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Prisons offer a public health opportunity to access a group with multiple and complex needs and return them to the community with improved health. However, prisons are not conducive to optimal health and there are few frameworks to guide efforts. This study aims to generate insights into health literacy across a young adult prison population, specifically examining the level of limitations, barriers and characteristics associated with these limitations.

The study took place in a single prison in England for young adult men aged 18–21 years old. A mixed-methods design was adopted with 104 young men completing a quantitative survey and qualitative semi-structured interviews with 37 young men.

72% (n = 75) of young men scored as limited in their health literacy. Barriers included structural restrictions, limited access to formal support and social and natural disruptions. No demographic characteristics or smoking intentions/behaviours predicted limited health literacy, but characteristics of the prison were predictive. Physical problems (sleep, nausea, tiredness and headaches), mental health and well-being (anxiety, depression and affect) and somatisation problems were also predictive of limitations.

Prison healthcare services and commissioners should undertake regular health literacy needs assessments to support developments in reducing barriers to healthcare and increasing health improvement efforts. Action also requires greater political will and investment to consider broader action on the wider determinants of (prison) health.

The study provides a framework to understand and guide prison health efforts and highlights attention needed at the level of governments, prison leaders and their health systems.

This paper aims to present an analysis of a “county lines” safeguarding partnership in a large city region of England. A critical analysis of current literature and practice responses to “county lines” is followed by the presentation of an analytical framework that draws on three contextual and social theories of (child) harm. This framework is applied to the partnership work to ask: are the interconnected conditions of criminal exploitation of children via “county lines” understood?; do interventions target the contexts of harm?; and is social and institutional harm acknowledged and addressed?

The analytical framework is applied to a data set collected by the author throughout a two-year study of the “county lines” partnership. Qualitative data collected by the author and quantitative data published by the partnership are coded and thematically analysed in NVivo against the analytic framework.

Critical tensions are surfaced in the praxis of multi-agency, child welfare responses to “county lines” affected young people. Generalising these findings to the child welfare sector at large, it is proposed that the contextual dynamics of child harm via “county lines” must be understood in a broader sense, including how multi-agency child welfare practices contribute to the harm experienced by young people.

There are limited peer-reviewed analyses of child welfare responses to “county lines”. This paper contributes to that limited scholarship, extending the analysis by adopting a critical analytic framework to a regional county lines partnership at the juncture of future national, child welfare responses to “county lines”.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the influence of young adults’ socialization and product involvement on family housing and real estate purchase decision-making process. While previous studies have used these constructs in the fast-moving commercial goods category, this paper is considering the real estate family purchase decision as the core point of research and analysis.

Data were collected from 429 young working adults across various sectors in India. The proposed conceptual framework is tested using structural equation modeling.

The findings suggest that the teenagers with high social life have a better say in the decision-making process. It was also found that the young adults’ product involvement (measured in terms of gratification and symbol) construct shows how involved they are with the final decision-making in a family. The results suggested that the more young adult socializes, the more voice he has in the family housing and real estate decision-making process.

This paper is the first to analyze the role of teenage socialization and product involvement on family housing and real estate purchase decision-making process. This paper will be practicable to all the stakeholders of the housing industry as a whole.

This study focuses on how young adults face the COVID-19 pandemic by investigating their personal concerns about mental well-being, career/studies and economic situation. The authors investigated how young adults' (aged 18–29) personal concerns differ from older people's concerns (aged 30–65) and which person- and context-related antecedents relate to personal concerns.

Data of Finnish young adults aged 18–29 (n = 222), who participated in the “Corona Consumers” survey (N = 1,000) in April 2020, were analyzed by path analysis and compared to participants aged 30–65 by independent samples t-test.

Young adults were significantly more concerned about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on their mental well-being, career/studies and economic situation than older people. Females were more concerned about their mental well-being than males. Among youth, lower life satisfaction was related to concerns about mental well-being, and lower satisfaction with financial situation was related to concerns about career/studies and economic situation. Young adults' predisposition to avoid difficult situations was related to more frequent concerns in all domains, whereas generalized trust and education were not.

Due to cross-sectional data, causal COVID-19 interpretations should be made cautiously.

Strong youth policies are needed for youth empowerment, mental health and career advancement in the pandemic aftermath.

The study highlights the inequality of the effects of COVID-19: The pandemic has radically influenced young adults as they exhibit significant personal concerns in age-related life domains.

The SECURE STAIRS framework has promoted young person involvement as a key feature of innovative service provision. In the North East of England, Secure Children’s Homes (SCHs) have pioneered young person involvement in team formulation. Young people have also led on the development of formulation materials through a young person involvement project. Young people’s attendance at team formulation meetings has become embedded. These service developments have also begun to expand across broader SCHs, Secure Training Centres (STCs) and Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) and reflect the national impact of such pioneering developments. There is a notable lack of research examining the impact of young person involvement in formulation. The purpose of this study is to elucidate this area.

