A Child First approach in youth justice puts children at the centre of service delivery. It aims to create a system that treats ‘children as children’ with a focus on early intervention, collaboration and removing criminogenic stigma. This is seen as a positive policy shift, although it is unclear how effectively it is applied in the risk-centric context of the Youth Justice System. This paper outlines findings from interviews conducted with youth justice practitioners (N = 7) focussing on their experiences of applying Child First within their work. Using Thematic Analysis, we outline the findings from this study against the four tenets of Child First and discuss barriers to implementation. Despite determination to implement Child First, practitioners felt systemic barriers, including the external service involvement and the risk assessment tool, hindered their ability to do so. We recommend that to establish a truly Child First system, greater clarity is needed to apply the principles on the frontline, alongside an understanding of what Child First means beyond the Youth Justice context to apply the principles system wide. Further research is also required to identify variations in the application of Child First on a local level. 

In theory, children in conflict with the law have the legal right to have their opinions taken into account and are entitled to contribute to a criminal justice system’s response to their own behaviour (see United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), 2007; 2008). Indeed, the UNCRC General Comment No 24 (2019) reflects developments that have occurred since 2007 with effective participation in justice proceedings (art. 40 (2) (b) (iv)) stating that ‘a child who is above the minimum age of criminal responsibility should be considered competent to participate throughout the child justice process.’ Pivotal to this is a commitment to ensure that children are provided with meaningful opportunities to participate in inclusive and collaborative decision-making processes (Creaney and Burns, 2024; Peer Power / YJB, 2021). However, in practice, systemic neglect of children’s views and an inability to view children as capable co-producers pervades contemporary youth justice systems and practices (Smithson and Gray, 2021; Burns and Creaney, 2023). Whilst a ‘participatory rights-compliant’ culture should be central to the ethos of how children are responded to, institutional and structural barriers may inhibit opportunities for them to input into processes or exercise agency. The adage ‘actions speak louder than words’ is used in this special edition to emphasise the point that there needs to be much more of a focus on how children’s participation is translated into policy and practice. For instance, the terms child first, child participation, children’s voice, and co-production are used interchangeably with little thought as to what they mean for youth justice practice ‘on the ground’. The papers in this issue critique models of youth participation and offer insight into how professionals can embrace children’s voices in youth justice and wider services.

The aim of this paper is to explore the development of peer mentorship within Youth Justice, including the value and utilisation of lived experience. Children and young people who have acquired specific experience of system contact can accrue experiential knowledge and become ‘experts by experience’. These children and young people are potentially capable of providing unique insights, which include sharing knowledge and experiences of navigating welfare and justice services. This research paper provides in-depth insight from an ongoing study about the experiences of those involved in delivering a peer mentoring scheme within a youth justice context. Data from semi-structured interviews with lived experienced peer mentors and practitioners were analysed using thematic analysis to explore participants' opinions, attitudes and beliefs regarding the design and development of a peer mentoring scheme. The article contributes to a conceptual understanding of the design and delivery of peer mentorship within youth justice.

The importance of working with children and young people to build pro-social identities and develop positive and constructive young person/practitioner relationships cannot be overstated. This paper seeks to review the benefits of Liverpool Football Club (LFC) Foundation’s approach to youth intervention. It assesses the impact and appreciation of ‘Onside’, an LFC Foundation intervention programme aiming to raise the aspirations and motivations of children and young people while reducing risky behaviours, both inside and outside of school. The programme enables young people to engage through a bespoke curriculum developed and adapted to suit their needs, incorporating both the Prince’s Trust Achieve Award and the Sports Leaders Level 1 Award. By utilising the lens of positive youth development (PYD), this paper presents data and insights into how the programme can act as a protective factor by addressing unmet needs such as adversity and disadvantage, enabling participants to thrive in their communities. This paper includes recommended strategies to facilitate the participation of young people in youth interventions and examines the important role of schools in partnering with football charities to co-create similar projects that prioritise young people, facilitate positive child outcomes and divert from stigma by embracing the principle of pre-emptive intervention.

