From Risk to Resilience: Rethinking Youth Offending

Join us for this thought-provoking and practical session designed for professionals working with children and young people involved in or at risk of offending. This seminar challenges traditional views of youth offending and explores how we can shift from managing risk to building resilience, restoring trust, and supporting long-term change.

Drawing on trauma-informed, relational, and developmental approaches, the session explores how professionals can understand the context behind behaviours and provide more compassionate, effective responses that reduce harm and support growth.

Why This Course Matters

Too often, youth offending is addressed only through a lens of control or compliance. But behind the behaviour are unmet needs, histories of adversity, and missed opportunities for connection.

This course helps participants:

✔️ Reframe offending behaviour through a trauma-informed and relational lens

✔️ Understand the underlying risk factors and protective factors influencing young people’s actions

✔️ Explore restorative approaches and strengths-based strategies

✔️ Develop tools to engage young people in meaningful, forward-looking conversations

✔️ Reflect on the role of systems, services, and professionals in shaping outcomes

Course Highlights

🔹 The Roots of Youth Offending – Understanding trauma, loss, and unmet needs

🔹 Risk vs. Resilience – What we focus on grows

🔹 From Punitive to Restorative – Alternatives to exclusion and control

🔹 Engagement Strategies That Work – Building trust, safety, and buy-in

🔹 Supporting Resistance and Change – Practical tools for relational interventions

Meet Your Trainer: Silvia Quijada

Silvia Lopez Quijada is a Lecturer in Criminal Justice at Nottingham Trent University with extensive experience in youth justice and restorative practices. As a former Youth Justice Officer in South London, she specialized in supporting high-risk young offenders through restorative and trauma-informed approaches. Silvia’s research focuses on the intersection of restorative justice and neurocriminology, applying cutting-edge findings to practical interventions. She has contributed to key research projects on youth resilience and agency in the face of adversity.