This section highlights the importance of understanding the nature of young people’s relationships and the contexts within which these are formed.
When you are working with relationships, it’s important to understand the specific nature of them between the young people you are worried about and not to make assumptions. You should keep an open mind about to who is part of the group and not be limited to the young people you initially thought to be involved. Remember that how you or another adult defines the group may not reflect how it is to the young people involved. By building an accurate picture of the relationships between the young people from their point of view, alongside understanding the contexts in which they occur, you can target assessments and responses at what really needs to be addressed.
Below are a couple of examples:
Context
A group of young people all go to the same school, where they bully another student. Outside of school they do not spend time together and do not think of each other as friends.
Target
The assessment would likely involve working with those involved in bullying separately from those being bullied, to understand their specific needs and what would support them to build safety in the school context. It would also involve engaging with the dynamics of the school, as the context where harm is happening, to understand how the features of the school context might be undermining safety.
Context
A group of young people report experiences of harmful sexual behaviour within their friendship group. They mostly spend time together in the evenings and weekends in a local disused industrial park.
Target
This assessment would be likely to involve working with the friends as a group, to understand how they understand harm and safety, risk and relationships. The work would be about recognising the importance of maintaining friendships alongside decreasing the young people's vulnerability. It would involve considering how the social conditions of the industrial park could be contributing to the harm and building safety within this context alongside work with the young people directly.