Enhancing Youth Guarantee outreach and wrap-around support for NEET Youth

Highlights

This study was commissioned by UNICEF to support the Government of Ukraine in strengthening outreach and activation mechanisms for young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEETs) within the framework of the Youth Guarantee. The Guarantee aims to ensure that all those under the age of 30 receive a quality offer of employment, continued education apprenticeship or traineeship within four months of leaving formal education or becoming unemployed.

The study draws on a desk review, key informant interviews, youth consultations and survey findings, as well as documentation of UNICEF’s PATHWAYS Initiative in Ukraine and selected European Union (EU) Member States (Czechia, Poland and Slovakia). It organizes this evidence into three main stages of outreach: early intervention and prevention; identification and activation; and advice, guidance and wrap-around services. One key finding is consistent across all stages: outreach based solely on registration, institutional communication or digital channels is insufficient to reach young people facing barriers that are compounded by displacement, disrupted education pathways, care responsibilities, psychosocial distress or mistrust of formal systems.

The analysis highlights existing entry points that can be mobilized for Youth Guarantee outreach in Ukraine. These include the ongoing reform agenda in education, particularly the introduction of school-based career guidance at key transition points; the extensive infrastructure developed under the youth policy, comprising approximately 600 youth centres and youth spaces with varying capacities and local mandates; and the emerging involvement at local level of municipalities, youth organizations, employment services and education institutions. Interviews also point to persistent constraints that must be addressed, including uneven local capacity, fragmented delivery, limited data sharing and the absence of clearly defined outreach mandates and sustainable financing mechanisms.

The report proposes a set of practical, system-level recommendations:

• strengthen and operationalize schoolbased career guidance as a core prevention pillar of the Youth Guarantee, aligned with ongoing education reforms
• establish the local partnership network approach as the core delivery model for Youth Guarantee outreach and early activation at the implementation level, ensuring strong linkages with youth, education, employment, social and health policy structures
• amend the regulatory framework governing youth centres to explicitly recognize their role in Youth Guarantee outreach and engagement
• consolidate the network of Local Youth Councils and strengthen their capacity in coordination with the National Youth Council of Ukraine.

In addition, as Ukraine is piloting the Youth Guarantee, this report recommends a set of initiatives that would allow institutions to test this approach by:

• leveraging the youth centre network as one-stop youth hubs for Youth Guarantee outreach
• mobilizing youth workers and youth outreach specialists as youth mediators
• strengthening digital platforms and inclusive communication channels for Youth Guarantee outreach
• establishing cross-sector referral and wrap-around support mechanisms
• strengthening data, monitoring, evaluation and learning.

Taken together, these measures aim to ensure that outreach and activation become integrated, funded, and sustainable components of the implementation of the Youth Guarantee, aligned with Ukraine’s recovery and longer-term objectives for its human capital.