While post activity participation can be divided in short and medium tracks, with regards to engagement, in this chapter we can contribute in providing best and not so best practices.
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The average person can get a few hundred emails a day. That makes it pretty tough to respond to all of them, and things naturally fall to the bottom of the list. If you don’t get a response, it doesn’t mean that someone’s ignoring you—it just may mean that he or she is too busy. If writing group emails, try to invoke the positive emotions of the reader – focusing on the social benefit of the group and individual actions to assist in it.
When direct email does not work, it may be more important to elaborate a follow up process. A process where nudging could be of greater influence than anything else.
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Group
Often at Youth Exchange, there are group leaders that keep in direct contact with the sending organization, and assist in coordinating from travel to what snacks they might bring for the possible international night. Keeping in good contact with the group leaders can be helpful as they are able to cut through the language difficulties and better coordinate/report/address a number of feedback concerns and/or results.
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Newsletter
While the Newsletter is often used for organizations to reflect on the past and or the upcoming activities, it can also serve as a space for the follow up activities. Providing space for participants to share their follow up dreams/ideas/results with the organization and newsletter readers. Additionally, participants from partner countries can join the newsletter and be featured as part of follow up as well. This can also assist in securing and improving networking, locally and internationally. Newsletters work to circulate information within our network about emerging projects and activities, creating possible spinoffs and certain improvements.
(Ex. MailChimp, SendinBlue, PSMailer, etc)
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Reimbursement
Often, individual participants pay for their travel and are reimbursed only after one goes back to their local environment, which could take some weeks to be processed and/or received. Some organizations and even the National Agency (ex. TC event funded by NA Germany) requires an informal report that not only reflects on the process and the outcome of the training, but the plans and progress of the follow up. On what the participant has done/used or plans to use. The informal report requirement can be submitted in various forms and be open to individuals’ interpretation.
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CV Update
While the Youthpass or another form of recognition is presented during the final part of the Activity afterwards, one can focus on building on top of it. With possible face-to-face meetings that can be digital or in person. During such meetings, one can collect feedback, provide some career guidance tips and support them to get the most from the mobility experience and adequately valorise their experience. This can come in various formats; with one being an update of their CV or discussing how the training and their own follow-up was a learning/growth opportunity. Possibly doing roleplay, where the participant is the applicant at a job interview and how they can relate some common job interview questions to their experience.
(ex. EuroPass, EuroPass-Supplement, Language Self-Assessment, OLS-OnlineLanguageSupport, etc)
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Follow-up Questionnaire – weeks/months later
The questionnaire can be shared after some time following the activity. For some, it could provide an invaluable return for the communication process. Where only after needed time, post the activity, one is finally able to digest and infer the learning/benefit. For others it can act as a stimulation to recall their own expectations, and commit them. And for the well organized, it can be crucial in giving an outlet of the work they managed as part of their follow-up.
(ex. Murvey, Survey Monkey, GoogleForms, etc)
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TimePod – Sending personal email in future
While this method begins before the end of the activity, the timepod is actually after. During the allocated time of the activities, the participants wrote themselves an email in the future – with regard to the follow-up they wished to achieve. The email is actually sent and perhaps they CC-ed your organization on it or the participants chose a particular day. But this could be a great opportunity to reconnect with them individually or through some sort of mail service like MailChimp. In the email you can connect it with a post survey or a group zoom call – in order to discuss some specifics or just chat.
(ex. Competendo, Emails, etc)
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Sharing is Caring
Consider reposting photos and quotes that participants shared on their social media to acknowledge their active involvement and also increase awareness for future workshops. Along with that, you can create downloadable links to slides or printouts with methods that were used, activities that took place or the outcomes that were created in the process. While this is not a big use of one’s time, it can be very helpful for follow up and the dissemination of the project.
(ex. Dropbox, G-drive, etc)
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Master Class
While it is very hard to organize and arrange all that happened throughout the youth exchange, one can focus and prepare an educational online seminar on the topic or a particular method. This doesn’t and shouldn’t be long, 45 minutes with questions and answers would suffice. Something relatable that was used by the participants. This scheduled master class should then be shared with all the participants who took part, and even non-participants who can benefit from it. It can be organized fully online and be reflective of the organizer’s own follow-up activity: providing not only an example but possible motivation/inspiration.
(Youtube, Jit.si, Skype, Zoom, etc)