6 Country Reports on Youth Work - Jugendpolitik in Europa

therefore did not see the questionnaire as being applicable to them. The public and semipublic
providers were occupied with the tasks of providing youth work activities and dealing
with the changes brought about by the Social Support Act 74 . The non-profits, finally, were
often suffering from a fluctuation of active members and an unclear division of tasks, so that
they had either not received the questionnaire or were not sure who should deal with it.
Findings
Surveying the four municipalities showed that there are major differences in the sector of
youth work within the Netherlands. In one municipality, the municipality itself was found to
strongly support initiatives helping society deal with young people in problematic situations
and helping the young people concerned to participate in society. In the second municipality,
in contrast, non-profits were remarkably involved, especially in organising sports activities,
among others for young people. In the third and a fourth municipality, finally, the sector of
youth work is only weakly developed. One of those municipalities relies on its inhabitants’
financial capability for using market-based solutions, while the other promotes participation in
the activities of neighbouring municipalities.
Apart from these differences, there are also some similarities to be found when comparing
the four municipalities. These similarities concern the providers and activities of youth work,
the youth workers, and the participants in the activities of youth work.
Concerning the providers of youth work, it is striking that there was always one type of
provider dominating the youth work landscape in each municipality. If there was a large
number of young people in problematic situations in a particular municipality, the dominant
type of provider was public or semi-public, and the activities they were associated with were
youth centres, mentoring and educational activities. In other cases, however, non-profit
providers and sports activities came to the forefront. In none of the municipalities did forprofits
play a major role in the youth work sector, probably because these organisations do
not primarily see themselves as youth workers but as service providers.
The aggregated data shows that most of the providers are non-profit organisations.
Table 41: Youth work providers and associations in Dutch municipalities
Total non-profit semi-public public profit not known
Number of providers 28 20 3 1 3 1
% 100% 71% 11% 4% 11% 4%
Another interesting finding concerning providers is that public and semi-public providers tend
to combine several youth work activities in one association, whereas non-profit and for-profit
providers tend to focus on a small number of different activities. Sports, recreational
74
The Social Support Act (wet maatschappelijke ondersteuning) came into force on 1 January 2007. It brought about changes
in the social area and shifted some responsibilities to the local level, i.e. to the municipalities.
93