Reaffirming open youth work

This post focuses on the current position in England of open youth work – the practice which assumes young people’s voluntary participation and their active contributions to its processes. It explores how, post-Covid, the ethics and hoped-for aims of the practice are being explained, including by some young people, and presents evidence on its overall role and reach and its wider societal and economic value. After examining a range of funding pressures, promises and proposals, it briefly addresses the question: ‘So where does all this leave open youth work in early 2026?’

Defining the practice’s aims and approach

Two days before the July 2024 General Election the Guardian ran a leader headed ‘Youth clubs have a role in communities that goes beyond crime prevention’.[1] Its starting point was historical: that ‘ever since the first ones were set up by philanthropists, youth clubs have sought to provide children with experiences not available to them elsewhere’. Youth services, it therefore insisted, ‘should not be viewed solely through a criminal justice lens’ – not least because ‘recreation can be as educative to the adolescent as play is to the infant’.

The Guardian leader drew on quotes from two members of the Albemarle Committee whose 1960 report had prompted substantial additional council and Ministry of Education financial support for open youth work provision.[2] It also included more recent comments from older teenagers – that for example what they wanted from youth clubs was ‘the chance to have fun … new friends (and) increased confidence’.

Three months before the Guardian piece appeared, a group of youth work practitioners and academics had shared the findings of a research study carried out in Japan.[3] Seeking to unpack what made open youth work and its practice distinctive, their starting position was that, as a form of informal education:

… youth work … generally does not have a ‘framework’, such as curriculum, classrooms, and timetables in schools, and its activities develop through improvised communication between workers and young people.

They then highlighted how in Japan such approaches had been ‘… affected and threatened by the political and social circumstances of the time’ – particularly ‘the neoliberal youth policy landscape’. This, they said, had imposed four unhelpful defining features on the practice:

A focus on ‘individual support’ which failed to address shaping ‘structural issues’.

A requirement for ‘“quantified results” with “economic independence” as the value’.

‘Extremely limited’ public funding for projects ‘tak(ing) the form of designated management commissioning and subsidies’.

‘Youth support workers … who specialise in individual counselling and employment support’.

One of the article’s conclusions was thus that ‘it is necessary to reclaim professional autonomy in everyday practice’, not least by reaffirming the core values and ethics of youth work.

The National Youth Agency (NYA) in effect sought to address this need by, in December 2025, publishing a ‘Youth Work Code of Ethics’.[4] Explained as ‘our commitment as youth workers to young people’, its aim was ‘about making sure we always act in the best interests of the young people we support, keeping them safe and treating them with respect’. The ethics – not to be understood as ‘… just rules’ – were unpacked in twelve boxed statements setting out the practice’s core commitments. These included:

We empower young people to explore, grow and actively shape their future and communities.

We encourage growth through curiosity and challenge…

We are… committed to equity and equality, creating diverse environments.

We promote open reflection, and critical thinking, welcoming feedback from young people…

We listen to the voices, needs, and desires of young people, ensuring their perspectives shape our actions …

We respect privacy and confidentiality…

By then – in April 2024 – NYA had also published a ‘strategy paper for youth work’ covering the period 2024 to 2029.[5] Starting from a recognition of the ‘£1 billion real terms cut in spending by local authorities on youth services since 2010’, the strategy was now also located in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic which, the paper said, had ‘underscored the significance of resilience, adaptability and mental health support for young people’. It explained ‘great youth work’ as

…creating spaces where every young person can feel safe, thrive and have their voices heard, … start to realise their potential and see their role and value in their communities and beyond.

To evidence how this was being made real, the paper drew on a quote from one of the ‘stories’ it had collected from young people and published online:

There are communal areas for chatting, but also private spaces if you need a chat with a youth worker. One thing I’m so grateful for, is being able to have somebody unbiased who can listen to my problems.[6]

Also released post-Covid was an updated version of my ‘manifesto’ for youth work.[7] Originally published in 2005 and first revised in 2015, this, within the policy contexts of the periods, particularly focused on the ‘cornerstones’ of open youth work which made it a distinctive practice with young people.

