In neoliberal times, young people are routinely subject to adultist practices, they may live precarious lives and can be increasingly alienated from civic and political life. Youth and community work plays a crucial role in reworking adultist power relations, enabling young people to enact democratic possibilities. In England, however, over the past two decades, social policy has increasingly undermined this work through ideologically driven funding cuts and a move from open-access provision towards individualised behaviour-change interventions. Despite such constraints, many practitioners continue to resist neoliberal framings, sustaining relational, community-rooted approaches that work alongside young people on issues that matter to them. This tension highlights the ongoing centrality of praxis in professional formation and pedagogies that, drawing on situated knowledges, engage the policy conditions shaping youth and community work and young people’s precarious realities.  read more Spaces in between