Adultification
Our first training session was delivered in 2020, and has been delivered to over 7,500 professionals across the safe guarding sector.
Definitions
Adultification
The concept of adultification is where notions of innocence and vulnerability are not afforded to certain children. This is determined by people and institutions who hold power over children and young people. When adultification occurs outside of the home it is always founded within discrimination and bias.
There are various definitions of adultification, all relate to a child’s personal characteristics, socio-economic influences and lived experiences. Regardless of the context in which adultification takes place, the impact results in children’s rights being either diminished or overlooked.
(Listen Up, 2020)
The Adultification of Black Children
Adultification is a form of psychological harm, it is a persistent and ongoing act of dehumanisation, which explicitly impacts Black children, and influences how they are safeguarded and protected. This form of bias spans pre-birth and remains on a continuum to adulthood.
Where at this juncture it becomes absorbed within the normative negative racialised experiences many Black adults encounter throughout their life course. Adultification may differ dependent on an individual’s intersecting identity, such as their gender, sexuality, and dis/abilities. However, race and racism remain the central tenant in which this bias operates.
(Davis, 2022; 2023)
Intersectionality and adultification
What is intersectionality, and its application to practice?
What is ‘adultification’, and its impact on child safeguarding?
Professional Inter-Adultification, The PIA Model
Professional Inter-Adultification: Conditions
