Crossroads, Choices, and the Quiet Work of Keeping Young People Safe

By Joe Raby, Assistant Director, Justice and Education, Catch22

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a strong sense of social justice. Even as a child, I felt pulled towards helping people, towards fairness, towards trying to understand why some lives are surrounded by stable scaffolding while others stand exposed. School itself never really gripped me. I wasn’t ‘academic’ in the way the system wanted me to be. Looking back, I can see the points where the absence of the right conversation or the right adult might have led me somewhere very different.

What ultimately changed the direction of my life wasn’t a system or a structured intervention. It was a conversation.

Just days before university application deadlines closed, a college tutor asked whether I had ever considered higher education. No one in my family had gone. It wasn’t mentioned at home. But in that moment, someone saw something in me and said it out loud. Within days, I applied, I went, and my life expanded in ways I had never considered possible. Later, I gained a master’s degree and dedicated my career, now over a decade to working across criminal justice, social justice, violence reduction, and youth support.

That moment taught me something I have carried ever since: a single expression of belief can shift the direction of a young person’s life. And after years of working in this sector, I’ve seen that principle proven again and again: the smallest interactions can have the biggest impact.

What I’ve Learned About Young People and Violence

Across youth justice, violence reduction, victim support and custodial settings, the patterns in young people’s stories are strikingly consistent.

You see the same crossroads repeated:
• school exclusions,
• the absence of safe adults,
• unstable or unsafe home environments,
• trauma that has gone unnamed and untreated,
• limited access to safe spaces,
• communities where fear shapes everyday choices,
• opportunities that feel out of reach.

We often talk about “opportunities” as though they need to be big, life changing events. But for many young people, the opportunity they need is much smaller: a safe space to explore hobbies, someone who checks in without judgement, a place to belong, the chance to try something new, or somewhere to challenge and be challenged safely.

And above all, the chance to get things wrong without being defined by it.

Young people I have worked with are often labelled before they are ever understood. “High risk.” “Offender.” “Known to services.” These labels rarely capture the complexity of their experiences or their potential for change. Research shows that many young people involved in violence have themselves experienced harm, loss, trauma, or exploitation. The line between “victim” and “offender” is far thinner than public narratives suggest.

And yet we can sometimes expect too much from them.

We treat young people as though they are fully formed adults, as though they should “know better,” even when they have never had stability, guidance or emotionally safe environments. Developmentally, socially, and neurologically, they are still becoming. To expect perfection from children who have lived through chaos is not only unrealistic but unfair. When we hold them to standards they have never been shown, we create conditions where failure feels inevitable.

Young people are not finished. They are in formation. And they deserve the space to grow.

A Young Person I Still Think About

There is one young person whose story has stayed with me for years. Anyone who knows me has probably heard me talk about it, because it remains the clearest illustration of what policy can never fully capture.

He was well known to the youth offending service, excluded from school, frequently in dangerous situations, and entangled with peer groups that raised serious concerns. There were times when my team and I genuinely feared the next phone call might bring devastating news.

One night, a serious incident took place in an area he was closely associated with. When something like that happens, practitioners instinctively check in with the young people they work with.

But he hadn’t been outside that night.

He was at home teaching his dad how to play chess.

A few weeks earlier, he had mentioned that his grandad taught him to play, but he hadn’t touched a chessboard since. One of our project workers, after finishing their shift, dropped off a board at his house.

That chess game likely saved his life.

There’s no KPI for that. No dataset. No funding line.

But it is exactly the kind of impact that keeps young people safe.

Simple.
Relational.
Human.

A moment of connection that interrupted a potentially fatal chain of events.

This field is filled with moments like that, moments the public will never see but that shape the lives of young people in ways no metric can capture.

My View on the Current Reform Direction

Recent youth justice reforms, including the commitment that every child caught carrying a knife will receive a mandatory targeted support plan, alongside £320 million of investment, have potential.

Mandatory support plans can be a positive step. I’ve seen firsthand how inconsistent responses can be across local areas. Ensuring every child receives support, not just sanctions, is important.

But for these plans to work, they must be meaningful, not procedural. The danger with any national reform is that good intentions become diluted into checklists. Young people do not change because a process is followed. They change because someone takes the time to understand them, to build trust, to offer guidance and stability.

Investment is welcome too, particularly in a system that has carried heavy pressure for years. But funding alone doesn’t transform outcomes. What matters is how it is used:
• to build trusting relationships
• to strengthen trauma informed practice
• to reduce school exclusions
• to create safe community spaces
• to provide meaningful opportunities
• to allow practitioners time with young people, not just time on systems

Reform works when it amplifies what we already know is effective.

What I Believe Actually Reduces Violence

After more than a decade in this field, my belief is simple: people are inherently good, and most young people want to make the right choices when they feel safe enough to do so.

From experience, three things make the biggest difference:

1. Relationships

Research consistently shows that the presence of one stable, reliable adult can buffer the impact of trauma and reduce the likelihood of offending. This aligns completely with what I’ve seen on the ground.

2. Psychological Safety

Young people need places where they can express themselves, challenge ideas, and make mistakes without fear of punishment or permanent labels.

3. Opportunities to Belong

Not just education or employment, though these matter, but hobbies, groups, spaces and identities that allow young people to feel part of something constructive and safe.

Belonging is a protective factor.

Isolation is a risk factor.

The Emotional Reality of This Work

This work is not easy. You see trauma, loss, fear, and the consequences of systems that often intervene too late. The emotional weight can be heavy.

But the work is also filled with resilience, hope, and moments of real transformation. You see young people who have every reason to give up yet show extraordinary determination. You see small changes with enormous meaning. You see futures opening that once felt impossible.

These moments stay with you, and they remind you why this work matters.

What I Wish Policymakers Understood

If I could ask policymakers to hold one truth at the centre of reform, it would be this:

A young person involved in violence is almost always a young person who has been let down long before they ever harmed anyone else.

Knife carrying rarely begins with intent.

It begins with fear, trauma, coercion, exclusion, or the absence of safety.

We cannot expect children to behave like adults when their lives have not given them the foundations that adults take for granted.

Conclusion

The reforms underway have potential, but only if they remain rooted in humanity, not bureaucracy. Reform must recognise that young people are still forming their identities, and they need patience, guidance, opportunities, and safe adults who believe in them.

We must stop expecting perfection from children who have lived through instability and instead give them what they have never had:
• the freedom to grow
• the safety to fail
• the support to get back up
• and the belief that they can choose a different path

A single conversation changed the course of my life.

A simple chessboard changed the course of another young person’s.

If reform can amplify the power of those small but profound moments, we will not only reduce violence, but we will also build futures that young people genuinely want to choose.