"Not what I expected. Not rubbish. Turned out all right.”: Re-engaging young people

‘Twenty-seven children locked up in Scots jails’, ‘Children taken into care increases by 50%’, ‘School boy faces jail sentence after admitting stabbing fellow pupil’ and ‘Teenager dead in flat for 10 days before being found’: these were the headlines for one day in the Glasgow Herald (Glasgow Herald, 28.08.06). Such headlines are symptomatic of the problems besettingmodern society, reflected in theOECD survey of children’s welfare (UNICEF, 2007) which places the UK (in relation to the 21most prosperous nations) as having the highest rating of ‘risk-taking’ behaviour and of children perceived to be of poor health and identifying with negative indicators of well-being (amongst other findings). Likewise, the Social Exclusion Unit (Crown Office, 2006) classifies three million children as ‘vulnerable’, 386,000 children ‘in need’, 61,000 children ‘in care’ and 26,000 on the Child Protection register in England.