But that quest can be elusive, or at least a long time coming. Eventually, a breakthrough moment arrives, sometimes as the outcome of persistence and planning, but often, in my experience, more by luck than judgment.
One could argue that it is the application of varied, probing, youth work skills that in fact creates the luck.
Drew was a sullen hard case. He prided himself on his lack of communication skills and stubbornly concealed any emotions. He was one of those individuals who was always there but was only ever on the outside of anything we were doing. I noticed that on Thursday evenings he arrived a little later than his mates, sometimes carrying a small bag. But my efforts to strike up a friendly, inquiring conversation invariably attracted a monosyllabic response. Only through talking to the others did I discover that Drew went to college on Thursday evenings: he was doing an apprenticeship in electrical engineering.
Drew had a "couldn't care less" attitude in the club. He was there on his terms and we were there to service him - with drinks and snacks and a supply of table tennis balls that he nonchalantly crushed.
I tried the firm hand: he squared up to me. I tried what I thought was humour: he didn't find it funny. I tried to talk about the college course: he just wasn't interested. Then one day a student on placement had a leaving party. Drew, to everyone's surprise, showed up. We had a singsong and I played a poignant song about a young soldier who was killed by a bomb in Northern Ireland. Drew showed no reaction.
Some weeks later, another member of the youth club died from sniffing lighter fuel. I served as a taxi driver to and from the funeral. Ferrying the kids back from the crematorium I noticed Drew wandering along on his own. I approached him and asked if he was all right. "Of course," he said.
And then he put his arms round me and burst into tears. "Don't tell the others," he whispered. As we walked towards my car, he mentioned the soldier song. His brother had served in Belfast: he had heard the song before and thanked me for playing it. I gave him a lift back to the youth centre, where we all sat around in a daze. Drew sat close to me. From that day on he talked freely with me, about his home, his learning and his aspirations.
He got fully involved. He asked me for advice: he offered to help. The breakthrough I had long sought had occurred but it had taken a strange, unplanned and unwanted turn of events for it to happen.
