The role of key workers in supporting children and young people with lived experience of serious youth violence

Insights Report

Thursday 27 February

Crest was commissioned by the Department for Education (DfE), in partnership with the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF), to explore the role of key workers in supporting children and young people (CYP) who have experienced serious youth violence (SYV). This research adds to the evidence base on trusted adult relationships and improves our understanding about how to effectively implement the key worker model in the context of SYV. It sits within the context of the DfE and YEF’s wider programme of research into SYV.

To conduct the research we took a qualitative approach including a rapid review of existing evidence on key workers, interviews practitioners working with vulnerable CYP, and interviews with CYP who have experienced SYV. In addition, we carried out a deep dive to examine how the key worker model is delivered in a local area.

A key element of this research was co-design with relevant stakeholders. This included holding workshops with practitioners and CYP early on in the project to draft the interview questions and ensure our lines of inquiry were relevant and clear.

Our key findings

The role and core functions of key workers in the context of serious youth violence are understood and agreed upon by practitioners. Nevertheless, there is a sense that wider partners and commissioners lack clarity on the work carried out by key workers, which may hinder partnership working and the effectiveness of key workers. The role of key workers in the context of SYV may benefit from being formalised.
A trusted relationship between a child or young person and the individual key worker is the cornerstone of the effective delivery of the key worker model. A trusted relationship with CYP relies on consistent and reliable engagement between the CYP and key workers. Key workers and CYP also highlighted the importance of informal support - chats, check-ins, activities - alongside more formal SYV interventions. More than skills and experience, building trust with CYP also relies on key workers possessing certain attributes, such as being good-humoured, kind and honest.
Successful key workers sit within and act as a bridge between CYP and the systems of support for CYP, including: education, youth justice, health, community, third sector and social care. This includes supporting CYP to access (get in contact with), navigate (understand), and engage (use) with the wider systems. In addition, many key workers take on the role of advocating (standing up) for CYP across wider systems and services within systems of support. Key workers often take a hands-on approach to shaping the CYP’s journey through wider systems of support. However, the end goal is often to support the child or young person to independently connect with wider systems of support.

Figure 1: Key workers can connect CYP to a range of services within these wider systems

Successful key workers empower CYP to shape their own support, ensuring engagement is based on their preferences. The most effective key workers take into account the child’s views in terms of the areas they want to improve and how they want to go about making changes. Key workers then tailor the delivery of support to individual CYP.

There are broadly four key stages to key workers’ support: allocation, delivery, monitoring and transitioning from support. Each stage should be tailored to the needs of the child and their preferences. The delivery of support involves ongoing informal engagement, social activities and learning opportunities, SYV targeted interventions, connecting CYP with wider systems of support as well as strengthening the CYP’s non-professional support networks (family, friends etc).
The delivery of the key worker model is enabled by individual, organisational, and external level factors. Adopting a child-led approach, setting clear boundaries and providing consistent and reliable support are key to enabling key working. Organisational level factors, such as staff feeling supported and adequate resourcing can also serve to create a supportive environment, while limited partnership working, a lack of local services and short-term commissioning cycles can act as barriers.
There are challenges to measuring the impact of key workers, in particular in demonstrating the impacts of the key worker on outcomes associated with SYV. It is difficult to demonstrate causation between key worker delivery and outcomes strongly associated with SYV such as offending and educational inclusion. Nevertheless, key workers monitor outcomes of their work through discussions with CYP, parents and guardians, and other professionals in touch with the CYP.
Key workers supporting CYP with lived experience of SYV work to impact a range of outcomes associated with SYV. Although understanding the causal impact of key working is beyond the scope of this research, practitioners and CYP reported outcomes including reduced offending, engagement in education, access to healthcare, and emotional regulation.
1. “[We] see a range of different impacts because it's child-led. So we will focus on what that young person wants to focus on. So in every project, every impact is going to be different.” - Key worker
2. "When children come to the end of their support with us, their resilience is so much higher than it was when they first started. That's the biggest impact to me." - Key worker

In summary, key workers support CYP with lived experience of SYV to lead healthier, happier and safer lives. Key workers play an important role in helping CYP achieve positive outcomes, including improved school engagement, emotional regulation, employment opportunities - and ultimately a reduction in offending. In particular, we found that the work key workers do to build a trusted relationship with the individual CYP - enabled by a child-led approach, which seeks to develop the support offer together with the CYP - is central to the support they provide. This relationship acts as a foundation, which other professionals can build on to provide more targeted support and wrap-around care.

Ensuring that key workers are integrated into systems of support and able to effectively work together with partners across these systems is essential to realising the benefits of key workers. Overall, the potential of key workers to significantly impact CYP’s vulnerability to SYV should be considered in any plans to tackle SYV.