Background: The UK, like most countries across Europe and other advanced economies, has experienced an alarming rise in the levels of young people (aged between 16 and 24 years) who are detached from both the labour market and the education and training system. In the UK, there are nearly a million 16-24-year-olds who are recorded as being not in…

Research from the Economic and Social Research Council programme on Pathways Into and Out of Crime prioritised young people's "voices" in exploring experiences of crime and a range of intervention services. Drawing on data from interviews with 110 young people, this paper explores their perspectives of professional assessment. Embedded…

It is not clear how best to support youth with type 1 diabetes to participate in physical education (PE) at school. The aim of this study was to explore perceptions of facilitators and barriers to PE in youth with type 1 diabetes and to determine how schools can help these individuals to be physically active. Interviews and focus groups were…

The first decade of the current Labour Government had been characterised by a whole raft of education reforms aimed at driving up standards--a focus on early literacy and numeracy, standards funds to push up exam results, the much greater use of technology to track individual pupils' progress and to ensure a growing number achieved the benchmark…

How well do youth offending teams (YOT) work? In which areas of their work is their performance excellent and where is improvement needed? This research examined annual performance assessments of services for children and young people undertaken by Ofsted in 57 local authorities from January 2006 to April 2009, together with relevant data relating…

Teenage pregnancy prevention programmes targeted at young women have received considerable attention from researchers and programme developers. However, to date, relatively limited information is available on preventing teenage fatherhood or improving outcomes for young fathers. A notable gap is concerned with understanding the forms of sexual…

In this article, we critically reflect on the constitution of the UK's alcohol problem in the government's "Safe, Social, Sensible" policy document, referring to findings from a 3-year ESRC funded study on young people, alcohol and identity. We suggest that discursive themes running throughout "Safe, Sensible, Social" include…

Young people who are in "jobs without training" (JWT) are commonly seen as "dead end kids in dead end jobs". They have been identified as a problem group who need to be encouraged back into formal education and training. Following the Leitch report and the new policy goal to involve all young people in education and training up…

Documents the health needs of young offenders aged 10-17 attending a community Youth Offending Team. Health information was collected via semi-structured interviews and standardized questionnaires. Potential mental health problems that required further specialist assessment were identified in 56% of those assessed. Discusses the process of meeting…

Traces the emergence of engagement mentoring, which seeks to re-engage socially excluded youth with the formal labor market by altering their attitudes, values, and beliefs. Engagement mentoring has been promoted in European and British policy as an holistic response to social exclusion. (Contains 62 references.) (GCP)

Makes general observations about youth services in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, The Netherlands, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Specific reference is made to nontraditional outpatient, youth advisory services attempting to reach youth alienated from traditional mental health services. (Author/RH)

Examines some of the reasons for the differences between depressed and non-depressed adolescent suicidal attempters in their response to a brief family intervention. Determined that efficacy of the family intervention in reducing suicidal ideation within the nondepressed sub-group was probably not mediated by changes in variables such as family…

Glue sniffing and solvent misuse have seriously affected children and teenagers throughout the United Kingdom. This article discusses glue sniffing in terms of prevalence, association with disability, physical and psychological effects, signs and symptoms, counseling for sniffers, and successful interventions including an approach using videotape…

This essay examines the youth policies and programs of the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Sweden, and Norway in an effort to provide examples that may be of assistance in the development of such policies in the United States. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the topic, noting that the focus is on younger adolescents between the ages of 10…

To date, assessments of the prevalence of mental health problems in young offenders have largely focused on incarcerated samples. This paper describes a quantitative study of a sample of 47 male young offenders under the supervision of an inner city Youth Offending Team. A semi-structured interview, modified from previous studies, was used to…