Detached youth work – on the fringes?

The Federation for Detached Youth Work’s annual conference and AGM, entitled Detached youth work – on the fringes?, will take place from Friday 14 to Sunday 16 November at Trafford Hall, Chester.

• Should the detached youth worker be working on the fringes?
• Does this make them peripheral, or radical?
• If so, how, and why, should they do this work?
• Might this suggest they always were, and should increasingly be, a targeted provision – working with those with multiple and complex needs?
• Or should their role simply be locating young people, and referring them on to others?
• Who then should determine those detached youth workers work with?
• Should this be their responsibility, the choice of young people, or that of a data-based system increasingly confident in its ability to identify who the needy are?
• Does the suitability of detached youth work to work in these contexts imply a responsibility to be more selective about who their clients are, or should detached youth work be a community-based practice seeking to strengthen preventive and protective measures at a neighbourhood level?

Delegates will explore these and other questions at this conference, which is open to anyone with an interest in detached youth work and in learning more about its practice and possibilities.

The cost of the conference is £349 a delegate for single rooms and £299 a delegate for shared rooms, including accommodation and meals.

For further information and to book visit www.detachedyouthwork.info, email fdyw@nya.org.uk or telephone 07804 223485 Tuesdays and Thursdays between 9am and 2pm.