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Young offender mentoring programmes aim to support young people’s desistance from offending, but despite the importance, there remains limited exploration into mentor experiences of supporting the young people. This study aims to explore how a community-based mentoring intervention supports desistance in young offenders by understanding the mentor's experiences, with a specific reflective focus on facilitators and barriers to their work.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven mentors from Northumbria Coalition against Crime, a youth and community service. Interview transcripts were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis, with external auditing conducted by the research supervisor.

Two superordinate themes resulted: “Factors for engagement” and “Personal experiences”, with participant disclosures reflecting professional reward and a sense of success. This was interwoven with “burnout”, emotional investment and challenges linked to barriers to effectiveness. Challenges included the young people having external negative influences, multiple individuals involved in a person’s care and the barrier of in person activities during the coronavirus pandemic. The clinical importance of mentoring programmes, implications for future working practice and research limitations are considered.

The clinical importance of mentoring programmes, implications for future working practice and research limitations are considered.

These findings contribute to understanding mentors’ experiences of working with young people in the community, offering critical insight into the mentorship and wider service dynamics. Furthermore, it provides an inaugural evaluation of the Northumbria Coalition against Crime services.

Groups of students were enrolled in a course that sought to produce a three-phase theoretical model over three semesters.

A design project to comprehensively address school violence was launched at a university in eastern Pennsylvania.

This article updates the recent and most critical finding of the project by illuminating specific implications of the importance of teacher training and the development toward competence in recognition of children who are emotionally and psychologically injured through proactive measures such as screening for emotional and psychological well-being.

Although the model has not been tested, screening to identify those in need of emotional support and training to support teachers is clear. Screening and training offer important opportunities to help learners build skills toward resilience to soften the effects of trauma.

A view of the “whole child” with regard to academic success could further foster social and emotional development.

Early intervention can prevent the onset of symptoms associated with posttraumatic stress and related disorders. This effort alone may significantly reduce the uncomfortable incidences and perhaps ultimate prevention of the violence that is perpetuated among children.

Preliminary research supports a continued conversation regarding effective tools to find children emotionally and psychologically at-risk, which allows teachers an opportunity for timely emotional and psychological interventions.

The purpose of this study is to examine the advancement of cultural transformation over time demands certain alterations in human perceptions. It also aims to examine the 21st century’s many radical changes in India, the constant legal battles to decriminalize homosexuality, and challenges to the rigid dichotomy between heterosexuality and homosexuality. Besides, it influences popular culture among the masses, which has turned out to create a more visible space for the lesbian community. In India, lesbian literature begins synchronously under the shades of women’s writing and feminism that wires new hopes for their identity.

This paper examines a primary text as Indian writer Abha Dawesar’s Babyji (2005). There comes the iconic work of Abha Dawesar’s Babyji (2005), which creates a turning point by introducing the life, inner conflict and turbulence of a teenage girl. In addition, a textual analysis of this novel brings forth an analysis of attributes such as sexuality, gender and the interplay of caste and class that meld lesbian childhood and adolescence. This paper also examines how a lesbian girl adapts to and negotiates her maturation amidst vivid social scenarios and cultural conditioning.

A few studies (Hidalgo, et al., 2013; Bem, 1989; Pyne, 2016) show many children have reached or crossed their teenage life without accurate or affirmative knowledge of sexuality and gender. Parents, teachers and even other intellectuals of the adult world fail to transfer their knowledge effectively to children. Definitely, the relevance of sex education is paramount, but more important is what implementation tactics should be used for the same cause. The point is that sex education should not be condensed into a certain gender or perpetuate parochial discrimination. It needs to adapt an age-appropriate curriculum for the cognitive and emotional development of the individuals. Considering these factors, understanding comprehensive sex education is what is most likely to find sustainable remedies for this matter. Gerald writes about a socialization process and gays and lesbians hiding their identity from family and society; a fear of rejection; there is a social gap in peer and family spheres. These fears prevent lesbian or gay young persons from fully developing their identities (1999). Rao and Mason tested a model derived from minority stress theory in which the perceived impact of Section 377 increases depressive symptoms of sexual minorities by increasing concealment stress, leading to a diminished sense of belonging. Because of their minority status, they are more vulnerable to and have a higher prevalence of mental illness than heterosexual individuals (2018).

Babyji has created a discourse to perpetuate normativity and gives importance to the mental health of the excluded lesbian group. It opens a door to studying teenage groups’ issues and their challenges to understanding social and mental issues regarding their identity. A study on this untouched area is required to highlight their issues and mental health problems. This research is an initiative step to create and provide a platform to raise awareness in society.

This program evaluation aimed to investigate the benefits and challenges of an international, intercultural, e-community-engagement experience involving youth and higher education students. The authors sought to understand the meaning that participants would make of an international, intercultural, e-community-engagement experience.

The program evaluation component of this project was qualitative, participatory and action-oriented. It was composed of online reflection sessions with small, international groups of higher education students from Iraq, India, Morocco, South Africa and the USA immediately following each of five interactive exchange sessions with youth from South Africa. It also included one culminating reflection session to which all of the higher education student participants were invited and a written questionnaire that was completed by the youth participants at the conclusion of the project. The reflection sessions were recorded and transcribed. Transcripts and survey data were reviewed for emergent themes.

