Home

Digital youth work encompasses both the practical use and the critical analysis of digital tools, digital pedagogies, and digital culture within youth work settings. It is not a separate method. It can be embedded across non-formal settings like youth clubs, detached work, and information services, and it happens across online and offline spaces, grounded in the same ethics and principles as traditional youth work. Critically, digital youth work is not only about using digital technologies directly. It is equally about supporting young people to understand, question, and navigate the digital society—about algorithms, data rights, online safety, artificial intelligence (AI), and the many ways that digital systems now shape participation in society and the transition to adulthood.

In Europe, the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the digital fragility of the youth work sector. A study covering 40 youth organisations across Council of Europe member states found that most had to cancel all their programmes for 2020–2021 due to lack of funding or the impossibility of sustaining work at a distance (EU–Council of Europe Youth Partnership, 2020). Many youth workers had to rely on personal devices and data allowances to deliver their work, and post-lockdown research documented a widening divide between digitally resourced and digitally excluded youth organisations, contributing to anxiety, shame, and digital fatigue among practitioners. Similar patterns are visible in the United Kingdom, where 97 per cent of youth workers report delivering some form of digital youth work, yet only 24 per cent have received any training to do so (National Youth Agency, 2024) — a sector where practice has consistently outrun infrastructure, policy recognition, and professional support.

The Digital Youth Work Research Hub exists to address this gap between practice and recognition. Our aim is to brings together research, data, and policy analysis for practitioners seeking evidence to support their work, for policymakers navigating digital inclusion strategies, and for researchers working at the intersection of youth work, digital equity, and democratic education.

Quick links to our recent publications and workshops