ABSTRACT
This article explores how youth workers provide initial mental health support (IMHS) to young people in selected local authorities across Scotland and England. In the context of rising youth mental health needs and overstretched mental health services, youth workers are increasingly called upon for support. Drawing on qualitative research with 10 youth workers, this article identifies both the distinctive contribution that youth work makes to mental health support, and the challenges of operating at the forefront while remaining peripheral to statutory systems. It contributes new empirical insight into youth workers’ expanding role within mental health support systems, and the implications of this shift for youth work practice. The findings are organised into six thematic areas: relational practice as a distinctive support model; young person-led and flexible delivery; mental health training; signposting and referral; ‘holding’ young people amid systemic gaps, and supervision, support, and the strain of mental health work. The analysis highlights how youth workers provide trusted, accessible, and non-clinical mental health support, grounded in youth work’s relational ethos, voluntary principle, and flexibility. However, it also reveals ethical and structural tensions as youth workers provide support without adequate training, supervision, and funding. The article concludes that while youth work fills a critical gap in IMHS, this contribution is at risk unless long-term investment, professional recognition, and infrastructural support are put in place to safeguard the relational foundations of youth work.