Exploring the professional perception of multi agency approaches to assist young people involved in violent and offending behavior in Glasgow

Abstract: This thesis explores eight professionals’ views on the use of the multi-agency approach to assist young people involved in violent and offending behaviour. Parallel to this overall purpose, this thesis also examines the professionals’ views on possible risk factors for the involvement in such behaviour, and their perception of possible improvements to this particular approach. As a result of the policy changes during the 90’s, multi agency approaches became a popular way to deal with crime. In recent years, new frameworks and programs for multi-agency approaches have been introduced. Focus on a more streamlined multi-agency approach, as a way of targeting young people involved in violent and offending behavior, has been implemented by sharing information and working together across agencies for the benefit of children and young people. The method of this thesis applied semi-structured interviews, all of them with 13 prepared questions, to obtain the data necessary, and used snowball sampling to expand the network of informants. The results showed that most agencies saw benefits with the multi-agency approach primarily because of the way in which one can better obtain the needs of the child/youth and accommodate these on different levels thanks to the close interaction of the agencies. Moreover, the informants displayed a unified understanding of the underlying risk factors that might contribute to the involvement in violent or offending behaviour. Primarily, the informants addressed five risk factor themes: family, drugs and alcohol, gang culture and peer pressure, deprivation, and education. As for improvements, the informants saw the biggest need for such in the area of communication, not only between agencies, but also on a societal and political level where social issues must be addressed in policy making and resource funding.