Contextual by name- Contextual by nature?
Thinking about systems follows the same current as thinking ‘contextually’ when it comes to understanding complex issues.
Contextual Safeguarding- pioneered by Dr Carlene Firmin and the University of Bedfordshire Contextual Safeguarding Network is often described as ‘re-writing the rules of Child Protection’.
Essentially, Contextual Safeguarding is asking us to think beyond the risks inside the home and realign our processes to account for the risks that exist in the systems around young people and families.
The ‘old rules’ have been plagued by victim blaming language, breakdowns in trust between services and families and a general feeling of wheels spinning in the mud when it comes to tackling some of the complex issues listed above.
Sometimes the blame for whatever happens falls upon the young person or the parent- when the risk is in the community and not in the home. Can we realistically challenge parental capacity when there are factors beyond what they can set boundaries for that exist outside of the family home?
The ‘new rules’ are being warmly embraced in many services, local authorities and regions and has meant contextual processes and thinking are now being embedded in initiatives, services and programs.
However, hearing Dr. Firmin speak in Hackney last November, one part of her address acknowledged this progress, but also came with the message that it was important ‘not to lose sight’ of the meaning of being contextual.
I wondered what she meant at the time- and I wonder now if it resonated with some apprehensions of my own about how contextual thinking, or rather a lack of it, manifests itself physically and defines the pathways for young people travelling through systems.
One such apprehension I have been thinking about is how we are ‘understanding’ what early intervention looks like for young people who have experienced serious youth violence- or have experienced forms of exploitation.
Our approach to ‘disrupting exploitation’, and the research carried out in the Counting Lives reports, has focused on the different ‘types’ of vulnerability that can lead to criminal exploitation.
The more proximity to risk, the more societal risk and the higher the deficit in protective factors- the more impact this will have on anyone’s capacity or freedom to give true consent.
So when our understanding of serious youth violence solely focuses on ‘motivations’- which ascribes a narrative of choice to the acts; does this omit this contextual understanding of complex issues such as SYV and exploitation?
Does this account for the other vulnerability types beyond the child’s own motivations?
The key challenge to solely focusing on young people’s ‘motivations’ when it comes to complex issues, where criminal offences are committed, comes from the definitions of exploitation themselves- key phrases such as ‘even if the activity appears consensual’ or still defining an act as exploitation where a young person gains something they ‘feel they need or want’ reflect a context where in order to understand it- we need to be aware of what is impacting on these perceptions.
What can impact on a young person’s capacity or freedom to give consent?
Well… lots of things.
Serious Youth Violence is possibly one of most systemically problematic issues of all the complex problems we are currently grasping with in Society.
Think of all the services you could involve in the ‘problem’- health, education, early help, social care, police…
Currently, interventions that are focused singularly on what is ‘motivating’ young people to ‘get involved’ is missing the wider context- and could have an impact on us learning what actually works for how we disrupt complex issues such as exploitation.
Prescribing a narrative of ‘involvement’ to communities will continue to erode trust between services and individuals and continue to inhibit our ability to build bridges for the insight we know is trapped within communities and peer groups, that could help us to support and build resilience within them.
If we see Serious Youth Violence and Exploitation as night and day, rather than a spectrum of vulnerability, we will continue to send young people down a lottery of system pathways that will create further inter-generational social problems.
Working with partners from different services is contextual by name; but if we narrow our understanding to a particular narrative of why this problem is occurring, I fear we will not be being contextual by nature.