Two other papers released in August 2025 dug deeper into these positions. One, referenced in my last blog piece[8], focused on the ‘enablers’ and the ‘barriers’ to young people’s participation in youth activities[9]. The other was authored by ‘Alex’ who, as a 13 year old with Type 1 Diabetes, had been invited to attend a youth project at Nottingham Children’s Hospital. Described as a ‘formative experience’, this had started him on the pathway to becoming a youth work volunteer, a youth worker and a youth work teacher.[10]

Role and ‘reach’ of the practice

In 2013 – that is, early in the ‘austerity’ period when so many youth work facilities were being forced to close [11] – evidence emerged that approximately one million 8-15 year olds were using drop-in leisure spaces like these.[12] Over a decade later – in September 2024 – NYA added significant detail to this when it published the results of its National Youth Sector Census carried out earlier that year.[13] This for example revealed that:

Youth work was then being delivered in over 28,000 locations.

The organisations which responded were reaching over 228,000 young people.

These organisations were twice as likely to be operating in the most deprived areas of the country as in the least.

Though open access youth work was their most common weekly provision, most were also offering forms of weekly targeted support.

Not all the NYA’s inputs were received uncritically, however. In a report published in June 2025, for example, the DCMS questioned the scope and lack of clarity of the data gathered through the Census and its youth worker register, both of which it had funded. And though the Department deemed the levels of response to these as ‘relatively high’, the contributing youth work organisations pointed to a need for more detailed local and regional data to help their planning and delivery, while levels of awareness of the youth worker register were found to be low amongst both managers and workers.[14]

Findings from research commissioned by UK Youth, released in 2022, pointed to the wider value these spaces could have not only for young people but for society more broadly. By helping to improve their health, increase employment and education and reduce crime, every pound spent on youth services was estimated to be generating a return to the taxpayer of between £3.20 and £6.40.[15] From young people’s perspectives, positive findings also emerged from research published in 2024 by OnSide  – an organisation set up in 2008 to create ‘state-of-the art’ Youth Zones in the UK’s most ‘disadvantaged’ areas.[16] Its ‘Generation Isolation’ surveys, for example, concluded that, though only 12 per cent of respondents were actually using youth centres, 93 per cent of those believed that the centres were having a positive impact on them, with nearly a third of young people overall wanting more affordable leisure activities.[17]

These findings reinforced those of NYA-commissioned research published in June 2024. This had revealed that, though ten per cent of the 1,170 young people surveyed said there were no open access youth services in their area and 66 per cent that there weren’t enough, 51 per cent were wanting more facilities of this kind. Those who were regular users were again also likely to see them as having a positive impact on their mental health.[18]

Fifteen months after the appearance of its leader quoted above, the Guardian published an article by one of its regular columnists, John Harris. As well as again spelling out the damage done to youth services by the, by then, 70 per cent real-term cuts in councils’ spending, Harris promoted the value of youth workers and their inputs by referencing Up the Youth Club, a recently published ‘superb’ book by Emma Warren.[19]

Some high-profile individuals also drew on personal experience to publicly express supportive views.

Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn talked of having ‘grown up in Woodcraft Folk’[20].

America football star Efe Obada – raised in foster care – described the youth centres he had attended in Stockwell and Peckham as his ‘safe place’[21].

After forming a jazz youth club in Camden, Femi Koleoso of the award-winning jazz group Ezra Collective said that his ‘dream’ was ‘… (to) reopen a lot of these youth clubs and pay people salaries so that they can work full-time.’[22]

Funding for open youth work

Following a ‘ministerial statement’ by Lisa Nandy summarised in a June 2025 DCMS Youth Newsletter[23], Labour promised funding of over £28 million to enable more young people to participate in ‘… more and better activities’. As well as the £7.5 million ‘to increase access to uniformed youth groups’ mentioned in a previous post, included too were:

£1.5 million to increase access to the Duke of Edinburgh Scheme;

£12 million ‘to boost open access youth provision across England in areas where young people are at risk of anti-social behaviour’;

£4.7 million to increase access to ‘outdoor learning opportunities…’; and

£2.4 million to support ‘Youth Voice’ (the focus of a future post on this site).

Promised also in the June Newsletter were:

‘Over £3 million to increase sector and workforce capacity’.

£8.2 million ‘to support local authorities in delivering youth services, reflected in their statutory duty to provide sufficient leisure-time activities and facilities…’

£107 million ‘to develop and improve youth centres’.

These commitments were welcomed by both Leigh Middleton, Chief Executive of the NYA, and Jacob Diggle, UK Youth’s Chief Impact Officer[24] with the latter concluding:

… the government has listened to the sector, and recognised that unlocking young people’s potential means supporting the trusted adults and safe places around them. Whilst the funding won’t fill the huge gaps left by a decade of cuts, it is a welcome and much-needed step in the right direction.

