Transcending the Professional–Client Divide: Supporting Young People with Complex Support Needs Through Transitions

Abstract

Young people with complex support needs frequently experience multiple intersecting forms of disadvantage including experiences of violence, abuse and neglect, housing instability and homelessness, problematic substance use, exclusion from education, and contact with the criminal justice system. Many of these young people have mental health, cognitive disability and/or other health issues that also impact on their lives. These young people need to navigate multiple, diverse, and often difficult transitions between services, adding to the existing chaos in their lives. This article explores the experiences of young people with complex support needs in transition, specifically young people's viewpoints and experiences of supports they receive from paid professionals. This qualitative study used body mapping research methods and in-depth interviews with 38 young people aged 16 to 26 years in three Australian states. Helpful and trusting paid relationships could serve as an anchor to young people during complex transitions and other highly turbulent life periods. These relationships were contingent on a deep and non-judgmental knowing of the young person, contributed constructive outcomes and stability in young people's lives, and for some young people, had 'life-saving' effects. These findings present opportunities and challenges for policymakers and practitioners to balance the tensions between authentic relationship-based work with young people and risk-averse, economically-driven imperatives in contemporary youth service provision.

Using Body-Map Storytelling for Accessing Insights in an Educational Intervention for Food Consciousness

“…After this process, content analysis, reflexive thematic modality (Braun & Clark, 2006; 2019), was applied. Other studies have also applied this type of analysis to the data produced in BMST (Boydell et al, 2020; Dew et al, 2019; Ellem et al, 2020), including the evaluation of the BMST experience as a data collection method in a sex education intervention (Lys et al, 2018), which seems very similar to the present investigation. Reflexive Thematic Analysis was chosen because it is a creative and reflexive method that seeks to identify meanings and their patterns (Braun & Clarke, 2006; 2019), considering the depth and sensitivity of BMST in communicating phenomena.…”

From ‘at risk’ to ‘a risk’: The criminalisation of young people with cognitive disability in residential care

“…Family and positive social networks that are seen as a natural source of support and safety net associated with normative transitions are often unavailable to this group. Our work with young people with complex support needs (Ellem et al, 2020) indicates there is a significant disconnect between how those young people understand transition and the types of transition that are currently recognised in the service sector: for example, spatial transitions between geographical places (often the driving focus of service intervention) or life transitions such as leaving school, while young people identified two further types of transitions: ‘relational’ and ‘embodied’ which are seldom recognised by the service or support system.…”

“…Young people's lives are characterised by transitions associated with changes in role, relationships, activities, identities, environments and living arrangements, conventionally conceptualised in terms of transitions between life phases (childhood to adulthood) or between institutions (e.g. school to work) (Ellem et al, 2020). Our recent research 4 has begun to problematise this conventional and linear conceptualisation of transition for young people with cognitive disability who have complex needs including those in the out-of-home care and youth justice systems such as Natalie and Jack, where transitions are understood to be less linear and less effectively supported than for other young people.…”

Socio-Educational Support Deficits in the Emancipation of Protected Youth in Spain

“…The professionals are aware of the deficits of the child welfare system, especially in the cases of youth with worse evolution during their stay in residential resources. In these cases, the planning of bureaucratic processes is carried out without taking into account the needs of time and dedication that the professional teams require for each young person (Ellem et al, 2020 ). The organizational structure forces the exit of youths with worse evolution in order to optimize the few places and means available.…”