Towards Participatory Justice: Aligning Child First Principles with Risk Management and Community Safety in Multi-Agency High-Risk Panels 

This project is co-producing child-centred, participatory approaches to multi-agency decision-making in youth justice

Project Leader: Dr Samantha Burns

Over the past decade, the number of children in the Youth Justice System has fallen sharply. As a result, services now work disproportionately with children assessed as medium or high risk of harm, often linked to serious violence, criminal exploitation or sexual harm. These cases rely heavily on multi-agency panels where decisions about risk, safeguarding and interventions are made. Despite their importance, little is known about how children’s participation rights are enacted within these spaces. Evidence suggests that high-risk panels can be dominated by police intelligence and risk management priorities, with limited attention to children’s lived experiences, vulnerabilities and rights. Where participation is attempted, it can often be inconsistent and sometimes cause further harm.

This project explores how children and young people assessed as ‘high risk’ are involved in multi-agency decision-making in youth justice. Working in partnership with youth justice services, police and other relevant partners, the research examines how Child First principles can be meaningfully embedded in high-risk panels to improve participation, decision-making and outcomes for children.

For the next 12 months, the project focuses on youth justice-led high-risk panels and their relationship with wider statutory arrangements such as MAPPA and MARAC and involves working collaboratively with youth justice services in Manchester, Leeds and Oxfordshire.

Research reports and outputs – https://vulnerabilitypolicing.org.uk/centre-funded-research/