It conducts and commissions research on all issues relating to
children and young people as targets of policies implemented by the French Community.
Youth policy in Belgium
66
people as targets of youth policies. The representatives of the Observatory of
Childhood and Youth acknowledged the need to develop the methodological
processes of data gathering. Without a broad understanding of knowledge it is
surely dicult to keep the transversal dynamics of the youth sector alive.
The Youth Plan
Background
The oce of the Minister of Youth and Youth Welfare started drawing up the Youth
Plan at the end of 2010, in co-operation with dierent agencies and ocials,
with the desire to establish a co-ordinated plan for youth. The combination of
two competences with somewhat dierent policy frameworks – general youth
policy and special youth welfare policy (youth aid/protection) – was seen by the
French Community Government as an important political step. There have been
numerous initiatives to develop greater consistency and co-ordination within the
youth eld over the past 20 years, so the current initiative is, in some respects,
by no means new. The current Minister of Youth and Youth Welfare is seeking to
provide a new transversal dynamic to overcome existing tensions, particularly
in terms of gaps and overlaps in vertical and horizontal arrangements. The
objectives are ambitious and manifold, ranging from practical improvements
of the youth sector to the overall promotion of the youth sector’s and young
people’s position in the society, both in material and symbolic terms.
The international review team had the opportunity to meet the Minister and
members of her cabinet as well as other relevant partners involved in the Youth
Plan in April 2011. At the time, the ministerial conference on the Youth Plan was
to be organised, and another participatory survey was planned for the summer.
Consultations with the youth sector had been completed by the time of the
meeting in April, and the Minister reported on various opinions received from
the relevant stakeholders, both positive and negative. The evaluation of the
process is scheduled to take place during 2013-14. A decree is being considered
for the middle of 2014 in order to provide a methodological framework for the
regular development and implementation of future youth plans.
According to the procedure of the Council of Europe’s youth policy review, the
national partners in the review process had an opportunity to articulate key
issues on which they would like the international review team to focus. The
French Community decided to choose the Youth Plan as its key issue. Therefore,
the international review team has endeavoured to make sense of the preparatory
process of the Youth Plan in procedural and substantive terms. The central
concern is how the Youth Plan is able to recognise and respond to contemporary
challenges related to young people’s lives. To what extent is such an ambitious
objective even realistic? The international review team was not provided with a
complete dra version of the Youth Plan itself. This is unfortunate, and it clearly
limits the specicity of some of the analysis.
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Youth policy in the French Community
The conceptual framework
The Youth Plan does not manifest only the administrative development of the
youth policy eld in the French Community. The overall conception of youth
policy is also undergoing signicant reform.
Howard Williamson’s (2002) formulation of the expectations around “extending
entitlement”, ensuring that the “reach” of youth policy engages with those
who are most in need of it, captures well the overall philosophy in the French
Community. There is a strong priority given to preventative intervention with
the objective of maintaining children and young people in their ordinary living
environments. In addition, the Minister herself emphasised the urgent need
for going beyond Community competences to cover regional matters such as
employment and environment. With regard to employment, the multilayered
employment policy in Belgium means that both the Federal Government and
the Regional or Community authorities are responsible for specic elements of
policy linked to the labour market (such as vocational training, career guidance,
job seeking, and social security – see also Chapter 5). According to the EEO
Review (2010), the present situation is characterised by a growing demand from
the Regions to enlarge their remit.
With the whole policy context on the move, the horizons are open to multiple
possibilities. Openness, however, may in turn produce ambiguities.
As stated before, the French Community has a strong tradition of collectivist
values (CRACS). Youth political actors everywhere, but arguably particularly
in the French Community, face a tension between the contemporary demands
of individualism and personal competences, and simultaneous concerns and
commitments related to collectivism and communality. A crucial question in this
context is whether the main policy driver is related to the promotion of young
people’s identities, social belonging and collective engagement with society,
or if the primary policy concern is to invest eciently in individual young
people’s competences and qualications, particularly in education and the
labour market. This tension has to do with the essence of youth sector activity
itself: is it supporting young people on their path to adulthood or is it helping
young people to be young (Williamson 2002)? Dierent conceptions are, of
course, interrelated in practice. As a considerable body of research shows,
material conditions may impoverish young people’s possibilities and motives
for taking an active public role in society. Still, in this strategic phase of youth
policy reform, it is important for the French Community to rethink the overall
framework: whether the youth sector aims to guide young individuals into
decent adulthood (youth sector as a transit zone), or whether it rather strives to
make a social forum available for young people in order to oer them collective
tools to improve their daily life and living conditions (youth sector as a social
forum) (Coussée et al., 2010).
Youth policy in Belgium
68
The preparatory process
The rst visit of the international review team to the French Community took
place in April 2011. In the course of this visit, the team aimed at making sense of
procedural and substantive aspects of the Youth Plan. This was done by hearing
the opinions, assessments and expectations of various respondents, who were
asked specically about the Youth Plan. Nearly everyone consulted was ready to
discuss the matter at length – including those prospectively aected by it but
who had not been involved in the preparation process in any direct way. The
impression gained is that the youth eld broadly shares a view that the reform
implies great potential for the sector. The overall signicance attached to the
thorough preparatory process is certainly one reason that explains the great
expectations attached to the planning phase, and the disputes it evoked.
First, due to the enlarged scope of the youth policy eld, there is an increasing
number of stakeholders who may be regarded as relevant partners in the process.
The contested youth eld, with its vague borders and the consequent dispute of
who is “in” and who is “out”, is clearly associated with the ambiguous character
of the policy eld, which may be considered a positive aspect, or simply puzzling.
