Training Course I - Weimar
In late April 2025, youth workers from across the Falling Into Place partnership came together in Weimar, Germany, for the first training course of the project. Over seven days, hosted at a European youth education centre in the city, the group looked closely at what it takes to support young people in shaping the places around them.
This training course was the opening activity of Work Package 3, the part of the project that focuses on building the skills and confidence youth workers need to facilitate placemaking back in their own communities.
Why we came together
Before young people can lead their own projects, the people who accompany them need a shared set of tools and a shared language. That is what this first training course set out to build.
The week was designed around the first objective of Work Package 3: strengthening skills in non-formal education methods and co-creation. Rather than lectures, the days were built on practice, reflection, and exchange, so that every method the participants would later use with young people was something they had first tried out themselves. By the end of the course, the aim was a group of youth workers who felt ready to facilitate youth-led placemaking, and the beginning of a community of practice that could keep supporting one another after everyone returned home.
Shooting and Editing:
Sandro Fisher
Why we came together
How this connects to the wider project
The first training course laid the groundwork for everything that follows in Falling Into Place. The methods practised in Weimar, and the action plans drafted there, travelled home with each participant and shaped the local co-creation work that later took place in the partner communities. Just as importantly, the week created a network of youth workers who share an approach and can keep learning from one another. That combination of practical skills, tested tools, and ongoing connection is exactly what Work Package 3 was designed to build, and it is what allows the project’s placemaking work to continue growing across the partner regions.
The Week at a Glance
Day 1 – Arrival
Name games and sharing each person’s work and interests, agreeing shared expectations and a group contract, and a team building quest around the city.
Day 2 – Getting to Know Each Other
Name games and sharing each person’s work and interests, agreeing shared expectations and a group contract, and a team building quest around the city.
Day 3 – Understanding Placemaking
Mapping the reality of young people across personal, local, national, and global layers, a shared look at what placemaking means, and a study visit through Weimar’s public and creative spaces with external experts.
Day 4 – Youth work at the centre
Exploring what youth work is through role-play of different roles, looking at its values and aims, and participants presenting their own work with young people and what empowerment looks like in practice.
Day 5 – Skills to support youth-led initiatives
Mentoring practice in small trios, walking through the stages of a project cycle, trying out methods that help young people find placemaking ideas, and practical tools for harder moments such as keeping motivation up and working through conflict
Day 6 – Turning ideas into plans
An open space of participant-led workshops, building action plans for each local context using a dreamer, realist, and critic approach, mapping the circle of support, and closing with creative reflection and a shared evaluation.
Day 7 – Departure
Goodbyes and travel home, with action plans and new contacts to carry into the local work ahead.
The project “Falling Into Place: Capacity-Building of Youth Workers in Participatory Placemaking & Creative Arts Methods in Rural Contexts, as a tool to build Democratic values at the local level” is funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ programme.