According to Hungarian youth surveys, we are witnessing a social group spending their free time pointlessly in a passive, recreative, mediatized and digital environment. No matter it’s a weekday or a weekend, many youngsters spend time doing practically nothing which is also reflected in the level of their active citizenship.

Our personal experiences confirm: youths spend little time in places controlled by adults; they prefer the ones without any supervision. The question arises: can we create community places that are popular, yet safe, inspiring to learn and able to promote social participation?

In the study, I attempt to present how to reach and involve the youth by a methodology that suits best to their free time spending patterns and to the way they use community places. To this, I briefly define the concepts of youth work and youth participation and I give a functioning Irish example. Later, I will summarize the key elements of the hang out method and attempt to back the recommended techniques by using my experiences and scientific literature.