This in turn certainly conrms that beyond those involved, there are also interest
groups which consider themselves excluded from the process.
The political spirit of transversality does not automatically lead to a holistic
approach. Nor does it mean any easily shared responsibilities and dialogue.
A transversal spirit may turn, in an unforeseeable manner, into the rivalry and
segmentation of dierent interest groups if special attention is not paid to the
broad engagement of diverse groups of people. The concept of holism (originally
a Greek word meaning “all”, “entire”, “total”) refers to a simple idea that all the
properties of a given issue cannot be determined, understood or explained by
its component parts alone. This was exactly one of the challenges mentioned by
some respondents. However, there was an equal conviction that the transversal
Youth Plan should not gloss over sectorally articulated parameters which may
be in conflict with each other. On the contrary, there was broad consensus that
dierent frameworks should be discussed in a transparent manner.
Moreover, with regard to an enlarged vision of the competences and
responsibilities involved, it was particularly important that all relevant ministries
be actively involved in the preparation process, as much as for the sake of the
future legitimacy of the Youth Plan. Attention should be paid especially to the
involvement in the process of the experts from the youth aid sector. Furthermore,
one signicant dimension is the Regional level with its competences relating
to, for example, employment and environment. From this perspective the
international review team was surprised to hear that Regional agencies, such
as those responsible for employment policies, had not been formally consulted,
nor had the ministers outside the Ministry of Youth and Youth Welfare.
Second, the international team observed some ambivalence among respondents
regarding the consultation and the execution of power: how should the interplay
between competences and responsibilities be divided and shared? Public
69
Youth policy in the French Community
authorities – such as the Youth Service, as a key actor within the youth sector
at the Community level – were consulted, but they did not have any decisive
mandate in the preparation process. When discussing the Youth Plan with youth
associations and the Youth Council, as well as diverse federations and advisory
committees, the international review team observed a classical tension between
consultative and binding opinion. An overall European declaration that young
people must be heard in the policy matters that concern them is a controversial
statement if there is no clear vision of whose voice and knowledge count in this
context, how the matters that concern young people are dened, and whether
their consultative role produces any legitimacy regarding how the opinions
are put into practice. Later in 2011, several working groups were established,
composed of the representatives of public authorities from dierent ministries
and the youth sector as well as people from the associations. One of the key tasks
of these working groups was to go systematically through substantive matters
included in the Youth Plan and in this way prepare for its implementation.
The content
Seven key issues have been distinguished in the course of the preparation
of the Youth Plan.17 These issues illustrate how the principle of transversality
is meant to be applied in the youth policy eld. The list reveals also how the
Youth Plan may potentially resolve current concerns in the policy areas on youth,
mentioned also in this report.
Supporting young people’s capacity for action and joint commitment
This aim is a crystallisation of a traditional driver in the French Community,
namely the values related to CRACS. This, in turn, promotes a democracy-
oriented view of youth policy. According to this principle, the youth sector
represents a social forum for youth, and young people are seen as responsible
and engaged members of society.
Recognising and developing the diversity of skills of young people
This aim calls for a better interplay between formal and non-formal learning
(education permanente), in terms of, for example, methods, forums, and the
professionalism involved. The vision is to help young people realise their
multiple potentials.
Reducing social and economic inequalities by supporting action against their
underlying causes and combating poverty
This objective can be seen as a reaction to policy tendencies which are inclined
to tackle structural problems of inequality in individual terms. In this context, the
17. See “Le Plan Jeunesse est sur les rails”, Cr@cs No. 1, January 2011, http://evelyne.
huytebroeck.be/spip.php?article879
Youth policy in Belgium
70
youth sector may represent a particular safety net for precariously located young
people. There is a debate as to how one can agree on and establish a shared
vocabulary for both general youth policy and youth aid policy frameworks. The
international review team captured various semantic ambiguities among the
people interviewed: should one talk about voluntarism or compulsion as a
primary driver of the sector? Do the concepts of “adviser” and “measure” imply
something other than “judge” and “sentence” when the dialogue of youth
rather than youth justice policy is at stake?
Assisting young people in their choices of educational and occupational direction
This aim can be seen as a response to the eciency expectation to which
the eld of youth policy (also) has to respond. Young people are seen as an
investment for the future, and the framework of employability is highly valued
here.
Promoting and securing the transition of young people to adulthood
This aim is a reaction to a strong expectation characterising youth policies
everywhere in Europe. The challenge in this context is how to respond to the
increasing fragmentation of young people’s life courses. Is there a mismatch
between the disintegration of traditional social pathways to adulthood, on the
one hand, and a vision for a more coherent and integrated policy sphere, on
the other? The youth sector is seen here as providing both a transit zone and a
safety net for young people.
Giving a place to youth policies within the ambitions of sustainable development
This aim insists on a revised conception of global solidarity, going beyond
national borders.
Taking into consideration the specicities of young people’s home environments
and mobilising those involved at the most appropriate territorial level
This aim seeks to tackle a tension between young people’s local commitment
and mobility.
One additional key issue emerged from the consultation with the advisory
bodies in the eld of youth: “Value the image of youth and their citizen actions”.
The international review team also noticed during the visits a particular concern
about young people’s negative position in Belgian society. According to the
respondents, young people risk stigmatisation in public debate. The statement
“we have nothing to lose” and related discourses echo, too, in the minds of
some professionals, at least when marginalised young people are in focus,
particularly those in rural areas.
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Youth policy in the French Community
These key issues were conrmed by the permanent Inter-ministerial Conference
about Youth policies (Conférence Interministérielle Permanente Jeunesse) on
19July 2011.
The list is, indeed, an impressive political response to the principle of
transversality. It illustrates how the Youth Plan is considered to provide a