This paper explores how Youth Justice Services can respond more effectively to children experiencing extra-familial harm (sometimes known as ‘crossover children’). When children experience extra-familial harm (e.g. criminal exploitation, harmful sexual behaviour and violence), they require a child welfare response which recognises the crucial role of peers, contexts and structural influences in their lives. Many children recognised and responded to by social services are simultaneously involved with the YJS as part of their experience of harm. Social services across the UK are adopting contextual approaches based on the Contextual Safeguarding framework to address extra-familial harm. However, this evidence-based approach has not yet been effectively implemented across Youth Justice Services, despite demand from the sector and synergy with Child First principles focused on children’s welfare needs.

Based on recent research, this paper discusses the widespread interest and support for Contextual Safeguarding within YJS, but gaps exist between practitioners' knowledge of extra-familial harm or working in a contextual way. Moreover, practitioners lacked confidence identifying contexts, implementing partnership approaches and measuring contextual outcomes. To realise a Child First YJS, the context of children’s offences, the structures/contexts that shape their lives and the harm caused by systems must be addressed. This requires reframing YJS involvement, refocusing on safeguarding and safety/wellbeing and reducing stigma, to provide a better understand of how this approach can be an effective mechanism in practice that aligns with, or evolves, the Child First agenda.

Youth Justice and young people's involvement in serious youth violence (SYV) is subject to widespread debate in public and political discourse. Given the complex lived experiences of justice-involved young people, questions remain whether such individuals should be considered 'offenders' or 'children in need' and what approach is most effective in preventing and reducing youth offending.
In 2016 the 'child first' approach, which now forms the Youth Justice Board's (YJB) overarching ‘vision’ for youth justice, was introduced into mainstream policy discourse following Lord Charlie Taylor's review of the youth justice system (YJS) in England and Wales. Emerging evidence from the UK and further afield suggests ‘child first’ principles have great potential for reducing youth offending and helping to promote pro-social identities amongst justice-involved young people (Haines and Case 2015).
Problematically, while a shared conceptualisation of these principles across social systems is required to ensure coherent strategies for policing SYV and reducing its associated harms, evidence continues to show a lack of clarity within and between agencies at a macro, meso, and micro level (Day, 2022). In practice, then, it appears children involved in SYV continue to be viewed and managed within a criminogenic risk-based perspective and the levels of social harm they have experienced remain overlooked (Day, 2022; Billingham and Irwin-Rogers, 2022; Marshall, 2023).
Through our research with young people involved in child criminal exploitation (CCE), we explore some of the key barriers to implementation of a ‘child first’ youth justice particularly for children and young people involved in SYV. In particular, we explore the role of gender and race in the application of child first principles, the role challenges of multiagency working across statutory and third-sector agencies, and the importance of case management in prioritising the needs of children and young people.

Whilst a ‘participatory rights-compliant’ Youth Justice System should be central to the ethos of how children are responded to, institutional and structural barriers may be preventing opportunities for children to input into processes or exercise agency. This paper will focus and reflect on how to develop anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory practices within youth justice settings to improve children's experiences and ensure they feel their viewpoints and perspectives are of value and influence.

Scotland proports to have a longstanding and distinct approach to youth justice, the outcome a form of penal exceptionalism imbued in welfarism. More recently, the Scottish youth justice sector has entered a new 'phase' of rights respecting justice building on the recent incorporation of UNCRC. This paper explores reflections on practice, research and policy to critique the cultural values of the 'Scottish approach' on children's participation, particularly those who have the most contact with justice systems. The study draws on data from research with children affected by violence, and community actors who support young people in Glasgow. It highlights both conceptual and practical constraints which ultimately challenge the narrative around Scottish exceptionalism, and explores potential avenues for future developments.