Collaboration is a key aspect of 'Child First' justice, but what is meaningful 'collaboration' within a Child First-focused youth justice system and where are the difficulties with making this reality? Importantly, although practice is beginning to embrace the importance of involving children at a decision-making level, youth justice-focused research remains behind this curve. Within the adult-centric realities of both practice and research, power imbalances abound, meaning that even if opportunities are offered for collaboration, it still may not happen if the required conditions are not in evidence. Utilising Thomas's (2002) 'climbing wall' picture of participation (a pre-cursor to full collaboration), this article explores how children can be facilitated to collaborate within youth justice practice and research, also considering where difficulties with realising this in practice might lie. The issues identified are illustrated through a research project (Child First: Realising Effective Participation) which explores with justice-involved children their collaboration understanding and experiences, but also maintaining a child-centric position throughout by adopting an innovative method to involve children as co-researchers. The experiences of this project identified issues with adult gatekeepers, the challenges of sharing power, and how well children are facilitated (given the autonomy and choice, control over decisions, necessary information, support, valued for their voice) to truly collaborate in youth justice-focused research

This reflective account through the lens of a seasoned youth justice practitioner, rhetorically asks: ‘who’s in charge of children’s equality?’ A question intended to stimulate thinking towards a standalone model of children’s justice that is wholly separate from the shackles of the adult criminal justice model, which this author considers should enhance children’s participation in their youth justice system. The concept termed “preferential credence” is initially introduced, which within the context of children’s participation in their youth justice, concerns the child’s struggle to be heard whilst adults and professionals unwittingly undervalue and subtly subvert the voice of the child through prescribed structures and frameworks. The conclusion appreciates the sovereignty of a child justice system that is inclusive and see’s it gathering pace through Child First and Participatory Youth Practice, although vigilance of “preferential credences” that inhibit children’s self-determination, impacting upon identity and affecting desistence is advocated as a cautionary forewarning.

In Sweden, there are 21 special residential homes run by the state with special authorities who provide locked institutional care to youths. Compulsory care is continually reassessed by social services and may last until the young person turns 21 years old. In this article, I explore the voices of eight young persons who have experienced locked institutional care at both emergency and treatment wards at special residential homes in Sweden. I discuss and analyse the premises for youth participation within this care setting, and the young persons’ resistant strategies, by relating to Honneth’s theory of recognition, and concepts from Snyder’s theory of hope. I introduce the concept of “meaningless diligence” to conceptualize the tensions that are invoked in how young people express the importance and outcomes of diligence. Although youths know that they need to actively participate in their care and “behave well” for locked care to end, this diligence is often perceived as unrewarded and overruled by rules and principles on treatment, and youths find it difficult to make their voice heard and to influence their care due to difficulties getting in contact with their responsible social worker and a feeling of invisibility or non-recognition is expressed by youths. The fragmented care system may also cause a lack of willpower to participate in activities in a specific temporary ward.

I had a very difficult up bringing with my father being absent very early on in my life, and I was sexually abused at a very early age by one of my uncles. My extended family was known in my area for its criminality and was feared in the area.

Scotland is a devolved political jurisdiction within the UK, but has always had separate criminal law and justice arrangements, including, since 2017, an executive agency called Community Justice Scotland.  While official use of the term “community justice” in Scotland is a twenty-first century innovation, practice in the field  is especially distinctive – shaped principally by the 1968 Social Work (Scotland) Act, which created the system of 'justice social work' in local authorities (replacing the Scottish probation service). Since then it has diversified to include third sector agencies working with people involved in the criminal justice system, restorative and non-state-centred models of justice, and expanded roles for justice social work in prisons and in post-release supervision. The Act has, relatively, protected Scottish community justice from much of the 'de-social working' and the explicitly neo-liberal, punitive-managerialist agenda that has characterised probation policy in England and Wales, although Scotland’s prison population remains in the same ballpark as England and Wales, and is rising.  The Act’s legacy is complex and implicated in a range of practical and political challenges faced by community justice in Scotland – notably a series of reorganisations over the last few decades which have reconfigured the structures around justice social work without solving the deep structural and cultural problems affecting the sector.

In my early life I was right into horses in Ireland and every day I was up and in the fields, and on the farm looking after the horses and riding them. For some reason the horses went from the farm and suddenly I had a huge hole in my life. Suddenly my circle of friends changed, and I met a lot of older people. With this came drugs and I was getting offered them.