Social Care Responses to Children who Experience Criminal Exploitation and Violence: The Conditions for a Welfare Response

Abstract

This article explores social care responses to children experiencing criminal exploitation and violence. The article draws on data from two children’s social care departments in England applying a Contextual Safeguarding framework to extra-familial harm. Using evidence from interviews, focus groups, meeting observations and two peer assessments, the article explores factors that facilitate welfare approaches when children commit crimes and those conditions that undermine welfare approaches. The findings outline five conditions which facilitate or inhibit welfare responses including: whether legal rights promote the best interests of the child, if harm reduction prioritises a child’s needs, if language is underpinned by caring intention, the extent that systems harm is recognised and addressed and how practitioners gain knowledge of young people. The discussion introduces a welfare framework for social workers to define and describe what the conditions for welfare responses can constitute.