Drugs, care and sex work: sex and survival

This chapter on young people growing up in state care, vulnerability and sex work draws on research I was involved in with Professors Geoffrey Pearson and Tim Newburn in the late 1990s into the early years of the new millennium. The research was carried out as one of a handful of studies on the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) ‘Youth, Citizenship and Social Change’ programme titled ‘The Scale and Meaning of Drugs in the Lives of Young People Growing up in State Care’. The study surveyed 400 young people living in residential or foster care and a small number of ‘care leavers’ across different English towns and cities, and 30 participated in a life history interview. Many of the young people had experienced multiple and disrupted care placements, backgrounds of drug and/or alcohol addicted parents, and some described teenage lifestyles that incorporated early and exploitative sexual relationships. This chapter draws to the fore some of the findings from this earlier research to contribute to the current debates and calls for improvements in responding to this problem (Jago et al, 2011; APPG, 2012; House of Commons Education Committee, 2014). Importantly, it is a tribute to Geoff’s work on the study

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Mischief, Morality and Mobs: Essays in Honour of Geoffrey Pearson on 01/09/2016, available online: http://www.routledge.com/9781138679733