Transforming the Balance of Power? Child First Collaboration: A Conceptual Analysis

Kathy Hampson, Sean Creaney and Samantha Burns ()
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Kathy Hampson: Department of Law and Criminology, Hugh Owen Building, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth SY23 3DY, UK
Sean Creaney: School of Law, Criminology & Policing, Edge Hill University, Lancashire L39 4QP, UK
Samantha Burns: Manchester Centre for Youth Studies, Geoffrey Manton Building, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester M15 6LL, UK

Societies, 2024, vol. 14, issue 8, 1-17

Abstract: Collaboration is one of the major tenets of Child First justice and yet is proving problematic in its application across the sector, especially where children are compelled through court orders to engage with interventions, creating inevitable power imbalances. In order to facilitate children in genuinely influencing decision-making processes which concern them, their voice needs to be given its proper value. In this article we use the youth justice system of England and Wales to explore the meaning, value and presence of collaboration within youth justice whilst examining the power dynamics at play through the analytical lenses of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological approach and Bourdieu’s analytical tools. This lends itself to a novel conceptualisation of collaboration within the youth justice space, which is applicable to youth justice contexts internationally, distinguishing between different forms of the concept and examining how much opportunity for influence is actually given to children within their own youth justice journeys.

Keywords: Child First; collaboration; youth justice; co-creation; power (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 A14 P P0 P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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