This article analyses how youth structures and professionals in working-class areas, who base their practices on trust and openness, respond to the sometimes contradictory tasks they are assigned. Indeed, these spaces, which are situated within working-class areas and their social spheres, should also constitute ways to move out of them. The legitimacy of professionals who work in these structures is built with the young people on an everyday basis, based on local embeddedness and competence. This proximity sometimes awakens the spectre of the “older brothers” (grand frère) approach which is a symbol of non-professionalism and of how professionals can find themselves trapped in an identity and territory they need to differentiate themselves from.