The age of a young person can dictate several legal and safeguarding requirements. It can tell us what consent, parental permission, data and duty of care should look like for that individual. But in person, or online, you’re not working with a fixed age bracket. You’re working with a young person. You have to look beyond their age on paper and respond to where they are developmentally.
An important skill for youth workers is being able to identify a young person’s developmental stage through assessing their emotional regulation, confidence, communication style, SEND needs, life experience, or the way they understand risk.
One young person I supported from the age of 12, to almost 17, helped hone my practice in providing age-appropriate support. When I first met him, we focused on improving school attendance and confidence. He was interested in comics, art and drawing, and often found himself isolated because he didn’t fit into the sports culture his peers took part in. At 12, the conversations were about school, friendships and finding his place.
Michael Young,
NYA Academy Tutor
By 16, he was talking about relationships, experimenting with substances and the pressures he was experiencing. At 12 years old, I would never have had those conversations with him. But as he got older and started exploring new themes, he needed someone safe he could talk to and it was appropriate to do so.
Those conversations and the resulting support I provided were only possible because I’d built trust slowly.
Providing support by building trust slowly
Young people will test boundaries. If someone walks in, holds my gaze and draws on a vape to see how I respond, the question is not whether the boundary matters — it does — but how I hold it in a way that keeps the relationship open. I could challenge it immediately and be right, but effective youth work is knowing which boundary needs to be addressed in the moment, and which conversation needs trust before it can land.
“Youth work is voluntary and young people vote with their feet. If they are in the room with you, that is already a valuable starting point.”
The same applies in group work. Strength-based practice means spotting who has natural leadership, who is quieter but thrives with their peers, who needs less noise, who is physically withdrawing and who is trying to show the world a particular identity. Trauma-informed practice means reading body language, not assuming the story.
When I worked in school-based outreach, a conversation within a group of young people moved into politics, identity, belonging and who was influencing them online. One young person, who was experiencing vulnerability at home, had started repeating racist and extreme views. Because we already had a relationship, I could challenge him directly and discuss why he felt this way.
“Young people don’t always listen to parents, teachers, police or social workers in the same way. Youth workers often have a different kind of permission.”
Digital spaces make access to trusted adult support even more urgent. Young people are constantly connected. They need to understand digital footprints, privacy, misinformation, catfishing, online grooming and how algorithms shape what they see. Building their digital resilience, offering critical thinking and ensuring support around them from experts who understand the spaces these young people are already in, is vital.
My advice to other youth workers is to be curious about the young person’s development as well as their behaviour. Ask yourself: what does this young person need from me right now? What are they showing me through their behaviour, confidence, communication or understanding of risk? What conversation can happen today – and which needs the relationship first?
Keep developing your own practice
Also, keep developing your own practice. The NYA Academy has multiple training opportunities, including Level 2 and Level 3 youth work qualifications, where the ‘Young Person’s Development’ unit explores different developmental stages and shares practical advice.
The Introduction to Trauma-Informed Practice CPD is useful for understanding behaviour, body language and reflective practice, while our Introduction to Digital Youth Work resource can help practitioners build confidence around digital safeguarding and resilience. The Safeguarding Young Leaders CPD is also especially relevant where a young person begins to take on a peer support or young leader role, helping practitioners provide the right supervision, training and safeguarding support as that responsibility develops.
Because youth work is complex, it asks us to be flexible, reflective and brave enough to have difficult conversations – to look beyond age on paper, build trust over time, and meet each young person where they are developmentally.
