The network of professional relationships network is denser than friendship one and also has more interactions between the different professional groups than in the second one. Furthermore, length of service in the centre is a key factor to understanding how it works. The official organisational chart flowchart is not followed exactly, as the routine nature of professional relationships confers a central role to persons who do not occupy positions of responsibility. As far as the network of friendship relationships is concerned, this is basically constructed around having similar work positions. Finally, we have stated that the length of service plays a key role in both networks (professional and friendship) and may explain an important part of the social interactions that take place in the centre studied.

Purpose: This article focuses on the evaluation of youth empowerment projects from the perspective of the educators themselves. Method: HEBE Rubric (collects quantitative and qualitative data) was applied to 20 youth projects. The selection of projects was based on intentional sampling. Results: The results show that the projects focus on some youth empowerment dimensions to the detriment of others. The most important dimensions are responsibility and self-sufficiency. There is also evidence of more work from the individual perspective of empowerment than from the community perspective, and from a perspective that is more internal to the project than in relation to the context. Discussion: Important educational work is carried out in the projects analyzed, according to the educators themselves. It would be interesting to reinforce the educational work carried out by these projects with activities and strategies that facilitate contact, openness, and educational work with the community.

This research studies how educators help young people to be empowered. It is built from a pedagogical model of youth empowerment comprising nine variables: self-esteem, responsibility, critical capacity, efficacy, community identity, meta-learning, participation, autonomy and teamwork. Our aim is to analyze youth empowerment factors from the educators’ perceptions of this concept, taking into account different educators’ fields and different uses of methodological strategies. In this quantitative cross-sectional study, the survey technique is applied. We analyzed responses to a questionnaire obtained from 696 educators (including teachers and social pedagogy professionals), through structural equation models (multigroup analysis) and non-parametric techniques. The results suggest that both groups of educators see youth empowerment as a unitary concept, but with two dimensions: the individual and the community. Teachers and social education professionals share the same conception of empowerment and perceive their contribution to it in the same way. On the other hand, differences were detected in the use of methodological strategies when working with young people. The results are discussed in the light of the existing literature, and appear to confirm the need to revisit the differentiation between the formal and non-formal when characterizing educators’ actions.

Introducción: el proyecto ECDPEl proyecto European Cohort Development Project (ECDP) es un proyecto de investigación financiado por el programa H2020 de la Comisión Europea que tiene como objetivo el diseño e impulso de la primera encuesta longitudinal europea sobre bienestar infantil y juvenil: EuroCohort. ECDP cuenta con la participación de dieciséis instituciones de investigación de doce estados miembros y está liderado por la Manchester Metropolitan University; la Agència Catalana de la Joventut, a través del Observatori Català de la Joventut, forma parte del equipo de investigación.El proyecto ECDP se basa en los resultados obtenidos en el proyecto MYWEB (www.fp7-myweb.eu), financiado por el programa marco FP7 de la UE y realizado por el mismo consorcio de investigación de ECDP. MYWEB constató que EuroCohort era una encuesta: a) esperada por los profesionales y policy-makers; b) técnicamente viable; y c) deseable en términos de coste/beneficio, teniendo en cuenta la dimensión de los presupuestos destinados a políticas de infancia y familias, educativas o sanitarias.En este sentido, el objetivo de ECPD es conseguir que EuroCohort se convierta en una Infraestructura de Investigación de la UE. Actualmente solo existen dos encuestas que lo sean: la European Social Survey (ESS -sobre condiciones de vida del conjunto de la población) y la Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE -sobre salud y envejecimiento). Al igual que en estos proyectos, el objetivo del proyecto ECDP es conseguir que la UE financie la coordinación de Euro-Cohort y que cada estado miembro participante financie la encuesta en su territorio. El proyecto empezó en enero de 2018 y desde entonces se han realizado diferentes encuentros de trabajo, el último, el pasado 4 y 5 de febrero de 2019 en Atenas (Grecia) y anteriormente, en octubre de 2018, en Barcelona. La finalización está prevista para junio de 2019, y en 2021 se participará en la convocatoria de Infraestructuras de Investigación.