Selina Wallis, Public Involvement Manager at NIHR ARC North West Coast, joins Professor Lynn Davies, Penelope Gibbs and Rob Allen on a new episode of the Transform Justice Podcast to discuss the missed opportunities and what needs to change to help prevent similar tragedies in the future.
The conversation focuses on children and young people, neurodiversity, safeguarding and complex risk. The group discuss what happens when a young person is known to several services, but no single agency is clearly responsible for coordinating support, tracking whether interventions are working, monitoring changes in risk, and holding the whole picture across mental health, education, family stress, online harms and public safety.
A key issue raised is the difference between a child being known to multiple services and a child being given joined-up, relational support. The Southport case highlights the danger of systems that record concerns, refer between agencies and close episodes of involvement, without enough continuity, accountability or practical support for the young person and their family.
The discussion also brings in the role of parents and carers, who are often expected to manage complex risk at home while navigating fragmented systems, long waits and unclear thresholds for help. Families need more than advice. They need timely support, clear routes back into services when risk changes, and professionals who can work with them without blame, panic or dismissal.
Digital environments are also important. Online harms cannot be treated as separate from safeguarding, adolescence, mental health or public safety. As discussed in Selina’s blog Safe by Default, safer digital spaces require more than individual monitoring or better filters. They require systems, platforms and services to take responsibility for the conditions children are growing up in.
These issues connect closely with wider ARC NWC work on adolescence, prevention, lived experience, public involvement and service design. They also raise important questions about how more trauma-informed, neurodiversity-informed and practical responses can be developed across health, education, safeguarding and public safety systems.
You can listen to the full episode here.
Further reading: Safe by Default.