Cultural exposure emerged as the primary theme with participants valuing the opportunity to learn about different cultures and to connect with individuals from across the globe.

This program evaluation was not designed as a generalizable study. This pilot initiative provides evidence of the potential value and importance of international, intercultural e-community-engagement experiences for youth and higher education students.

The potential value of technology to build exchange opportunities for young people is immense and largely untapped. International, intercultural e-community-engagement initiatives can be made available to students globally with relatively limited resources. A highly structured and focused plan provides clarity about expectations and requirements for students. A high level of commitment is required by all participants, including the faculty coordinators.

Although the project was brief, exposure to numerous countries and cultures allowed participants to challenge their assumptions about different peoples and places in the world. The potential benefits for greater compassion and understanding of communities and cultures in an international context are high.

This program evaluation contributes to and extends the literature on the possibilities and challenges of international e-community-engagement; it demonstrates the potential for e-community-engagement across multiple countries to broaden students' exposure to and interest in global perspectives.

This article asks how gender, ethnicity and other identities intersect and shape the employment experiences of social workers. During recent decades, governments have contracted social care to for-profit and nonprofit organizations (NPOs) globally as a part of the adaption of the neoliberal approach. Most employees in these organizations are women. However, there is a lack of knowledge about women working in social service NPOs and their unique working environments.

This article explores the experiences of women employed as social workers in social care NPOs in Israel regarding intersectionality. 27 in-depth interviews were conducted with women social workers working in social service NPOs. Participants reflected diversity in ethnicity, religion and full-time and part-time jobs. Thematic analysis was used.

The findings shed light on: (1) the contradiction social workers experienced between the stated values of the social care NPO and those values’ conduct, (2) intersectional discrimination among social workers from vulnerable populations and (3) the lack of gender-aware policies.

The need to raise awareness of the social care sector and governments to those contradictions and to promote diversity through gender-aware policies and practices.

The article suggests a conceptualization describing gender employment contradictions in social care NPOs, discusses how the angle of intersectionality expands the understanding of the complexities and pressures exerted on social workers from minority groups and emphasizes the need for social care NPOs to acknowledge and deal with these contradictions.

Service-learning (SL) is a widely accepted pedagogy that can enrich the learning experience for students in higher education while they apply their skills in a meaningful community service. This research is part of a larger project that aimed to motivate educational achievement among youths living in a priority neighborhood through SL. Toward this goal, this study investigated the impact of SL on the college students from a college information technology programmer-analyst (ITPA) program, who were deployed as role models to youths in a priority neighborhood on the east coast of Canada.

The overall project used the design-based methodology. Seven college students were deployed in two phases to a community center as role models for the delivery of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (or STEAM) programs to youths living in a priority neighborhood. Data were collected using open-ended survey, journal entries and focus groups and was qualitatively analyzed by drawing on two frameworks: the experiential-learning framework by Kolb (1984) and the conceptual SL framework by Ash and Clayton (2009).

The findings describe the outcome of the college students' experiences in SL with respect to the development of skills and capacities needed by employers. Specifically, their experiences mirrored all aspects of the two frameworks applied. Therefore, the study validates the use of SL pedagogy in higher education. In addition, the study identified the role of SL as an integration strategy for international students. While the research contributes to the wider SL conversation for policymakers, faculty and administrators of higher education, it also promotes development opportunities for college students.

The integration of SL pedagogy is widespread among programs in higher education. However, there are no common SL frameworks used in literature. The study is novel in that it combines two theoretical frameworks – Kolb (1984) and Ash and Clayton (2009) in explaining the outcomes. In addition, it uses two high-impact educational practices – SL and role modeling to improve educational attainment for college students.

As an unhealthy dependence on social media platforms, social media addiction (SMA) has become increasingly commonplace in the digital era. The purpose of this paper is to provide a general overview of SMA research and develop a theoretical model that explains how different types of factors contribute to SMA.

Considering the nascent nature of this research area, this study conducted a systematic review to synthesize the burgeoning literature examining influencing factors of SMA. Based on a comprehensive literature search and screening process, 84 articles were included in the final sample.

Analyses showed that antecedents of SMA can be classified into three conceptual levels: individual, environmental and platform. The authors further proposed a theoretical framework to explain the underlying mechanisms behind the relationships amongst different types of variables.

The contributions of this review are two-fold. First, it used a systematic and rigorous approach to summarize the empirical landscape of SMA research, providing theoretical insights and future research directions in this area. Second, the findings could help social media service providers and health professionals propose relevant intervention strategies to mitigate SMA.

This study aims to develop a methodology for predicting the resilience of individual firms to economic crisis, using historical government data to optimize one of the most important and costly interventions that governments undertake, the huge economic stimulus programs that governments implement for mitigating the consequences of economic crises, by making them more focused on the less resilient and more vulnerable firms to the crisis, which have the highest need for government assistance and support.

