‘Detached youth work’: origin and growth of street education with informal youth groups

Among contemporary educational practices with young people, Street Education is one of the possible approaches for planning interventions and deal with adolescents. Nevertheless, Street Education comes from the experience of detached youth work. The term entered professional vocabulary in pedagogy and social work fields between the 1950s and 1960s. At that time, in the United Kingdom, wide groups of the youth population were considered ‘detached’ from traditional society. The most widespread concern among policymakers was that young people were gradually fleeing social control. For this reason, organizations and national institutions in Britain considered of primary importance to find new methods of social work, with a firm aim: to re-connect with young people in their everyday life contexts, linking back to experiences, languages, and relationships with which adult figures of reference – parents, educators, politicians, role models – where no longer in contact. This moment in history of social work can be identified as the origin of detached youth work and street education practices. Taking the good practices already in use in the U.S. as a starting point – in particular, the ones used in the metropolitan area of NYC in the same period – detached youth work and street education became a solid methodology developed through to the present days in most of European countries, at the same rate as the youth policies promoted by the European Council, representing a unique way to work with young people bringing together the social and physical dimensions of public space.