The distinctiveness of 24-7 YouthWork can most simply summarised by these two words. 

For us, "Being Local" implies:

Working with all young people.  We don’t focus solely on visibly troubled young people. It is a myth that young people who aren’t showing at-risk behaviour are automatically fine. Many young people wrestle with all kinds of pressures and problems that are internalised. 

Collaborative attitude. We actively build links with other groups because we achieve more by working together. We sincerely believe we aren’t the answer merely a key ingredient of a local solution. 

Community based, birthed and sourced. This makes us more accessible, more sustainable and more adapted to the local context. Our people live in the local community. This allows a natural continuity of relationship and opens doors to different facets of wider community life. Young people will meet our youth workers not just at school but at the supermarket, the DVD store and the sports club.

Local leadership – Because 24-7 leadership is based and grown locally it is truly indigenous to each community. 24-7 YouthWork combines local leadership and management with a national network. Local autonomy is guaranteed while network provides quality assurance, training, resources and support.

And "Being Commited" implies: 

Being primarily relational - We are about being relational with some great programmes rather than having great programmes with some relationships.

Long Term - For us a 12-18 month time frame is short term. We ask our youth workers to commit to three to five years.

Volunteerism – This gives us a better cost efficient service. Each youth worker does 10 hours paid work plus 10 hours as volunteer.

Each youth worker is also backed by additional volunteers. For example in Canterbury the 30 youth workers are backed by 300 volunteer youth leaders, many of whom help with our work in schools as well. Another advantage of volunteerism is that young people can sense that our workers are there because they care.

Inspiring Vision – What we are doing is so significant it can inspire young adults to put aside career and travel plans for three to five years to serve young people. As this vision it becomes compellingly attracted to others. Alongside this we provide the training, support and comraderie to make this sustainable over the long run.