Everyone Knew. So How Did They Still End Up in Crisis?
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By Sam Smith, Founder & Co-Director, Genuine Futures CIC
There is a question I believe we need to become much more comfortable asking:
How can a young person be known to multiple services and still reach crisis without a pathway to opportunity?
Known to school.
Known to social care.
Known to health services.
Known to housing.
Known to police.
Known to youth justice.
Known to employment support.
Sometimes there have been meetings, assessments, referrals, plans and interventions.
Yet that same young person can still become excluded from education, NEET – not in education, employment or training, vulnerable to exploitation, involved with the criminal justice system or experiencing a mental health crisis.
They were never invisible.
Everyone knew.
So how did they still end up in crisis?
At Genuine Futures CIC, we believe we need a much greater focus on prevention for vulnerable young people and creating meaningful opportunities before crisis becomes the point at which the greatest support finally arrives.
If We Know Early, Why Do We Act Late?
Warning signs can emerge long before a young person’s situation reaches crisis.
Poor school attendance may become persistent absence.
Persistent absence can be followed by disengagement or school exclusion.
Instability at home can affect education, relationships and wellbeing.
A young person may become NEET.
They may become increasingly isolated.
Others may offer them the money, status, identity or belonging they feel they cannot find elsewhere.
Some may become vulnerable to criminal exploitation or eventually enter the youth justice system.
This is not the journey of every vulnerable young person, and we should never assume that it is.
But where risks are escalating, early intervention gives us more opportunities to change what happens next.
So we need to ask:
IF WE KNOW EARLY, WHY DO WE ACT LATE?
My Story: I Wasn’t Invisible
This question is personal to me.
I entered care at 13.
I experienced exclusion, secure units and later prison.
Looking back at my childhood, I wasn’t invisible.
I was known to the system.
People could see many of the things that were going wrong in my life.
But could they see what I could become?
That distinction matters.
Because being known isn’t the same as being seen.
A referral isn’t necessarily a relationship.
An assessment isn’t necessarily an opportunity.
A plan isn’t necessarily a pathway.
And a label tells us very little about the potential of the person carrying it.
My experiences are one of the reasons we created Genuine Futures.
We don’t want another generation of young people to have to reach crisis before society recognises how much potential they have.
Children Looked After and Care Experienced Young People Need More Than a Service
For children looked after and care experienced young people, relationships and continuity can be particularly important.
A young person does not experience education, social care, health, housing and employment as separate departments.
They experience one life.
Yet our systems can divide that life between organisations, eligibility criteria, professional responsibilities and funding streams.
Each organisation may fulfil its responsibilities while the young person still experiences fragmentation.
That is why prevention cannot simply mean making another referral.
It has to include relationships, belonging and credible routes towards a future.
For some young people that might mean education.
For others it might be employment, training, enterprise, mentoring, sport, creativity or gaining practical experience.
The pathway will not always look the same.
The young person shouldn’t have to fit the pathway. We should become better at building pathways around young people.
The Growing Challenge of Children and Young People’s Mental Health
The debate about children and young people’s mental health makes the need for earlier intervention even more urgent.
When younger children are reaching the point where they need crisis support, we should not only ask how we improve crisis services.
We should also ask:
What happened before the crisis?
What did we know?
When did we know it?
What support was available?
Was there somebody the child trusted?
Did the family have somewhere to turn?
Could something have been done earlier?
Good crisis services are essential. But an effective system must also invest in youth mental health prevention, early help, trusted relationships and community-based support.
A child should not have to deteriorate to the point of crisis before their needs become urgent.
Are Young People Really “Hard to Reach”?
We regularly hear the phrase “hard to reach young people.”
I think we need to challenge it.
Some of the young people described as hard to reach are being reached every day.
They’re being reached by social media.
They’re being reached by peers.
They’re being reached by people offering them money.
They’re being reached by people offering status and belonging.
And unfortunately, some are being reached by people prepared to exploit them.
So perhaps the better question is:
Hard to reach for who?
If a young person will not engage with a service, that doesn’t automatically mean they don’t want help.
Perhaps they don’t trust the environment.
Perhaps previous relationships have disappeared.
Perhaps the offer doesn’t feel relevant.
Perhaps the first conversation begins with everything that’s wrong with them instead of what they’re interested in.
Effective youth engagement means going to where young people are, listening before prescribing solutions and building trust over time.
What If Enterprise Came Before Exploitation?
There is another question I often ask:
Where do we want a young person’s first £100 to come from?
Some young people vulnerable to exploitation are not lacking ambition.
They may want independence.
Money.
Respect.
Identity.
Status.
A sense of belonging.
The problem is that someone else may reach them first with an illegitimate route to those things.
What if legitimate opportunity competed harder?
What if enterprise came before exploitation?
What if their first £100 came from serving a customer?
Cleaning a car?
Selling something they had created?
Completing a job?
Learning a trade?
Running a small enterprise?
What if a business owner became another trusted adult in their life?
This is why we believe youth employment, enterprise and work experience can form part of prevention.
Opportunity Can Be an Intervention
At Genuine Futures, we have seen how practical opportunities can open conversations that might never happen in a formal setting.
