This article investigates the impact of the relationship between learning providers and young people who have experienced Not being in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) on the latters' agency development. Agency is defined as not only bounded but generated by intra-action with relations of force, including learning providers themselves. Providers facilitate the development of individual agency in the form of self-esteem and motivation. However, they also support activation into the labour market and, in doing so, add barriers and challenges to established institutional structures and personal boundaries. Emotional labour strategies utilised by learning providers reveal the potentially negative impact of their values, backgrounds and experiences.