The authors are leveraging existing firm-level data for economic crisis periods from government agencies having competencies/responsibilities in the domain of economy, such as Ministries of Finance and Statistical Authorities, to construct prediction models of the resilience of individual firms to the economic crisis based on firms’ characteristics (such as human resources, technology, strategies, processes and structure), using artificial intelligence (AI) techniques from the area of machine learning (ML).

The methodology has been applied using data from the Greek Ministry of Finance and Statistical Authority about 363 firms for the Greek economic crisis period 2009–2014 and has provided a satisfactory prediction of a measure of the resilience of individual firms to an economic crisis.

The authors’ study opens up new research directions concerning the exploitation of AI/ML in government for a critical government activity/intervention of high importance that mobilizes/spends huge financial resources. The main limitation is that the abovementioned first application of the proposed methodology has been based on a rather small data set from a single national context (Greece), so it is necessary to proceed to further application of this methodology using larger data sets and different national contexts.

The proposed methodology enables government agencies responsible for the implementation of such economic stimulus programs to proceed to radical transformations of them by predicting the resilience to economic crisis of the firms applying for government assistance and then directing/focusing the scarce available financial resources to/on the ones predicted to be more vulnerable, increasing substantially the effectiveness of these programs and the economic/social value they generate.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first application of AI/ML in government that leverages existing data for economic crisis periods to optimize and increase the effectiveness of the largest and most important and costly economic intervention that governments repeatedly have to make: the economic stimulus programs for mitigating the consequences of economic crises.

The current study aims to examine the relationship between self-compassion and life satisfaction in Vietnamese adolescents and investigate the possibility that emotional and behavioural problems mediate this relationship.

Quantitative means of data collection and analysis were used to investigate the relationship between self-compassion and life satisfaction and the underlying mechanism of this relationship. A set of questionnaires was presented to a sample of 828 adolescents (M age = 14.61; SD = 1.08) aged 14–17 years from two secondary schools and two high schools in Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam. This helped to determine their self-compassion (self-compassion scale), emotional and behavioural problems (strengths and difficulties questionnaire) and life satisfaction (life satisfaction scale). Instruments reflected satisfactory reliability and validity.

The results show that self-warmth was positively associated with life satisfaction and that self-coldness was positively associated with emotional and behavioural problems and negatively associated with life satisfaction in Vietnamese adolescents. Emotional and behavioural problems fully mediated the negative relationship between self-coldness and life satisfaction.

It is implied that intervention programmes should be tailored to both promote self-compassionate behaviours and reduce self-coldness, to increase life satisfaction in adolescents.

The research available on the relationship between self-compassion and life satisfaction in adolescents, especially adolescents from Southeast Asia, is very sparse. More significantly, the underlying mechanisms behind this relationship are not yet fully understood.

Recognising current, significant rates of youth sexual violence and abuse (YSVA) and the need for more comprehensive prevention approaches to combat this social issue, new approaches are required to ensure that agency is given to the people who are most affected and who know their lives the best. This paper aims to report a youth-led (Young Voices United [YVU] Committee) participatory design approach aimed at delivering the highest level of engagement to understand what people agree is needed to reduce YSVA in their own communities.

The seven-step co-design (Trischler et al., 2019) process was implemented following ethical clearance. Over five months, 13 group co-design sessions involving 102 young people aged 12–25 years, 17 parents/caregivers (including young mums) and 9 teacher/guidance officers were conducted. Purposive sampling was undertaken to ensure that young people who had previously experienced YSVA or were most at risk of experiencing YSVA were overrepresented. Convenience sampling was used to gain wider community involvement in co-design. Four sessions were facilitated by YVU members, who were aged between 12 and 25 years, and more than 66 people helped the design team. Inductive thematic analysis identified emergent themes across completed co-design sessions.

New ideas and solutions to prevent YSVA can be identified by young people who have previously experienced violence, carers, other young people and community members. A core finding in this study is the need for positive relationship role models and an enhanced understanding of consent. Education and training, a community promotional campaign, sector involvement, capacity-building and consideration of the unique needs of different target audiences were key ideas emerging from youth-led co-design. The YVU Committee provided recommendations for resource prioritisation.

This youth-led co-design process empowered the community. Project stakeholders have since formed partnerships won funding and used that funding to co-design and trial a new programme aiming to provide a safe haven for young people at risk of YSVA. The pilot programme delivers a safe and supportive environment for young people delivered at a time when it is needed most. Other geographical areas are now seeking to replicate the programme. The co-design processes and tools detailed in this study can be adapted to the design of programmes for those already engaged with the youth justice system and should be considered as part of a public health approach to effectively prevent and respond to YSVA and other youth crimes.

This paper advances understanding, providing a practical approach that ensures youth views are given weight [audience and influence described in Lundy’s (2007) participatory framework]. This paper explains how the YVU Committee, established at the commencement of the project, oversaw the community co-design effort, which followed Trischler et al.’s (2019) seven-step co-design process. Ideas were generated, and consensus views were consolidated, delivering the highest level of engagement according to Willmott et al.’s (2022) methodology, agent of change, training and engagement taxonomy. The participatory design method led to high levels of community engagement, and the success of the project is attributed to the establishment of the YVU Committee and stakeholder support.