Youth work is not a deep-seated civil sector in Turkey. Its development goes hand in hand with the overall growth of civil society organisations in 1990s. In addition, European Union candidacy process can be said to accelerate the growth of youth work in Turkey. The youth work conducted by the State had been intermingled with the sports until the foundation of Ministry of Youth and Sports in 2011. Thenceforth youth work has come to be treated as a separate policy area. From the very beginning civil youth sector in Turkey to a large extent focused on the activities targetting youth participation and youth advocacy, on the other hand public youth work with its organisational and budgetary capabilities has tended to cover the activities aimed at youth empowerment. The three components of youth work (empowerment, participation, advocacy) have been tackled in the natural course of things in a non-systematic way until the adoption of National Youth and Sports Policy Document in 2013.  

Within National Youth and Sports Policy Document, youth work has been divided into 13 policy fields and elaborated separetely. Even so within this document the scope, content and definition of youth work and youth worker have not been specified. The "youth work" concept has remained in general use as representing the work for the benefit of young people in terms of  empowerment, participation and advocacy. Equally, youth worker without being specified in a legal document has come into use as denoting youth experts, youth leaders and workers in the civil youth sector apart from public youth sector. In this prespect, youth work denotes a broad term covering a wide variety of activities of a social, cultural, educational, environmental or political nature targetting the good of young people. Youth workers can be either paid or volunteers. Their working procedures can rest on formal as well as informal learning processes.

Even though there is not an unified and overall competency-based framework for youth workers, there exist competency descriptors for different occupations subsumed under the “youth worker” working in public youth sector. (youth and sports experts, youth leaders).

• Article 58 “Protection of Youth” of the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey
• Decree Law on Organisation and Duties of the Ministry of Youth and Sports 
• National Youth and Sports Policy Document
• 1 Presidential Decree regulating the foundation and tasks of the Ministry of Youth and Sport

The youth work and youth worker as terms or definitions are not referred to in the above-mentioned legal texts. At the same time, the notions of youth work and youth worker are represented in these legal texts.

Youth workers as recognized agents of youth work are represented in two modes: Youth and Sports Experts and Youth Leaders. Still, these two legally definite terms do not exhaust the whole field of youth workers in Turkey, so there are many youth workers particularly functioning in civil youth sector without being named youth and sports expert nor youth leader.

First step of the becoming of youth and sports expert is to enter office as an assistant youth and sports expert after having passed several exams. And following steps are to be taken:

• 3 years experience in assistant expertship
• Passing the qualification exams for promotion to youth and sports expertise.
• Succeeding in foreign language exams
• Writing  a dissertation on youth

These criteria ensure an occupational profile standard for youth and sports experts.

The subjects of the development training courses delivered to the youth leaders as required in the the Directive by the Ministry of Youth and Sports on Principles and Procedures of Development, Training, and Working of Youth Leaders are as follows:

• Ministry of Youth and Sports
• Youth Centers
• Leadership and Youth Leadership
• Institutional Culture
• Fundraising/Sponsorship
• Relations with Non-governmental Organizations
• Project Cycle and Stakeholder Analysis
• Volunteering
• Community and Disadvantaged Groups
• Historical and Cultural Values
• Values Training
• Thematic Training Courses
• Fighting Harmful Habits
• Event Design
• Event Groups (Drama, Theater, Music, Literature, Folk Dances, etc.)
• Fundamental Rights and Liberties
• Youth Psychology
• Developing Youth-Friendly Approach (Peer Training)
• Youth Information
• Time Management
• Problem Solving
• Team Management/Group Work
• Communication Skills
• Etiquette
• Diction
• Motivation
• Social Media and Internet

(From the Youth Wiki)