The article discusses the pedagogical conditions that determine the effectiveness of the use of search activity as a means of social hardening of youth. This process is characterized by the peculiarity of approaches, multi-aspect, its influence on the formation of life attitudes, trajectories of development of young citizens. Search work in this perspective is considered as an effective means to get involved in socially approved activities, expanding the range of formed readiness to solve life tasks, problems. In modern conditions, search activity is based on both the traditional experience of search and patriotic organizations, associations, and active, interactive forms and methods of work on the involvement of young people in civil-patriotic activities. The paper highlights the assessment of approaches to the formation of a meaningful component for the implementation of basic conditions. We attributed to them: the establishment of mutual assistance groups, the orientation of the multi-age community and its members to a personal model of nonviolent interaction, the training of search team leaders in the context of this model, building networking to expand social contacts and exchange life experiences based on dialogue and equality. The allocation of these conditions based on the results of monitoring work has shown its effectiveness and the possibility of applying in practice the work of children's and youth associations of a different orientation. The formed program for the inclusion of participants in the search work is considered by us as a local practice–oriented project built on the basis of modularity, in its structure it has a target, value–oriented, informative, technological and evaluative-effective blocks.