Youth workers at HYPE have a vast amount of experience in delivering detached and outreach programmes. 

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An example of this has been within the Antrim & Newtownabbey Borough. We have worked with EA Youth Service and through the Borough Council. 

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We meet young people who are unlikely to be in statutory youth work provision elsewhere. They may not be ‘at risk’ just cant afford, or don't have transport or able to cope in statutory youth provision. They may prefer the open informal space of being outside.

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Young people are more at ease in the space, they may act more territorial about it, but they have, in the main chosen to be there, and so are more at ease with being in it.

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Detached youth work can be flexible, establishing patterns for being on the streets is good, but it can vary week by week depending on what is discovered in the observations, of where young people are likely to be, and how often staff/volunteers are available. It is not a club that has to be open every week, same time.

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It focuses on young people as the primary reason for being in the space, they are and the reason for being there.

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It gives us the opportunity to see young people behaving in their chosen context, and so, outside of a controlled environment they may be very different, a powerful group leader, but shy at school, someone with resources, who is said to lack resilience. It may help us build a different picture.

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Young people can make the decision to accept of reject youth workers. Unlike forced other provision or services, we know that they may choose to opt out, and that is fine with us. It is up to them to do so, when they know what might be on offer.

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It helps us to provide youth work without a physical building, programmes, numbers, targets, and gets it back to meeting up with young people,