Also in place by then was a network of ‘Young Futures Hubs’ – a development also to be considered in more detail in a later blog piece. To fulfil a 2024 Labour election manifesto commitment, by December 2025 a DCMS paper[25] was pointing to plans, announced by the Prime Minister the previous July, to open 50 of these hubs over the following four years. In the 2025-26 financial year, the paper said, £2 million pounds was being made available for eight local authorities to design and implement ‘early adopter’ hubs – part of a £70 million transformation programme to March 2029 aimed at enabling local authorities ‘enhance and improve local youth service offers’. Key focuses of the hubs were to be ‘improving (young people’s) mental health and wellbeing, and reducing crime’.

So where is open youth work in 2026?

Even as these often PR-promoted funding announcements were appearing, it remained unclear how far they would, could or were intended to reinstate those ‘universal and open-access youth services, year-round’ which had been lost during the 2010s. Indirectly, this doubt was captured by Phineas Harper in a Guardian article published in August 2025. After explaining in some detail how an open youth work organisation – the Woodcraft Folk – had helped shape his life, he concluded that much of the new youth funding ‘… is, in fact, earmarked for calcified initiatives like gym equipment and more police cadets that will fail to holistically broaden horizons’.[26]

Two months before, in a report produced for Children in Need and the think-tank Centre for Young Lives, the ‘business management company’ Alma Economics had restated the economic case for ‘investing’ in such open access provision.[27] Its estimate now was that, by lessening young people’s risk of getting caught up in the criminal justice system and by improving their attainment at school, every £1 spent on youth provision could by 2031 generate a return to the economy of ‘at least’ £2.40. Improved access to youth centres could also prompt an estimated £590 million growth in productivity, rising to £2.6 billion by 2035. To pay for 1,000 new youth centres, year-round activities and 10,000 more youth workers, it thus went on to in effect propose a £1.46 billion increase in government spending on youth services between 2026 and 2028.

The Alma Economics proposals were followed by a report from the NYA and the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) which summarised inputs into and recommendations from their joint annual youth work conference held in March 2025.[28] In their CEO Forewards to the report, Leigh Middleton described youth work as ‘not just a service’ but as ‘a powerful tool for prevention and change’, and the YEF’s Jon Yates talked of its ‘profound’ impact needing to be recognised even though it ‘often happen(s) quietly, without headline or fanfare’. As well as again advocating for a Statutory Youth Services Act, the report also urged the government to:

‘Embed youth work into national, regional and local strategies and policy initiatives across government and … in multi-agency teams…’.

‘Reform funding systems to promote long-term investment … and reversing historic funding cuts’.

‘Shift from reactive to proactive support for young people by investing in open access and detached youth work…’

‘Develop a long-term Youth Work Workforce Strategy as part of the National Youth Strategy…’

‘Collaborate to join-up and enhance evidence collection … for the youth sector to clearly articulate youth work’s value and impact …’

‘Empower young people in policy-making’ – ‘in shaping services and decision-making at national, regional and local level…’

Though the government might now insist that these are just the kinds of policy shifts its National Youth Strategy is designed to achieve – let’s wait and see.

References

[1] Guardian, 2024, ‘Youth clubs have a role on communities that goes beyond crime prevention’, 2 July.

[2] Ministry of Education, 1960, The Youth Service in England and Wales, HMSO, February; Bernard Davies, 1999, From Voluntaryism to Welfare State, Youth Work Press, 1999, Chapter 2

[3] Maki Hiratsuka, Miki Hara, Kisshou Minamide, Fumiyuki Nakatsuka, Sachie Oka, Emi Otsu and Misako Yokoe, 2024, ‘How can the Values and Ethics  of Youth Work be Shared among Practitioners and with Society? – A Challenge for “Story Practice in Japan’, Ethics and Social Welfare, 15 April, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17496535.2024.2335384

[4] NYA, 2025, ‘The Youth Work Code of Ethics’, December, https://nya.org.uk/youth-work-code-of-ethics/

[5] NYA, 2024, ‘Enabling Great Youth Work to Happen: Our strategy for youth work in every place and space’, 16 April, https://nya.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/New-Strategy-November-2024-Web.pdf

[6] Available at www.nya.org-uk/inspiring-stories/

[7] Bernard Davies, 2021, ‘Youth Work: A Manifesto Revisited – at the time of Covid and beyond’, Youth and Policy, https://www.youthandpolicy.org/articles/youth-work-manifesto-revisited-2021/ October

[8] At https://chilypep.org.uk/meet-the-team/bernard-davies/open-youth-work-matters-blog/

