Ten ways youth studies programme influenced policy and practice

Founded in 2014 by Professor Hannah Smithson, the MCYS at Manchester Metropolitan University has grown into an internationally renowned research centre. Its strengths lie in its inter-disciplinary focus, it specialises in young people’s experiences of the youth justice system, the education system, climate activism, seeking asylum, language discrimination, hate crimes, Islamophobia, and criminal exploitation. The centre’s genuine and meaningful participatory and co-production research methods ensure that young people are worked with and not on.

10 ways in which the MCYS has influenced policy and practice:

1. Co-creating Participatory Youth Practice (PYP) with justice-involved children.

Through a ground-breaking knowledge transfer partnership between the MCYS and the Greater Manchester Youth Justice Services, the internationally recognised and award winning PYP framework has transformed youth justice national and international practice and policy. Led by Professor Hannah Smithson, over 400 practitioners have benefited from PYP training, resulting in improved professional practice. PYP has informed strategy changes for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority – the framework underpins its entire youth justice transformation strategy, Comic Relief, the youth custody service, and youth agencies in Australia and South America. It has doubled young people’s engagement rates with service provision in practice where it has been implemented. It has been central to the YJB’s Case Management Guidance focusing on How to support Children’s Participation and Co-Creation. It won the Times Higher Award in 2019 for Knowledge Transfer Partnership of the year.  PYP was central to a parliamentary roundtable hosted in 2024, discussing ‘Developing a child focused youth justice system’ chaired by Janet Daby MP.  

• Supporting children’s meaningful participation in the youth justice system (justiceinspectorates.gov.uk)
• Case management guidance - How to work with children - Guidance - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
• PowerPoint Presentation (manchester.gov.uk)

2. Votes at 16

Dr Ben Bowman’s work with young people is contributing to new ways for considering young people as citizens in contemporary democracies. For example, his research on Votes at 16 has contributed to a policy debate hosted at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, and he has contributed expert evidence on Votes at 16 in Australia. Building on the experiences of young people and using participatory methods, Dr Bowman has written on young people’s political psychology in times of economic crisis, contributed new approaches to young dissent as a form of civic participation, and youth-centred models for supporting young people’s voice and power in democracy.

3. Ancient History, Contemporary Belonging: a creative exploration of the migration of ancient historical objects with migrant-background young people

Ancient History, Contemporary Belonging was an arts-research collaboration between MCYS researchers, Manchester Museum, Sheba Arts, and migrant-background youth researchers. Led by Dr Jennifer Cromwell and Dr Caitlin Nunn, Ancient History, Contemporary Belonging brought together archival research, participatory arts-based practice, and the lived experiences of youth researchers to produce new understandings about the migration of both contemporary young people and ancient historical objects. The resulting exhibition, featuring youth researchers’ artworks and commentaries, is currently housed in Manchester Museum (2023-2025), accompanied by youth-generated learning resources. Ancient History, Contemporary Belonging has created new possibilities for centring diverse youth voices in heritage institutions.

• Ancient History, Contemporary Belonging (historyandbelonging.com)

4. Getting out for Good

A rigorous five-year research project led by MCYS’ Dr Deborah Jump and funded by Comic Relief has explored the experiences of over a hundred at-risk girls and young women. The research itself has provided insight into how girls and young women can be protected from harm and supported to succeed. This mixed method approach highlights the critical need for tailored support mechanisms around mental health sexual exploitation. The project's findings, presented at a Parliamentary Roundtable in May 2023, featured discussions led by esteemed figures such as Baroness Louise Casey and Jess Phillips MP, and Anne Longfield. All attendees took part in a discussion around a national provision of support for at-risk girls and young women. This has fed into a joint report between Commission on Young Lives and Manchester Centre for Youth Studies, and a series of local and national policy recommendations. The Getting out for Good model has been embedded at a local level across Greater Manchester.  

• https://thecommissiononyounglives.co.uk/the-commission-on-young-lives-and-manchester-centre-for-youth-studies-publish-a-joint-report-on-girls-who-are-at-risk-of-violence-exploitation-harm-and-involvement-with-gangs/
• Getting out for Good: Preventing Gangs Through Participation (justiceinspectorates.gov.uk)

5. Radical Kindness

Young people are a driving force behind action on climate change around the world. Dr Benjamin Bowman’s work with young people on climate change ranges from interviews with climate activists to creative writing groups with teenagers, and from international policy work to supporting young writers to submit their first articles to the school newspaper. His project, “Radical Kindness”, in collaboration with teams of young people around the world led to a published report that explains the ways that kindness, care and empathy motivate young people to take action on climate change. This report, co-authored with young people, is published by the Council of Europe and European Commission. The “Radical Kindness” project provided the groundwork for a portfolio of youth-centred, creative and collaborative research opportunities for young people to express themselves on climate change, including Young Climate Imaginaries (YoCLI), a series of projects that led to important research outputs on climate action and collaborative outputs with young people, including a new teaching tool for climate education, co-authored by young researchers on the YoCLI projects.

