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Safeguarding Young People Through Changes In Faith

In this blog, Colin Michel from Resonant Collaboration turns attention to young people who question, leave or change faith. He explores how Contextual Safeguarding values might guide professionals in nurturing agency and welfare when young people experience changes in faith.

Faith and belief hold value in the lives of many young people, offering them a sense of belonging, meaning and connection to community. This can be just as true for those who have faith and for those with non-faith beliefs, and for many young people, this is a significant source of motivation and support. What young people believe is seldom settled, and to question, change, leave or deepen faith is a normal aspect of growing up.

However, for some young people these shifts can come with harm and abuse. This can mean facing coercive control, isolation, shunning, conversion practices and homelessness, and the loss of meaning, family and community. Working Together to Safeguard Children (HM Government, 2026) sets out the expectations for how agencies promote welfare and keep children and young people safe from harm. This statutory guidance includes the responsibilities of faith organisations, but it says little about the welfare and safety of young people who question, leave, change or deepen faith.

This year, policymakers are examining safeguarding in faith settings, exploring two different questions. First, a cross-party group of MPs and peers, the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Safeguarding in Faith Communities, is asking how the definition of 'regulated activity' applies to safeguarding in faith settings, in relation to vetting and barring (Thirtyone:eight, 2026). Second, the government has also published a draft Conversion Practices Bill (Office for Equality and Opportunity, 2026) covering attempts to change someone's sexual orientation or gender identity.

While important, neither of these questions will reach wider harms a young person might face for questioning or leaving a faith group, such as being threatened, controlled, cut off by those closest to them or losing their home. These kinds of harms have no clear place in existing legislation and guidance, so they could go unrecognised. Even when practitioners sense something is wrong, they may lack the language or confidence to respond.

How are young people affected?

These examples are drawn from the pastoral work of Birmingham Humanists, who have supported young people who are questioning or leaving faith. Examples are anonymised to protect identities.

Alex is 16 and grew up in a religious household, but has stopped believing. Alex is also questioning gender identity. Alex's family continues to apply pressure for attendance at religious gatherings and conformity to gender expectations rooted in their religious belief. When Alex refuses, they are accused of disrespect to faith and community. Alex feels caught between multiple identities and pressures.

Iris is 14. Her school community is predominantly from her faith background. She has started to question her beliefs but feels she cannot be honest about this. She worries constantly that her questions will be overheard and reported back to her family.

How might the six values of Contextual Safeguarding guide our response?

Rights-based When a young person moves away from the faith community in which they were raised, a rights-based response can guide our practice. Young people have the right to explore and make sense of their beliefs, and to stay safe and feel well. For social workers, youth workers and other practitioners, this response helps to focus on youth agency and to stay curious about safety concerns. Questioning, leaving or changing faith is not in itself the problem: what needs attention is the control, pressure or community rejection a young person might face. For Alex, the concern sits in the pressure to conform and the accusation of disrespect, rather than in their loss of belief or their questions about gender.

Ecological Our response looks past the family home to wherever harm is emerging and taking place: an out-of-school education setting, youth club, online space, neighbourhood park, or the reaction of friends who hear a young person has stopped attending their faith setting. Any of these can be the place of flourishing or of harm, and occasionally the same setting is the site of both. Faith communities and the experience of leaving a faith are not routinely understood as safeguarding contexts. An ecological response brings recognition to contexts and the links between them.

Collaborative No single service can see the whole of the issue. A youth, community or housing worker, meeting a young person somewhere they have chosen to be, may notice a concern before it reaches the threshold of significant harm. A pastoral worker in education may be the first to meet a young person facing rejection and shunning after coming out as gay or after leaving a congregation. A teacher may be the only adult Iris feels able to test her questions with. Survivor-led organisations like Humanists UK's Faith to Faithless (who support people who have left high-control religious groups) hold knowledge that may not be available to statutory services. The proportionate response depends on bringing agencies together, including professionals from health, justice and community safety, in the spirit of nurturing youth agency and welfare.

Strengths-based A young person questioning or deepening their faith can sometimes face risk-averse professional reactions and assumptions. A young person leaving may be read as a family conflict to stay out of, while growing devotion may be read through the lens of radicalisation. Responses that expect young people to change, hide or pretend to stay safe place the burden of responsibility upon them. Strengths-based approaches look at the interests, assets and opportunities in young people's everyday lives and support networks, understanding what matters to them and to their communities.

Evidence-informed Drawing on different kinds of knowledge is key to understanding the challenges young people face. We can learn from research focusing on adults leaving high-control faith groups, sometimes called apostasy, and the harm associated with those experiences. The evidence is thin when it comes to young people, however, so through our project at Resonant Collaboration, we are holding conversations with survivor-led organisations and people who have lived through leaving a faith. Young people are also shaping our knowledge and approach, so that what we understand includes their experience.

Caring Taking time to connect and make sense of life alongside a young person means learning about more than you might read in their case file. A young person's reality includes the people and places they are bound to and the ideas that matter to them. It also means anti-racist and anti-oppressive practice: safeguarding systems have a history of over-intervention in some minoritised families and an avoidance of intervention in others. Racism and discrimination shape what young people feel safe to share with professionals. Caring shows in the relationship a practitioner builds and in the conducive conditions that leaders create to support practitioners to stay curious rather than making assumptions or reaching too quickly for a referral form. Caring shows in supervision that supports practitioners to reflect on difficult emotions and analyse realities without rushing to resolution.

Where next?

Recognising faith transitions as a safeguarding context will change what we notice and record and how we make sense of the information. Young people may be afraid of rejection by their family, shunning by their community or pressure from a faith group to change or hide who they are. They may be wary of professionals and/ or of being misunderstood or stereotyped. We must stay curious and caring, and recognise and respond to harms where they are present. A young person distanced from family or community, withdrawn or anxious, or hinting that they no longer belong where they were raised, deserves someone who will ask what is happening.

On 21 October in Birmingham, Resonant Collaboration's conference, Safeguarding with young people questioning, leaving or changing faith (details below) brings together practitioners, researchers, survivors and young people to take this work forward. It is developed in partnership with the GCCS, the Association of Child Protection Professionals (AOCPP), and Faith to Faithless at Humanists UK. Colleagues across social work, youth work, safeguarding and faith organisations are warmly invited.

We hope this project supports practitioners, managers and leaders across services to move toward early support, nurture and professional care for young people who question, leave or change faith.

Thank you to Dr Rachael Owens for reviewing this article, and to Dr Naomi Thompson (Goldsmiths University of London) and Sarah Robbins (Birmingham Humanists) for wise guidance. 

For more information about Resonant Collaboration's conference and to purchase tickets, please see https://www.resonantcollaboration.co.uk/events/safeguarding-with-young-people-changing-faith

References

HM Government (2026) Working together to safeguard children 2026: a guide to multi-agency working to help, protect and promote the welfare of children. London: Department for Education. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-safeguard-children--2 (Accessed: 30 July 2026).

Office for Equality and Opportunity (2026) Draft Conversion Practices Bill. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-conversion-practices-bill (Accessed: 30 July 2026).

Thirtyone:eight (2026) APPG. Available at: https://thirtyoneeight.org/get-involved/policy-and-advocacy/appg/ (Accessed: 30 July 2026).

Organisations

Blog published: 3rd September 2026