[9] GOV.UK, 2025, ‘Research and analysis: Barriers and enablers to participation in youth activities: executive summary’, 5 August, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/barriers-and-enablers-to-participation-in-youth-activities-research/barriers-and-enablers-to-participation-in-youth-activities-executive-summary

[10] ‘Alex’, 2025, ‘Five tips for working with behaviour that challenges in youth work’, NYA, 8 August, https://nya.org.uk/five-tips-for-working-with-behaviour-that-challenges-in-youth-work/

[11] Guardian, 2024,, op cit

[12] NCVYS, 2013, Youth Report, NCVYS, p2

[13] NYA, 2024, National Youth Sector Census: Snapshot, Summer 2024, accessed 14 October 2024, https://nya.org.uk/census-snapshot-summer-2024/#:~:text=The%202024%20Snapshot%20report%20shows,voluntary%20sector%20youth%20work%20providers; NYA Email Newsletter, October 2024

[14] CFE Research, 2025, ‘Evaluation of the NYA Core Grant and Youth Worker Bursary Fund: report’, June 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/691f21ff3735e57039f985af/DCMS_Eval_CG_and_YWB_Final_report_June_2025_accessible.pdf; Joanne Parkes, 2026, ‘ Evaluation highlights “lack of clarity” over youth work register and census’, CYPN, 7 January

[15] Fiona Simpson, 2022, ‘Youth work investment could save public services £3.2BN per year’, CYPN, 11 November

[16] OnSide: Here for young people, accessed January 2026 at https://www.onsideyouthzones.org/

[17] James Masraff, 2024, ‘Youth Work Week: Youth investment can no longer be an afterthought’, CYPN, 4 November ; OnSide: Here for young people, 2025, GENERATION ISOLATION: SOCIAL LIVES, TRUST AND CONNECTION IN AN AI AGE, November,  https://www.onsideyouthzones.org/content/uploads/2025/11/OnSide-Generation-Isolation-Report-2025.pdf;

[18] Fiona Simpson, 2024, ‘Young people demand greater access to local youth services’, CYPN, 1 July; Robert Booth, 2024, ‘Teenagers “crying out” for return of youth clubs in England, study finds’, Guardian, 30 June

[19] John Harris, 2025, ‘Britain’s youth clubs have been quietly decimated. What’s most revealing is that few seem to care’, Guardian, 13 October. See also Emma Warren, 2023, Dance Your Way Home: A Journey Through the Dance-floor, Faber and Faber; Emma Warren, 2025, Up the Youth Club: A Hidden History, Faber and Faber

[20] Phineas Harper, 2025, ‘Like Jeremy Corbyn and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, I grew up in Woodcraft Folk. Here’s how it changes children’s lives’, Guardian, 16 August

[21] Robert Booth, 2024, ‘”Youth clubs helped  me”: Efe Obada calls for funding for centres for young people’, Guardian, 30 June

[22] Lanre Bakare, 2025, ‘”Reopen these youth clubs”; Extra Collective’s Femi Koleoso on nurturing young artistic talent’, Guardian, 9 March. See also Emma Warren, 2025, op cit, p 307

[23] DCMS Newsletter, 2025, June, https://mailchi.mp/8576878e9ab9/national-youth-strategy-engagement-update-dcms-youth-newsletter-6752734?e=67af98bae6#YF

[24] NYA, 2025, ‘A welcome boost for grassroots youth work – now we need a National Youth Strategy to match’, 2 June, https://nya.org.uk/a-welcome-boost-for-grassroots/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CAs%20we%20look%20ahead%20to,all%20young%20people%20can%20thrive ; ‘Derren Hayes, 2025, ‘Youth projects to benefit from £132mn of dormant assets funding’, CYPN, 3 June

[25] GOV.UK, 2025, ’Youth Future Hubs’, 5 December, https://www.gov.uk/guidance/young-futures-hubs

[26] Phineas Harper, 2025, ‘Like Jeremy Corbyn and Sophie Ellis Bextor, I grew up in Woodcraft Folk. Here’s how it changes children’s lives’, Guardian, 16 August

[27] Joe Lepper, 2025, ‘Think-tank makes economic case for investing more in youth services’, CYPN, 4 June

[28] NYA, 2025, ‘Lifting young people up through youth work: Insights from the March 2025 NYA and YEF Annual Conference’, July, https://nya.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/NYA-Policy-Paper-Lifting-young-people-up-through-youth-work-Insights-from-the-March-2025-NYA-and-YEF-Annual-Youth-Work-Conference-.pdf