Delivered by: St Giles Trust

Join us to reflect on 20 years of SOS and reflect on five learnings from our experience. 

1. Young people are not hard to reach, systems are often hard to trust

This is classic SOS territory. It allows you to talk about why young people may reject help, test adults, deny risk, protect exploiters or appear “non-engaging”. The focus should be on what trust really requires.

2. Lived experience is powerful, but only when it is supported and professionalised

This is important. It links directly to St Giles’ identity around lived experience, which is central to the wider strategy. St Giles describes lived experience as being “in our DNA” and part of how the organisation understands people and what works.

But the session should also challenge tokenism. Lived experience is not just telling your story. It is skill, reflection, training, boundaries, supervision and practice wisdom.

3. Violence is rarely just about violence

This lets you bring together the whole series. Violence is often about fear, humiliation, grief, poverty, identity, pressure, loyalty, trauma, status and survival. That helps connect the previous sessions on gangs, gender, weapon carrying, crisis intervention and families.

4. Families are part of the harm and the hope

This would link beautifully to your doctoral work and the parent-focused session. Families are too often blamed, ignored or brought in too late. SOS at 20 should make the point that young people are not floating individuals. They exist within families, communities, peer groups and systems.

5. The next 20 years must move from intervention to influence

This is the strategic ending. SOS should not only be celebrated as a project that helped young people. It should be positioned as a model that has shaped practice, challenged systems and still has something to teach commissioners, VRUs, social care, policing, health and education.

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