INVI surveyed 600 frontline practitioners: How can we help 45,000 young people find jobs and pursue education?
What do educators or psychiatrists see that politicians might overlook? Together with the Ministry of Employment and STAR, INVI has asked practitioners from across the country to share their experiences on how best to help young people move from unemployment into education or a job. This open approach is intended to help ensure that the Youth Initiative helps as many young people as possible.
45,000 young people in Denmark are neither enrolled in an educational program nor employed. This figure has remained largely constant for several decades, even though policymakers have launched a nearly endless series of initiatives. These are young people who are excluded from communities and who are losing the autonomy that an education and a stable paycheck can provide.
In 2024, the Youth Initiative was launched: a nationwide partnership with 2.3 billion kroner allocated over ten years to provide young people with the help they need. But how do you determine along the way whether the initiatives are actually working? INVI has taken on that task. Together with the Ministry of Employment and the Danish Agency for Labor Market and Recruitment, INVI has created the Ungeløftet Practice Panel, where practitioners and young people themselves share their experiences.
We’ve spoken with nearly 600 practitioners—the people who work with young people every day in local governments, businesses, civil society, mental health services, and the education system. And we asked them directly: What do you see that politicians are overlooking? What these practitioners share is invaluable. They can point out where the Youth Initiative is on the right track and where initiatives may need to be adjusted to prevent real problems from arising along the way.
What do practitioners say?
Through open-ended questions, participants were asked to share their experiences with the initiatives that make up Ungeløftet. Among other things, the survey shows that practitioners have great confidence in partnerships across municipalities, businesses, and civil society, as well as in individually planned pathways with personalized support and ongoing adaptation (IPS). It also highlights how important it is to support young people in their daily lives and include them in social communities.
These are lessons that are already being applied in Ungeløft’s initiatives and that help strengthen collaboration across municipalities, private companies, and civil society. However, collecting and disseminating this collective knowledge can help highlight the lessons that practitioners have already learned. This, in turn, provides direction for Ungeløftet’s future work, ensuring that its initiatives best support young people.
This was just the first round
Through Ungeløft’s practice panel , INVI has collected qualitative data on a scale rarely seen before. In addition to practitioners’ input on current initiatives, we at INVI—using the “ wicked ” Model—have also used the collected data to identify the problem area as a “wild problem.” Our study clearly shows that there is no single path to getting young people into jobs or education—but also that several of Ungeløft’s approaches have great potential. Soon, INVI will also be able to share what the young people themselves said when they were surveyed this spring.
But this was only the first of three rounds for the Ungeløft practice panel. In the next round, we at INVI would like to gather even more input and track developments over time. Our goal is to gather collective insights on how to strengthen what is already working well, as well as to gain greater clarity on which challenges require special attention in the ongoing work with Ungeløftet.
Want to learn more?Read the full study
Would you like to join the Ungeløft practice panel? Sign up here
