The complexity in defining Neet as a category is related to the fact that being NEET is more characterised by living in a given situation than by belonging to a group, one could precisely describe.
Producing tools to work with NEET is therefore related to the perception of a phenomenon that changes very quickly in the different countries, not only because of discrepancies between changing labour markets and old-fashioned training opportunities, but also because of statistical data and politics considering NEET on a very wide scale concerning age, income, family situation, months of inactivity, qualification and competences. The question should be: which kind of Neets is growing or sinking? Which kind of Neets is lost in long-time exclusion? How is it possible to match people and opportunities ? This person with his/ her potential and his/her opportunities.
Of course producing educational tools is related to a narrow space where intervention is possible in the sense that we have to identify and work in a domain where education and training actually are able to achieve something. Therefore our team effort was to identify where operators should meet young people with some (not necessary all) characteristic of Neets and how they can identify them: operators have to be aware of the elements of structural complexity of the phenomenon and to feel competent to address Neets with proposals that enable them to cope with complexity. Neet should have a concrete and symbolic space to improve their capacity to explore the own agency.
We wanted to focus on, and to act in, the “empty space between” different ways of being excluded and “the time remaining before” exclusion becomes a long-term condition. Exclusion means having to stay outside or just on the precarious border of the official labour market, or to miss out on training opportunities at a particular age (between 15-29), or in a particular condition (poor or high qualification) . Exclusion means also to lose motivation and therefore energy to become aware about one’s own capacity and competences.
The variety of territories represented in the Comwork partnership showed us the necessity to think of Neet as elements of contexts and to provide a dynamic solution to empower them to “listen” to the particularity of their places and to become a dynamic and flexible element of the context in which they live. This should be taken for granted by operators dealing with them regularly or occasionally.
In this perspective our action research experience showed us that it does not make sense to separate training and vocational guidance, but to link both to the social development and economic process at local level.
Moving from training to workplaces and from workplaces to training opportunities helps to reframe stereotypes about both of them and to avoid hopefulness and disillusionment by young people. But we also have to link this dynamic to vocational training also in the perspective of making working opportunities more visible and attractive in order to enable young people to identify possible working chances.
On the basis of our meetings with operators a practical part of the training should also be to deconstruct the cliché “there is no jobs at all” and to encourage young people to observe working places and become aware of something new: “maybe this activity or job is a good idea also for me”. This is part of a dynamic itinerary to autonomy. To look at and to make a first step.
Guidance and job centres have to be aware of the priority to make work opportunities accessible and transparent and to avoid that young people wait for “help”, because information are not available for them.
From a methodological point of view, dealing with Neets means to cope with short and very focused space (time) for training. Therefore the training has to be tailored individually and the personalisation of knowledge must become the very criterion for quality in order to succeed.
Statistical numbers and conceptual definitions are just a framework around NEETS but it is more interesting and useful to be aware about three dimensions producing the danger to become NEETS ,or to lead to a certain NEET orientation: the structural dimension, meaning the economic and labour market issues in the different countries; the educational dimension, fostering motivation, security, sense of belonging and agency, and the lobbying dimension, which means creating networks and sharing good practices, but especially promoting integration of education, vocational guidance, placements and work.
Precisely because Neet are an intersectional product of our social situation we need to work as intersectionally as possible, deconstructing categories, exploring the contents of categories, the space in-between, and the related generalisation power of categories. We need also to understand the influence of “given” categories in the development of their subjectivity. And to open the door to facilitate their way out from categories.
Personalising training and vocational guidance requires of course a major effort but seems to give more guarantee for young people in the long term.
Training experiences have a mixed target and have first of all to deal with de- motivation and discouragement. Personalising training is not like individualisation, it is about moving from NEETS people to NEEDS of young people, keeping in mind the different axes of inequality they are/were exposed to and recognising the uniqueness of the person in order to empower active subjectivation and agency. At the same time different social operators dealing with Neets have to assume a common Needs perspective which is interdisciplinary.
In this perspective the learning unit becomes a flexible tool, and an important module in different kinds of vocational or motivational training of young people, empowering them to become actors with their own opportunities of personal and professional growth.
The learning unit shall be the space where to facilitate the move from a Neets static condition to a dynamic philosophy of Needs, first of all regarding the competence of operators and then hopefully also involving young people in a dynamic self-perception and in struggling for their rights, so that they come to believe in their capability to acquire new competences.