Through initiatives such as Boss Your Future, We Shine Any Car, Clean Futures, work experience, enterprise, boxing, skills development and community partnerships, the activity itself is often only the beginning.
A young person might initially come because they want to wash cars.
Or try boxing.
Or earn money.
Or learn a trade.
That’s okay.
Because:
The activity opens the door. The relationship creates the change.
From that relationship can come confidence, employability skills, references, qualifications, work experience, connections and eventually progression into education, employment or training.
Opportunity isn’t a replacement for specialist mental health care, social work, education or youth justice services.
But it can be an important part of the wider support surrounding a young person.
Young People NEET Need Pathways, Not Labels
The term NEET describes a young person who is not in education, employment or training.
It does not describe who that young person is.
Behind the statistic might be somebody who has experienced school exclusion.
A care leaver.
A young person struggling with their mental health.
Somebody with additional needs.
Someone who hasn’t found the right learning environment.
A young parent.
A young person who has been exploited.
Someone with a criminal record.
Or simply somebody who needs their first employer to take a chance on them.
SEE THE PERSON. NOT THE LABEL.
The question should not simply be:
“Why isn’t this young person working?”
It should also be:
“What barriers are standing between this young person and opportunity, and who can help remove them?”
Youth Justice Prevention Must Begin Before the Prison Gate
We talk extensively about rehabilitation and reducing reoffending.
Both matter enormously.
But we should be equally ambitious about youth justice prevention.
What if we reached them before the prison gate?
That means recognising risks earlier and surrounding young people with credible alternatives.
Trusted adults.
Positive peer groups.
Education.
Employment.
Enterprise.
Sport.
Mentoring.
Safe spaces.
Purpose.
Belonging.
Hope.
We cannot promise that every early intervention will prevent every crisis.
But that is not an argument for waiting.
It is an argument for giving young people more opportunities while there are still more doors available to open.
The Empty Chair: Youth Voice Must Be More Than Consultation
Imagine a meeting about a young person’s future.
Around the table are representatives from:
Education.
Social care.
Health.
Housing.
Police.
Youth justice.
Employment services.
There is just one problem.
The young person’s chair is empty.
We need to stop designing solutions around young people without sufficiently designing them with young people.
Youth voice should influence decisions, services, commissioning and the opportunities being created.
At Genuine Futures, lived experience matters because people closest to a problem can often see things that institutions cannot.
But listening is only meaningful if something changes afterwards.
Don’t just give young people a voice. Give them influence.
From Crisis Intervention to a Prevention Guarantee
We believe there is a bigger conversation to be had about a Prevention Guarantee for young people.
The principle is simple.
When there are clear signs that a young person is becoming vulnerable to exclusion, long-term unemployment, exploitation, homelessness or involvement with the criminal justice system, there should be a responsibility to create a credible pathway towards opportunity before crisis becomes the trigger for action.
That could begin with three things:
One trusted relationship.
Someone who knows the young person, listens and stays.
One meaningful opportunity.
Education, employment, enterprise, training, sport, creativity, volunteering or another route that matters to that individual.
One clear pathway forward.
Not simply another referral, but somewhere the young person can actually go next.
This cannot belong to one organisation.
Schools cannot do it alone.
Social care cannot do it alone.
Youth justice cannot do it alone.
Charities cannot do it alone.
Neither can government.
We need employers, housing providers, community organisations, funders and people with lived experience around the same table.
Businesses Can Help Prevent Crisis Too
You don’t have to work in youth services to change a young person’s future.
Businesses have something incredibly valuable:
opportunity.
An employer can provide someone’s first work placement.
A contractor can provide a site visit.
A tradesperson can teach a skill.
A company can offer mentoring.
A customer can provide a young enterprise with its first contract.
A business can give somebody their first reference.
And sometimes one person saying:
“I’ll give you a chance.”
can change the direction of a young person’s life.
That is why youth employment and employer engagement need to be part of the prevention conversation.
Prevention Before Crisis
This isn’t about blaming teachers, social workers, police officers, NHS staff, youth workers or other frontline professionals.
We work alongside people who care deeply about young people and who are operating under enormous pressure.
This is about asking whether the structures around them allow us to respond early enough.
Because ultimately:
EVERYONE KNEW.
The question now is:
WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO DIFFERENTLY?
Listen earlier.
Build trust earlier.
Create opportunity earlier.
Connect services with communities.
Bring employers to the table.
Listen to lived experience.
Give young people influence.
And invest in prevention before crisis.
Because young people don’t experience services.
They experience a life.
And every young person deserves the opportunity to build a brighter future.
Join the Conversation
Genuine Futures CIC wants to hear from young people, care experienced people, schools, colleges, local authorities, social care professionals, youth justice services, housing providers, employers, businesses, community organisations, funders and policymakers.
We want to explore what a meaningful Prevention Guarantee could look like and how we can create stronger pathways to opportunity for young people from overlooked communities.
If you can offer employment, work experience, mentoring, enterprise opportunities, skills, resources, funding or partnership support, we’d like to hear from you.
Genuine Futures CIC
Bridging the gap to opportunity.
LISTEN EARLIER. CREATE OPPORTUNITY. PREVENT THE CRISIS.
#GenuineFutures #EveryoneKnew #PreventionBeforeCrisis #