This book is a contribution to the emergent history of youth and community work. It aims to introduce contemporary practitioners to the richness of the knowledge gained within past practice in a profession which can date its origins to the beginnings of industrialisation. For over two hundred years youth and community workers have used methods which continue to be recognisable and distinct and leading practitioners have exercised considerable influence upon the social and organisational policies which helped shape welfare structures in Europe and the USA. This history has important lessons to reveal in terms of current policy initiatives and the relationship between practice and policy-making. Loss of historical memory has condemned successive generations of youth and community workers to continuously recreate theory and practice without the advantage of learning from previous successes and failures. The contributors to this book draw out some of the lessons of the past in the hope that these can inform present practice.
This makes an important contribution to the maintenance of the distinctive professional identity of youth and community work, helping to restore it to its place alongside the related welfare professions of social work and teaching.