Jeunesse à risques et dysfonctionnements des services de la protection de l’enfance : comment penser les pratiques d’accompagnement de jeunes désignés comme violents ?

Financed by the European Commission as a part of the DAPHNE II Program, the objective of this research was to carry out a comparative analysis in Europe of the mobile public assistance measures intended for families whose young and adolescent children develop violent behaviours. This research was jointly carried out by five teams of European researchers, dependant respectively on the Evangelische Fachhochschule research centre for childhood and youth of Fribourg in Germany, on the University of Halmstad in Sweden, on the University of Warsaw in Poland, on the Fachhochschule of St. Gallen in Switzerland and on the G.I.R.F.A.S/I.R.T.S of Brittany in France. The work undertaken by the French team as part of this research proposed to delineate the different “turning points” observed in the social path of a dozen youngsters exhibiting violent behaviour. Very special attention was accorded to the effects of the assistance measures they benefitted from. This research highlights the “generic” malfunctioning of the social services in their interactions with the families. It underlines the necessity of a quality relationship between a third party and the youngster caught up in the chain of violence. It give substance to the idea that this third party must be envisaged in a specific way, as far as young in difficulty are concerned, who very often lack for formative interactions in their family surroundings