Risk Attitudes within ‘Complex Youth’ Assessment and Decision Making: Professional Perspectives

Abstract

Risk has become a driving force within the provision of welfare services in post-modern society (Kemshall [2002]. Conflicting knowledge’s on risk: The case of risk knowledge in the probation service. Health, Risk and Society, 2(2), 153–158). There is a dearth of research exploring how “risk” influences multi-agency professionals’ attitudes and responses to young people with complex needs - “complex youth” in the Republic of Ireland. This is the focus of this article. It draws from a wider doctoral study that explores attitudes, decision-making and service responses of professionals across statutory and non-statutory services towards “complex youth” in the North East region of the Republic of Ireland. The data presented is based on interviews and vignettes carried out with 27 professionals from the disciplines of child protection and welfare services; addiction services; youth justice services; mental health services; educational welfare services and community and voluntary services. The findings suggest that the discourse of risk dominates across all areas. The focus of multi-agency professionals’ work is about managing “risk”, rather than on addressing “need”. This leads to “complex youth” either not receiving a service, or receiving a service that is unsuitable and is focused on managing risk rather than addressing individual need. A further consequence is that young people are rendered invisible and absent as active agents from services and professionals are silenced. Recommendations for future practice are explored that focus on developing mechanisms to facilitate reflexivity within the individual practitioner, within the workplace and within multi-agency settings and to develop rights-based approaches within practice. It is hoped these recommendations will enable professionals to identify and better manage the influence of risk discourses in practice and in doing so enable the visibility of complex youth within services.

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