From peers and parks to patriarchy and poverty: inequalities in young people’s experiences of extra-familial harm and the child protection system

Wroe, Lauren; Lloyd, Jenny; Manister, Molly

Abstract

A body of social work literature evidences the relationship between the wider contexts of young people’s lives, such as poverty, austerity, racism and so on, their experiences of harm and the child protection response to it. This literature casts a light on significant inequalities in outcomes for young people and stratified disparities in child protection intervention dependent on class, race, gender, sexuality, disability and faith. However, it is also established that the child protection system is increasingly detached from these wider contexts.

Contextual Safeguarding (CS) has been developed as a framework for responding to ‘contextual’ harm, recognising that adolescents’ experiences of harm are often located in their peer groups, schools and neighbourhoods. The framework to date has supported local authorities, and their multi-agency partners, to understand and respond to harm in these spaces. Through this work, it is evident that inequalities shape young people’s experiences of extra-familial harm (EFH), their access to protective structures and systems and the extent to which they are identified as victims, or not, or diverted to youth justice spaces.

Could CS, then, offer a framework for understanding and responding to context beyond, say, context as parks and peer groups to context as poverty or patriarchy – dynamics that structure these spaces? Could the CS framework also help us think about the role of multi-agency safeguarding work in reproducing inequalities in young people’s lives?

Drawing on data from the CS research programme, this chapter expands our understanding of context to propose a holistic and structural approach to harm in adolescence.

Citation

Wroe, L., Lloyd, J., & Manister, M. (2023). From peers and parks to patriarchy and poverty: inequalities in young people’s experiences of extra-familial harm and the child protection system. In C. Firmin, & J. Lloyd (Eds.), Contextual Safeguarding: The Next Chapter (17-29). Policy Press. https://doi.org/10.56687/9781447366454-007

• Online Publication Date: Jul 12, 2023
• Publication Date: Jul 20, 2023
• Deposit Date: Aug 17, 2023
• Publisher: Policy Press
• Pages: 17-29
• Book Title: Contextual Safeguarding: The Next Chapter
• ISBN: 9781447366454
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.56687/9781447366454-007
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1720289