An exploration of how young people who have offended conceptualise the term ‘family’

This research project aimed to explore how young people who have offended conceptualise the term ‘family’. This was important because ‘family’ has played a central role in policy, theory and research concerning young people who have offended; however, children and young people’s understandings and experiences of ‘family’ has largely been ignored in policy and research that concerns them. Following a grounded theory methodology (GTM) a policy document analysis was conducted to explore how the term ‘family’ has been constructed and defined in policy that concerns young people who have offended. Then, primary data was generated in collaboration with young people to further understand how they conceptualise the term ‘family’, and in essence, what this word means to them. Using questionnaires and focus groups, this facilitated discussions with the young people to discuss the meaning of ‘family’ at their own pace and in the presence of peers from a similar background. The young people who participated in this research were chosen due to their offender status in the youth justice system (YJS), however, many of them also chose to self-report experience of being a looked after child (LAC). The young people were drawn from two geographical locations: London and Glasgow.
Key themes that were drawn from the empirical research identified that the young people placed more emphasis on the emotional aspects of ‘family life’ than on the presence of specific ‘family members’. The discussions centred around the importance of love, trust and safety, in determining who should be considered ‘family’, which was significantly different to much of the previous research reviewed. Therefore, this thesis presents an original contribution to knowledge, that young people who have offended use a variety of diverse and flexible ways to conceptualise the term ‘family’. The language used to describe the term ‘family’ was largely based on their own personal experiences of ‘family’ and ‘family life’, which for some of the young people, was significantly affected by their time spent in the care system. The findings from this research not only provide an original contribution to knowledge in the varied and dynamic ways in which young people who have offended choose to describe and define the term ‘family’, but the findings also complement and add to the emerging but limited evidence-base of research that seeks to place children and young people’s voices at the centre.