Changing Practice
Street Work: CSC's unique approach to youth work
What is street work?
Street Work is a specialised form of youth work carried out in public spaces. It focuses on building consistent, respectful relationships with street-connected children, wherever they are.
It recognises the street as a space of survival, community and resilience, not just a site of risk. Street Workers don’t ‘rescue’ children; they work together and alongside children to help them access their rights, make informed choices, and explore new possibilities.
Why is Street Work different to traditional service models?
Street-connected children are often excluded from services, stigmatised, or criminalised. Traditional service models often fail to understand their realities.
Instead, Street Work:
- Starts with relationships rather than referrals
- Is grounded in children’s rights and agency
- Prioritises acceptance, consistency and trust
- Sees the child in the context of their own culture, community, and choices
Training Street Workers: building expertise in the field
CSC trains Street Workers through a comprehensive, practice-based programme. Our training equips workers with knowledge, skills and confidence to work safely, effectively, and ethically with street-connected children.
Our training helps Street Workers to:
- Understand context
Describe street children in the context of their own culture and analyse their relationship to the street - Define the Street Worker role
Explore what makes Street Work different from other approaches, and;
Analyse the Street Worker’s unique responsibilities and attitudes - Embed child-centred and rights-based values
Understand and apply a rights-based, child-centred approach, and;
Reflect on their values and attitudes in professional practice - Learn and apply the Four Stages of Street Work
- Stage 1: Reconnaissance (Thinking about doing Street Work)
- Stage 2: Planning (Deciding to do Street Work)
- Stage 3: Intervention (Doing Street Work)
- Stage 4: Development (Follow up)
- Develop core skills
Demonstrate self-awareness, empathy, and interpersonal skills in their work, and;
Gain confidence as individuals and part of a team - Learn the importance of ‘street’ child participation and ideas for how to build this into programmes and services
- Use monitoring and evaluation tools to improve outcomes for both children and practitioners
We used our Digitally Connecting Street Children platform to ask street-connected children themselves what makes them feel safe, in order to ensure any solutions reflect children’s views and address their concerns.
The most popular answer, with 33% of the children choosing it (out of a respondent pool of 69 children), was that having a trusted adult in their lives would make street-connected children feel safer. 32% of children would also seek out a charity worker to help them if they were in an unsafe situation.
Street Work in action: Mahnoor’s* Story
*Name has been changed
Mahnoor was born into an impoverished family in Shahdara Lahore, Pakistan. Without any other means of supporting Mahnoor’s future, her family arranged for her to get married at 14, despite this being illegal (the 2019 amendment to the Child Marriage Restraint bill raised the minimum legal age for a woman to get married to 18).
The marriage had a severe negative impact on Mahnoor. Her husband was addicted to drugs, and she suffered physical and mental about from both him and her in laws. She tried to make the relationship work, but the situation only worsened, and finally after 18 months she separated from her husband. She returned home to her family, but their domestic situation had not improved. Mahnoor’s mother was dependent on her sons, who weren’t supportive, which left her mother with financial difficulties. Following the abuse she experienced at the hands of her husband and his family, and the lack of support she received from her own, Mahnoor was left feeling inferior and with poor self-esteem.
To try and improve her situation, Manhoor decided to work to support herself and started looking for jobs. However, without any education, she found it difficult to find reasonable work, eventually selling a number of goods on roadsides in the city. On the streets, she faced different forms of abuse and often felt unsafe.
The one bright spot for Mahnoor while on the streets was her meeting with the team from Search for Justice, and she shared her story with the social mobiliser. After sharing her story, the team arranged counselling sessions and ongoing moral support, recognizing how badly her experiences had affected her. It took the team at Search for Justice some time to help Mahnoor feel like herself again, and to build her self-esteem back up to help her realise she is capable of anything.
After gaining some confidence, Mahnoor expressed an interest in learning some new skills, with a particular interest in a cooking course. Her lack of education meant she didn’t meet the criteria for admission to the institution offering the course, but thanks to an intervention from Search for Justice, the institution relaxed their criteria and admitted Mahnoor to her chosen cooking course. On successful completion of her course, Mahnoor was offered in internship, and later a job, in a hotel. No longer financially dependent on her family, Mahnoor’s confidence and self-esteem has increased, and she wants to continue her connection to Search for Justice by volunteering to facilitate sessions for children and young people on the streets.
A model rooted in trust
Ultimately, Street Work is about showing up – again and again – and being a trusted adult in a street child’s world. It’s about meeting children where they are, and working with them towards where they want to go.
Want to learn more? We offer specialist training and resources for frontline staff, organisations, and governments.
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