'Open' Youth Work in 2019: A backward look

This article makes no claim to providing a definitive response to its title. Indeed, what follows is often speculative, particularly in its re-examination of the periods of youth work’s history it covers. Its main aim is to offer critical analysis and comment, not least as a possible prompt for identifying messages from that history which might be relevant to the current struggles to sustain and reinstate ‘open’ youth work in England and perhaps beyond