The municipal youth centers offer children and young people in Wiesbaden a variety of leisure activities, such as the Schelmengraben community center, the children and youth centers in Reduit and Biebrich, the Gräselberg and Klarenthal district centers and the children and youth center in the Georg-Buch-Haus in Wellritzstraße. The youth centers are a child of the 1960s; during this time, the needs of young people changed fundamentally. Since the 1920s, the Youth Welfare Office, then a department of the Welfare Office, had been looking after the needs of young people and children. In 1928, for example, its main tasks were welfare education, juvenile court assistance, care for school leavers and looking after "young wanderers". There was no mention of cultural or sports education at this time. This changed in the post-war period. In 1947, the now so-called Office for Physical Exercise and Youth Care was also given the task of providing cultural support for young people, with the German-American Youth Committee providing advisory support. The Americans temporarily released the previously confiscated playgrounds and sports fields for the purposes of youth work, offered movie screenings and donated play and sports equipment. Following the American model, a city youth committee was set up in Wiesbaden, which organized amateur dramatics courses, lecture and concert evenings, camps, sporting events and sports competitions. Political education was also a declared goal, but the ambitious program often failed due to a lack of suitable premises.

In the fall of 1960, an independent youth welfare office was formed, which was responsible for youth welfare and care. Activities included summer and winter camps, youth concerts, dance events and international youth meetings. One of the first youth centers in Wiesbaden was the municipal youth center on Elsässer Platz, which was inaugurated in 1953. It had workrooms, reading rooms, a library, common rooms and a cinema hall, where handicraft courses, youth film lessons, concerts, lectures and photography courses were offered, as well as a roller-skating rink. At the end of the 1960s, the Pop Club was established as a model experiment in modern youth work. From 1970, it was located at Platz der Deutschen Einheit and worked according to the concept of open youth work. In 1974, the club, now renamed the Youth Political Center, had to be closed due to vandalism. A year earlier, the PUB youth center had opened in the Haus der Heimat in Friedrichstraße with a youth café, discotheque and in-house print shop, which focused on politics, entertainment and education and developed into a forum for the alternative art scene. The PUB was closed in 1981 due to alcohol and violence problems. Other youth centers included the community centers in Klarenthal and Schelmengraben, which were founded in 1975, the youth center in the Reduit in Kastel, also established in 1975, and the Tattersall. Youth centers were also established in the suburbs in the following decades. Today, the services offered also include violence prevention, cooking courses and the practice of media skills and help with homework. The youth center in the Reduit focuses on working with girls and women, while other youth centers are committed to providing meaningful leisure activities. The services offered at the youth centers have been supplemented by mobile youth work since 1991.