In this the final section of the book we aim to provide the reader with some practical worked examples of innovative projects that we encountered in our study. Adopting a case-study approach allows us to delve more deeply into the specific ‘indigenised’ contexts for youth work practice and provide more detail on the methods used, so allowing us to illustrate some of the tensions and themes that run through the rest of the book in more detail. These case studies are intended to both provide both a practical resource and source of inspiration for those seeking to develop new, innovative responses to youth violence and to introduce some notes of caution.

In some cases we have structured these case studies differently from previous chapters. In Chapter Eleven, for example, we employ a comparative method to exemplify how projects can respond meaningfully to symbolic violence. We withhold any overly theoretical analysis so that readers can draw their own conclusions as to how these two short practice cameos might inform their own practice within their own contexts. However, as with the case studies that follow, each can be linked to central themes within our overarching narrative. Chapter Eleven suggests a return to the Bourdieuan analysis articulated in Part 1. Where projects are characterised as struggling to survive or flourishing we are also seeking to show how wider structural or political constraints can affect practice on the ground. In Chapter Twelve we take the opportunity to point the reader to the extensive literature on sport and violence reduction, an area that warrants fuller coverage than we are able to offer here. In this case we use a dyadic case study (the story of a worker–young person relationship) to illustrate some of our psychosocial themes. In Chapter Thirteen we discuss an intensive therapeutic anti-violence programme we encountered in Germany that encapsulates the tension between collusion and confrontation in anti-violence work. We then return to another recurring theme, with our call for workers to engage in ethnopraxis as part of their response to youth violence. Here, however, we illustrate how this might look by presenting an edited version of an action research study conducted by a local youth worker.