Youth work

"[1][2] Through participative activities and coordinated programs, it seeks to enable young people in "gaining a voice, influence, and place in society in a period of their transition from dependence to independence.

"[1] By nature and design these activities would be inclusive, educative, and empowering, and based on partnership, equality of opportunity, and respecting diversity.

First, early youth workers, often from the middle classes, frequently saw working with deserving young people as an expression of their Christian faith.

Although with the formation of the YMCA (and later Scouting) organisations were founded whose sole aim was to address these issues, the emphasis was always on providing for young people.

It argued cogently for specific kinds of provision to be provided by local councils and ushered in a significant building boom of new premises for youth work.

Often thought of as a golden age, the period following the Albemarle report was a time of thriving centre-based youth work.

PAULO was formally approved by the Government to set the occupational training standards for all people working in this employment sector.

This may take the form of youth leadership in program or organizational planning, research, design, facilitation or evaluation.

This youth-centered approach has been shown to be particularly effective at promoting and sustaining youth engagement and for its efficacy across cultural, social and other boundaries.

In the Christian church the main purpose of faith-based youth work may be derived from the biblical commandment to "love your neighbour."

It is often confused with outreach work because of the similar principles, i.e. making contact on the streets with those "hard to reach" or "unattached" young people.

The reality of practice is that a central feature of the work is the process of becoming attached - to a neighbourhood, groups of young people, local community members and so on.

It begins from where young people are in terms of their values, attitudes, issues and ambitions and is concerned with their personal and social development.

Primarily used to inform young people of services that exist in their locality and to encourage them to use such services, Outreach can also seek to identify, through consultation with young people, any gaps that exist in services aimed at meeting their needs.As opposed to Detached Youth Work, Outreach is seen as an extension to centre-based work , Outreach work takes place when workers who are usually centre based go onto the streets with an agenda of their own to pursue, usually to encourage young people to attend their club.

The work includes orientation of young people to the adult world through socialisation, dismantling exclusion, and connecting them with resources needed for growth and development.