the changing shape of the youth work field

Major existing long term shifts:

• the expansion of church youth work and youth ministry (now more full-time people in this sector than in the state youth service).

• an overall decline in involvement in associational / community-based groups.

• increased participation by young people in education and the rise of home-based leisure activity.

• important developments in work by tenants + other groups (in part linked to regeneration + social housing activities)

• a growing professionalization (and bureacratization) of youth work

Different policy approaches adopted in Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland - but still a recognizable movement towards youth development.

Growing divide between the character of state-funded and church-, community- and movement-based work.

links: young people, association and informal education

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