Youth justice staff and service-users’ experiences of Trauma-Informed Care: A qualitative study

Background: Trauma and PTSD are common experiences amongst justice-involved young people, highlighting a need for youth justice (YJ) services to become more trauma-informed. Research evaluating the impact or effectiveness of Trauma Informed Care (TIC) in community justice settings remains limited. We therefore explored stakeholder perspectives and experiences of implementing TIC in a YJ setting, to identify perceived benefits, challenges, and reflections on wider roll-out across community justice services. Method: We interviewed nineteen staff, three young people, and one caregiver (n=23) involved with one local community YJ service in England which had recently implemented a TIC model. Data relating to their experiences of TIC were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results: We identified four themes: Seeing Youth Justice through a Trauma Lens; Relational Practice and Repair; Trauma in the Wider Caregiving System; and Role Conflict and Ambiguity. Implementing TIC yielded several benefits, particularly improving relationships between staff and young people. Clinical supervision and oversight appeared crucial to TIC success. Although TIC was generally well-received, staff expressed ambivalence about its application in community justice settings and identified several structural, systemic, and individual barriers to its long-term success. Conclusions: Findings suggest that TIC can be successfully implemented in settings serving justice-involved young people in England but also highlight that TIC in community youth justice contexts will need to be conceptualised and operationalised slightly differently. Further co-produced evaluations across a range of community justice settings are needed.