Capacity-building in youth work in dealing with new forms of extremism through innovative online tools

• Developed and made available innovative digital educational resources to support youth workers in understanding and preventing violent extremism and radicalisation.

• Created an online extremism repository that is accessible, updatable and ready to use. It provides evidence-based information on extremist scenes in Austria and Baden-Württemberg in the form of short analyses, infographics, research summaries and insights on features, manifestations, strategies, iconography and online outputs targeting youth, available on extremismus.info.

• Established a practical repository of ready-to-use digital tools for youth work, including videos, podcasts, games and accompanying pedagogical material, available on beratungsstelleextremismus.at.

• Delivered several training workshops that enabled youth workers to apply the developed resources in practice, supported by the project’s train-the-trainer handbook.

• Evaluated both repositories and the training activities, and produced a report outlining best practices and options for transferability. 

Youth workers have direct access to easy-to-use digital tools on extremism and radicalisation, including games and videos suitable for working with young people, and these resources remain available for daily practice. Through the train-the-trainer approach, the acquired skills were transferred to colleagues and supported wider organisational uptake. As a result, youth workers’ overall capacity to prevent extremism increased, and young people benefited from methods that promote critical thinking, media literacy, civic engagement and democratic competencies.