ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how to deliver and distribute, and explains the returns that can be expected from whatever resources are available. It argues that for developing the entire network of leisure services, rather than concentrating resources on any specially favoured agencies or programmes. Youth work is part of a wider network of public and voluntary services catering for young people’s leisure, and the entire network does not need refurnishing with new formulas or structures so much as strengthening with additional resources, injected at strategic points, where the need is greatest. Greater public provision for youth at leisure is unlikely to be opposed on grounds of principle, if not cost. Young people are being eased off the labour market. The histories of youth work and education are graveyards of impractical objectives. Leisure services have proved barren territory for ‘missionaries’ hoping to rescue and redirect young people’s lives.
