Using Positive Language & Avoiding Stigma
It is vital that practitioners choose accurate and neutral language to describe children and adolescents that demonstrates an understanding of constrained choice.
Language choices must also reinforce self-efficacy, emphasise adolescent agency and the ability to make decisions about themselves and their care.
There is growing national consensus through consultation with adolescents (e.g. Young Minds, The Children’s Society) that regularly describing them as “vulnerable” is patronising and diminishes the sense of adolescent agency or power.
There are a range of stigmatising words and phrases that reinforce the myth that adolescents are completely in control of their choices.
For example the phrase “lifestyle choices” does not describe the constrained choice of gang affected adolescents.
These phrases fail to recognise the factors that have prevented adolescents from being safe:
