Ahead of the World Refugee Day on 20 June, the Council of Europe Youth Department has launched a rich collection of Promising Practices and Additional Resources on a dedicated webpage to support Young Refugees in Transition to Adulthood and bring concrete demonstrations of ways to implement Recommendation CM/Rec(2019)4 on Supporting Young Refugees in Transition to Adulthood.

The Recommendation calls on member States to ensure that young refugees continue to receive temporary support after the age of 18 so they can effectively access their rights and opportunities as they move into adulthood. It also recognises the important contribution of youth work and non-formal learning in fostering inclusion, active citizenship and democratic participation. It is an important policy and advocacy tool for governments, civil society organisations, youth workers and other stakeholders working to improve the lives of young people in vulnerable situations.

A training on a trauma-informed approach to support internally displaced persons and returnees was organised by the Council of Europe on 18-21 May 2026 in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, with participants from civil society organisations, local self-government bodies and the youth sector. The aim of the event was to strengthen the participants’ competencies in applying a trauma-informed approach in supporting internally displaced people and returnees in accessing human rights and basic services.

This training contributed to the development of professional networking and the exchange of practical experience between trainers working with different categories of the population - internally displaced persons, youth, returnees..., in order to develop new ideas, effective approaches and tools in working with target audiences.

The Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) reaffirmed its commitment to youth participation at its May meeting in Monaco, following up on Resolution 2553 (2024), which calls for greater integration of young people's perspectives into the Assembly's work.

Representatives from the Council of Europe's youth statutory bodies joined the bureau meeting to review progress on the resolution. Lilya Elenkova, Chairperson of both the European Steering Committee for Youth (CDEJ) and the Joint Council on Youth (CMJ), welcomed the growing partnership between PACE and the youth sector, noting meaningful progress over the past two years. She called for concrete mechanisms to involve young people across all policy areas and stressed the need for better support for youth organisations and accessible spaces for participation.

During February-May 2026 participants in the programme for young people on Council of Europe approaches in the youth sector worked, through a series of initiatives, to strenghten a youth perspective and enhance the meaningful participation of young people in decision-making processes.

The programme for 22 young people from 11 regions of Ukraine was implemented by the Council of Europe project “Youth for Democracy in Ukraine: Phase IV” in co-operation with the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Youth Councils Association.

The Council of Europe Youth Department has launched a dedicated webpage for the materials resulting from the capacity-building and awareness-raising event series '"Strengthening Democratic Resilience through Youth Engagement and Deliberative Democracy”.

The collection currently includes the full recording of the Webinar on Deliberative Democracy and Youth Citizens’ Assemblies alongside a list of recommended readers on the topics discussed at the Webinar.

The European Youth Foundation is launching a second expression of interest for the 2026 grantee organisations to enhance the participation of young people with disabilities in its youth projects through the EAF, with a deadline set for 1 July 2026.

As a reminder, organisations that already benefited from the Equal Access Fund at the first call are not eligible to reapply. 

Youth organisations wishing to inquire more about this, or to learn any other information about the EYF, can join the Digital Open Desk every Wednesday from 2 PM to 4 PM on Teams (3, 10, 17 and 24 June) or contact the EYF.

The Forum gathered over 100 students, university rectors, ministry officials, and student council’s leaders, representatives of student self-governance bodies from across the country alongside officials from the Ministry of Education and Research, the National Youth Agency, the Council of Europe Office in Chișinău with the shared objective of strengthening youth participation and student representation in higher education institutions.

The forum focused on good practices for involving young people in decision-making processes, notably the Council of Europe's co-management as an inspiring model of youth engagement.

Event organised within the project "Youth for Democracy and Human Rights in the Republic of Moldova," part of the Council of Europe Action Plan for the Republic of Moldova 2025-2028, in co-operation with the Ministry of Education and Research and the National Youth Agency.