13. What Works for Young People?

SummaryThis commentary discusses how much we appear to know about self-harm and the circumstances in which it may occur but how little we really know about what works in managing it. It reviews how suggestions for its management conflict with what we know about self-harm and the outcomes of young people. The challenge appears to be how better to identify those at risk of further self-harm and to train frontline staff in this, so that at-risk individuals may be referred to specialist services. Perhaps there is also a need to review the evidence for what actually works in reducing repetition of self-harm.

Download Full-text

Acknowledging the struggle: Policy changes for state care leaving provisions

Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work ◽

10.11157/anzswj-vol28iss2id221 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 28 (2) ◽

pp. 22-31 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kerri Cleaver

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Young People ◽

Vulnerable Populations ◽

Current Literature ◽

Vulnerable Population ◽

Policy Changes ◽

Policy And Practice ◽

What Works ◽

Care Leavers ◽

The Government

Neoliberalism is not kind to vulnerable populations. Care leavers as a vulnerable population have faired particularly poorly under successive governments. Policy and practice have maintained a position for decades in New Zealand where care leavers are responsible entirely for their own lives at the age of seventeen. This article reviews current literature, locally and internationally, in order to identify the needs of care leavers in the New Zealand context. It will question what is working already, what works elsewhere and how we might change the outcomes for these young people who have not chosen this path and yet appear to be punished through the government turning a blind eye

Download Full-text

A series of realist evaluations of multi-component programmes with disengaged young people: What works, for whom, and in what contexts?

10.23889/suthesis.58701 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Emily C Owen

Keyword(s):

Young People ◽

Premature Mortality ◽

Realist Evaluation ◽

Training Study ◽

Peer Contagion ◽

What Works ◽

Final Study ◽

Collective Experience ◽

Potential Benefits ◽

And Training

Periods spent in the absence of education, employment, or training (NEET) are associated with adverse psychological wellbeing, poverty, social marginalisation, criminal behaviour, and premature mortality. As such, implementing effective programmes to re-engage young people who are classified, or are at risk of becoming classified, as NEET is of great importance to these individuals, family, and society more broadly. To this end, the aim of the current thesis was to conduct three realist evaluations to understand how and under which circumstances multi-component programmes may impact the engagement, behavioural, and psychosocial outcomes of disengaged students and young people who are not in education, employment, or training. Study 1 consisted of a realist evaluation of a six-month multi-component programme for year ten (aged 14-15 years) disengaged students across three schools. In Study 2, the findings and refined programme theories from Study 1 were subsequently tested through a 10-week multi-component programme with disengaged year eight (aged 12-13 years) students and evaluated over ten months. Informed by the findings from the first two studies, the final study comprised the development, implementation, and evaluation of a four-week multi-component programme utilising appreciative inquiry as a theoretical framework to re-engage young people (aged 17-23 years) who were outside of education, employment, and training. Overall, the findings from the three studies highlighted the potential benefits of utilising a multi-component programme to re-engage young people. Specifically, context-mechanism-outcome configurations and refined programme theories relating to the development of trust, positions of authority, the power of collective experience, exploration of possible life directions, active learning, deviant peer contagion, and the reinforcement and enactment of hegemonic masculine identities were developed. Collectively, the results provide a detailed and practical understanding of the architecture of programmes that can benefit disengaged young people and help advance the implementation of future programmes for working with disengaged populations.

Download Full-text

Mapping the evidence about what works to safely reduce the entry of children and young people into statutory care: a systematic scoping review protocol

BMJ Open ◽

10.1136/bmjopen-2018-026967 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (8) ◽

pp. e026967 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sarah L Brand ◽

Fiona Morgan ◽

Lorna Stabler ◽

Alison Lesley Weightman ◽

Simone Willis ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Young People ◽

Scoping Review ◽

Social Care ◽

Research Programme ◽

Qualitative Synthesis ◽

Evidence Map ◽

Children And Young People ◽

Number Of Children ◽

What Works ◽

Intervention Point

IntroductionThe increasing number of children and young people entering statutory care in the UK is a significant social, health and educational priority. Development of effective approaches to safely reduce this number remains a complex but critical issue. Despite a proliferation in interventions, evidence summaries are limited. The present protocol outlines a scoping review of research evidence to identify what works in safely reducing the number of children and young people (aged ≤18 years) entering statutory social care. The mapping of evidence gaps, clusters and uncertainties will inform the research programme of the newly funded Department for Education’s What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care.Methods and analysisThe review uses Arksey and O’Malley’s scoping review methodology. Electronic database and website searches will identify studies targeting reduction of care entry, reduction of care re-entry and increase in post-care reunification. Supplementary searching techniques will include international expert consultation. Abstracts and full-text studies will be independently screened by two reviewers. Ten per cent of data abstraction will be independently conducted by two reviewers, with the remainder being extracted and then verified by a second reviewer. Descriptive numerical summaries and a thematic qualitative synthesis will be generated. Evidence will be synthesised according to primary outcome, intervention point (mapped across socioecological domains) and the realist EMMIE categorisation of evidence type (Effectiveness; Mechanisms of change; Moderators; Implementation; Economic evaluation).Ethics and disseminationOutputs will be a conceptual evidence map, a descriptive table quantitatively summarising evidence and a qualitative narrative summary. Results will be disseminated through a peer-reviewed publication, conference presentations, the What Works Centre website, and knowledge translation events with policy-makers and practitioners. Findings will inform the primary research programme of the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care and the subsequent suite of systematic reviews to be conducted by the Centre in this substantive area.

Download Full-text