Reconciling care and justice in contesting social harm through performance and arts practice with looked after children and care leavers

Abstract

The proportion of young people taken into the care of the state has increased recently and there is evidence that this social group suffer negative long-term outcomes that might be conceptualised by the emergent criminological category of ‘social harm’. Debates in social work around an ethics of care and justice offer different ways of thinking about responding to social harm. This paper reports findings from an innovative arts-based intervention with Looked After Children and young people and concludes that holding these competing value sets in creative tension is central to the success of the programme in helping young people to cope with and contest social harm.