6. Adverse Childhood Experiences and Serious Youth Violence

This research project, led by MCYS’ Dr Paul Gray and funded by the Youth Justice Board, investigated the complex relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and serious youth violence. The research brought together an innovative mix of methods, including a bespoke quantitative ACEs assessment tool designed by the research team, qualitative interviews with youth justice workers, and narrative life-story interviews with justice-involved young people. Crucially, the research also included a series of participatory creative workshops involving drama therapists, a professional sports coach, and justice-involved young people. The recommendations from the project included, for example, the need for training for youth justice workers to implement trauma-informed practice in a more therapeutic way, the availability of clinical support around trauma for those young people who may need it, and the provision of clinical supervision to youth justice workers. The findings from the project have been presented to regional and national practitioners and policymakers, international academic audiences, and a Parliamentary Roundtable chaired by Dame Vera Baird in July 2023.

• Serious youth violence research programme - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
• Supporting vulnerable adolescents - Written evidence - Committees - UK Parliament
• https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2021/11/Academic-Insights-Gray-et-al.pdf
• Gray, P., Jump, D. and Smithson, H. (2023) Adverse Childhood Experiences and Serious Youth Violence. Bristol: Bristol University Press. https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/adverse-childhood-experiences-and-serious-youth-violence

7. Young people’s perceptions of safety and violence

Working with the Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) Dr Fatima Khan, Professor Hannah Smithson and Dr Kate Westwood published a report examining the views and opinions of violence from young people in Greater Manchester. They worked with approximately 70 young people across Greater Manchester, using creative approaches to explore young people’s views of the causes of violence, their feelings of safety and what they think should be done to tackle violence. They made several recommendations for what the VRU could fund to help reduce violence which included young people being listened to, additional resources for young people’s activities, support for families, consistent key workers, and safe spaces. The report’s findings have helped inform the Greater than Violence strategy, a ten-year violence prevention strategy in the city-region developed by the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester, in collaboration with Greater Manchester VRU, partner agencies, communities, and the Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector. The strategy marks a commitment to reducing violence and improving the lives of young people across the region.

8. The impact of COVID-19 on the Youth Justice System

Led by Professor Hannah Smithson and working in partnership with the Alliance for Youth Justice, researchers carried out the first empirical in-depth exploration of the impact that COVID-19 had on each stage of the youth justice system. Based on interviews with 140 youth justice professionals, participatory research with 40 children in custody and in the community, and a survey of all 157 youth offending teams in England and Wales, the research demonstrates that the pandemic increased the vulnerabilities of justice-involved children. It created a number of research briefs and policy briefs each of which have informed the national discussion and debate about the response to the pandemic and the long-term implications of these responses for the Youth Justice System. The project culminated in a conference hosted by MCYS and a parliamentary event organised by the Alliance for Youth Justice. Speakers included, Anne Longfield, Tim Laughton MP, Victoria Atkins MP, and Keith Fraser.

• Howard J Crime Justice - 2024 - Smithson - It f ked me up bad man It f ked my head up bad man bad The impact of.pdf (mmu.ac.uk)
• Unmasked and Exposed: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Youth Custodial Estate. A Compelling Case for Ideological Change | The British Journal of Criminology | Oxford Academic (oup.com)
• Policy Briefing: Crises and crossroads for the children’s secure estate: Resisting child imprisonment and rethinking youth custody post-pandemic — AYJ, Alliance for Youth Justice
• Policy Briefing: A critical juncture for youth justice: Learning lessons and future directions for a post-pandemic youth justice system — AYJ, Alliance for Youth Justice
•  Policy Briefing: A perfect storm for children at risk? Preventing a post-pandemic surge in the criminalisation of children — AYJ, Alliance for Youth Justice     

9. Seeking Hope

Working with the Children’s Society, Dr Caitlin Nunn undertake a participatory action research project with members of The Children’s Society’s Hope Group: a group for young people who migrate to the United Kingdom as separated asylum-seeking children. The outcome was a co-produced ‘zine communicating young people’s experiences of the asylum process, including in relation to media representations, accommodation, care, education, and social work. The ‘zine also offers recommendations to improve the lives of separated young people seeking asylum in the United Kingdom. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown, the zine was launched on The Children’s Society website alongside a co-authored blog. The zine also forms part of The Children’s Society’s youth-led campaign for legal guardians to be provided to all separated and unaccompanied young people seeking asylum in England and Wales. A second outcome of the project, ‘Calais Again’, a digital story co-created with one young man about his first return visit to France after gaining refugee status in the UK, was screened online as part of Refugee Week 2020. 

10. The South Asian Research Network for Childhood and Youth Studies

Led by Dr Haridhan Goswami, The South Asian Research Network for Childhood and Youth Studies, undertook the first project to explore the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on children’s wellbeing in Bangladesh. The research was carried out in collaboration with Children’s Worlds—an international consortium of child wellbeing researchers from over 35 countries. Over 1,300 Bangladeshi children aged 10-12 years took part in the COVID-19 survey. Using the pre-COVID-19 period as the benchmark, the study revealed the negative impact of the pandemic on children’s wellbeing, reflected in the reduction of their satisfaction on time spending (29% down), learning at school (40% down), relationship with friends (30% down), and the people who they live with (13% down) during the pandemic.

• CHILDREN’S WORLDS - CHILDREN’S WORLDS (isciweb.org)

Hannah Smithson is professor of criminology and youth justice at the Manchester Centre for Youth Studies