Introduction

Summary

Becoming an adult is a process, not a single event. Having the ‘official’ date of this marked as turning 18 is a social and legal construct. There are many other points at which young people can legally take part in activities that are seen as adult. A child is legally accountable for a crime at age 10 in England. The age of consent for both heterosexual and same-sex relationships is 16 years. Joining the armed forces is possible at age 16. A young person can have a driving licence from age 17. A young person is presumed by law to have the capacity to make decisions about any area of their life from age 16, unless they do not have mental capacity (as defined under the Mental Capacity Act 2005). However, in safeguarding and protection, someone's eighteenth birthday is the key date when the safeguarding approach that they experience, should they meet eligibility criteria, changes from being underpinned by the Children Act 1989 (affecting children under 18) to the Care Act 2014 (affecting anyone over the age of 18). This means young people often fall off a ‘cliff edge’ at 18 as the available services do not meet their developmental needs or circumstances and the majority of young people turning 18 will not be deemed eligible for those services. For young people who have safeguarding needs as 17-year-olds, it is increasingly apparent, the more we know about extra-familial harms, that these needs do not disappear on their eighteenth birthday. It is the agencies who are tasked with supporting and protecting these young people that often disappear.

Harm does not stop at 18, nor do the traumatic effects of harm; young people continue to develop until their mid-twenties and many other areas of policy and legislation recognise the fluidity of adolescence and early adulthood. It makes little sense for the professional safeguarding response to be so rigidly age bound. Yet that is the current situation, with two wholly distinct safeguarding systems for those over and under 18 years old – and neither is designed with teenagers and young adults’ needs in mind.