Between April and August 2019, there were 86 staff attendances at formulation meetings where young people were present across two SCHs in the North East of England.

Paired samples t-tests indicated staff-reported significant post-formulation improvements across all domains measured including knowledge [t(85) = 11.38, p < 0.001]; confidence working with the young person [t(85) = 5.87, p < 0.001]; motivation [t(85) = 3.58, p < 0.001]; understanding [t(85) = 9.03, p < 0.001]; and satisfaction with the treatment plan [t(85) = 8.63, p < 0.001].

Implications of findings are discussed and further developments outlined.

Young people attending team formulation is a new and evolving area, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no existing research evaluating this area. The current findings suggest that staff knowledge, motivation, confidence and satisfaction with the treatment plan is improved following attendance at team formulation where the young person is present and actively participating. Young people’s participation and involvement is central to planning, developing and progressing meaningful provision within children and young people secure provision.

Involving children and young people in decision-making, service development and evaluation are also key components of ensuring the voice of young people is central in our minds. It also supports empowering the young people we work with. Young people and their journey should always be at the heart of what we do.

Young people attending team formulation is a new and evolving area, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no existing research evaluating this area. This is the first study of its type evaluating formulation directions within the SECURE STAIRS framework.

There is now a vast amount of available information, research and policy on the transition of young people with learning disabilities to adulthood. These sources are informed by different professional philosophies and practices, resulting in a heterogeneous mass of data that can be confusing, contradictory and repetitive. In this review we provide an overview of recent publications about services for young people with learning disabilities at the time of transition, with particular focus on those with mental disorders including neurodevelopment disorders and/or challenging behaviour. We discuss their relevance to good practice and the implications for the future development of services for people with learning disabilities in the UK. We argue that, despite the qualitative differences between the experience of transition to adulthood for young people with learning disabilities and that of other young people, the principles of service provision remain the same. Developments in research and clinical practice in this field ought to reflect good practice, as well as embracing new methodologies, and benefit from advances in adolescents without learning disabilities.

Recent research has shown that children and young people are living on the streets in the UK with no support from family or other institutions and very few options for legitimate support, often resorting to dangerous survival strategies that put them at risk from others wishing to harm or exploit them. Many children and young people turn to the streets while still living with parents or carers to escape abuse in the home or because they do not receive attention and care. Integration of the homeless and non‐homeless populations sometimes plays a part in how children or young people find themselves on the streets. Becoming part of a gang, whether formed by groups of homeless people or those from the non‐homeless population, is an important survival strategy when on the streets. Once children and young people reach 16, the range of options for support widens and they become eligible to access services for homeless adults which are often not appropriate for them. Where prevention is not possible, there should be a response to children and young people's needs through outreach work, drop‐in centres and accommodation that operate in an informal way and have the capacity to respond to further requests for support.

In recent years the political and practice climates have changed greatly, towards a focus on preventing negative experiences and vulnerability in the lives of children and young people, but at present many efforts suffer from two defects: they apply adult treatment ideas to young people, and they are not joined‐up responses. The article argues that young people are different from adults, having not yet established set patterns of behaviour, and that this offers a chance to intervene before the point of crisis. While they may misuse drugs and alcohol, in the main this is symptomatic of other problems that they need our support to face, which can be offered most effectively by services that are holistic and integrated, and which deal first with their emotional and family needs while also addressing personal development and vocational skills and training. These interventions need to begin well before the current housing crisis points around age 16 or 17.

How confused are young people about cannabis reclassification? Who do they really trust when talking about drink and drugs? Do they believe the health warnings and ‘the messages’ to stay away from drugs? Michelle Duffin draws on her national discussions with young people to explore their perceptions of drugs and alcohol and to assess their awareness of young people services and preferred methods and sources of information for drugs and alcohol.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the work of the Children and Young People's Programme of Time to Change, which is England's biggest campaign to end the stigma and discrimination that surrounds mental health.

The paper draws upon research into the nature and effects of mental health stigma and discrimination on young people and also outlines the strategy of the Time to Change campaign and its initial outcomes.

The paper includes testimonies from young people with lived experience of mental health problems about the stigma and discrimination they have faced. It also outlines the aims, objectives and stages of implementation of the Time to Change Children and Young People's Programme. The paper particularly focuses on the campaign work undertaken in secondary schools, the social leadership programme for young people with lived experience of mental health problems and the process of designing effective campaign messaging for social media.

Time to Change is England's biggest campaign to end the stigma and discrimination that surrounds mental health. This paper provides a unique insight into the process of developing and rolling out an anti-stigma campaign for young people.