Active Communities
Youth at risk?
This report presents the first set of findings from a national survey of young people funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which aims to identify the factors that place young people at risk of displaying problem behaviour in later life and what factors mitigate those risks.
Title: Youth at risk? A national survey of risk factors, protective factors and problem behaviour among young people in England, Scotland and Wales
Author: Communities that Care
Number of pages: 56
Date published: April 2002
Research in Britain, the United States and other Western countries has shown that there are influential factors in young people’s lives associated with an increased risk of developing a range of health and behaviour problems as they grow older.
These problems can be:
committing crime and other anti-social behaviour
leaving formal education without qualifications (‘school failure’)
misuse of drugs, alcohol and other substances
school-age pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases
Equally as important, research also shows that there are factors that help to protect children and young people from later difficulties, even when they are exposed to such risks.
The survey was carried out using the Communities that Care (CtC) Youth Survey questionnaire, used in the CtC programme to assess the risk and protection profile of local areas. However, the aim of this research project was to conduct the survey with a representative sample of secondary school students in England, Scotland and Wales.
The findings create an important new planning tool for the CtC process that will enable communities involved to compare results of their neighbourhood audits using the survey with the national ‘average’. They also provide an insight into the problem behaviour among young people and of the contributing risks.
Chapters in this report include:
Descriptions of 17 identified risk factors and 6 protective factors for the audit to assess, together with a more detailed account of the Social Development Model (the theory that underpins Communities that Care)
Details of the national survey sample and methods
Survey findings relating to adolescent problems and problem behaviour
Individual risk factors
Results on protective factors
Conclusions and recommendations based on the survey findings
Click here to link to a summary of the report
Last update: 6 June 2003