As children enter adolescence, their developmental needs in relation to safety and support change; they begin spending more time away from home and in extrafamilial contexts and for some, this includes exposure to significant forms of harm and abuse including serious violence, gang and drug-related criminal activity, sexual and criminal exploitation, trafficking, and other forms of peer-to-peer abuse. Whilst many of these forms of harm are not new, they are increasingly viewed as child welfare, as opposed to juvenile justice issues; thereby increasing the involvement of social workers in leveraging a response. Moreover, adolescents experiencing harm within their family home(s) and relationships may respond differently than younger children; for example, by spending time away from home or displaying behaviours that are difficult or challenging for their parents or professionals. In this context social workers are often tasked with protecting adolescents within constrained practice contexts and policy frameworks better designed for protecting younger children. Such frameworks avoid the complexities of safeguarding adolescents who may have experienced an accumulation of harm inside and/or outside their home and family network, and whose behaviour may pose a risk of harm to others and to themselves.

Research on social work with adolescents has identified innovative, participatory, creative, and bold solutions to the above practice and policy challenges. Recent international research continues to evidence ways in which professionals are partnering with young people to keep them safe; scrutinise and evaluate the efficacy of out-of-home care for adolescents; theorise the role of social workers within interagency partnerships responsible for public safety; and identify effective interventions in social and public space contexts where extra-familial harm occurs. The Social Work and Adolescents Special Interest Group aims to bring together researchers interested in investigating, evidencing and promoting social work responses for adolescents. In recent years, the group has identified severl collective interests in:

1. how our political, geographic, and cultural contexts influence how adolescent risk-taking is understood
2. how adolescents are surveilled -by police and/or other professionals working alongside or on behalf of the criminal justice system
3. how the protection (or transgression) of rights is afforded to different groups of young people  

We meet several times a year online, share publications and involve each other in our work; we meet yearly at the ESWRA conference and welcome anyone with an interest in social work with adolescents and a love for young people!

Samuel Keller, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland

Stijn Sieckelinck, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands

Michelle Lefevre, University of Sussex, UK

Erika Laredo, Leeds Beckett University, UK

Lauren Wroe, Durham University, UK

Lara Gerassi, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Tonimarie Benaton, University of Derby, UK

Claudia Equit, Technical University Dortmund, Germany

Delphine Peace, Durham University, UK

Jenny Lloyd, Durham University, UK

Emma Sorbring, University West, Sweden

Jorune Vysniauskyte-Rimkiene, Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania

Christine Barter, University of Central Lancashire, UK

Anna Raymaekers, KU Leuven, Belgium

Geraldine Brady, Nottingham Trent University, UK

Vania Pinto, Oxford University, UK

Autumn Roesch-March, University of Edinburgh, UK