Introduction

Young people who question, leave or change faith – a process sometimes called apostasy – face harms that safeguarding systems are ill-equipped to recognise: coercive control, ostracism, conversion practices, homelessness and disrupted belonging (Bolton et al., 2020). Legal complexities also block professional responses. Youth workers must attune to where harm is happening, particularly when faith transitions set young people at odds with family, community or high-control faith organisations.

This article argues that youth workers, both faith-based and secular, are distinctively placed to respond because youth work relationships are voluntary, informal and rooted in open conversation. We examine what this means for different young people, the challenges professionals face, gaps in safeguarding practice, and the conditions needed for relational practice with young people navigating faith transitions.

 Religion, belief and young people in England today

The religious landscape in the UK has shifted significantly over recent decades. Census data show a decline in formal religious affiliation, particularly Christian identity, alongside a rise in those who have no religion, particularly among younger generations (ONS, 2022).  At the same time, religious commitment remains strong in diaspora and minoritised communities. High levels of religious socialisation during childhood means that many adults who now identify as non-religious were raised in a faith tradition (Voas and Crockett, 2005; Bullivant, 2016; Pew Research Center, 2025).

These patterns suggest that movement in, out of, and between faith traditions is a common feature of young lives. For some, questioning, leaving, or changing faith is a gradual, internal shift. For others, it means a sudden break triggered by life events, abuse, or clashes between identity and religious expectations. Children have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion (United Nations, 1989, Article 14). Considered through the principle of evolving capacities (United Nations, 1989, Article 5), this right encompasses young people’s agency to question, change or leave faith. We interpret this as a fundamental human right (United Nations, 1948, Article 18; Council of Europe, 1950, Article 9) and a foundation from which the youth work response to faith transitions begins.

 ‘High-control religion’

We use the term ‘high-control religion’ to describe faith groups with strong expectations of obedience to leadership, intensive regulation of behaviour and relationships, and significant social, psychological or practical consequences for those who question or leave. Researchers and survivors apply the term to groups like the former Jesus Army, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientology (Ransom et al., 2022). This presents a fundamental tension with youth work values, which centre dialogue, questioning and empowerment.

The specific harms associated with these settings, including group-based abuse and coercive control, fall outside current UK legal and statutory safeguarding frameworks (Grendele et al., 2023). For instance, while ‘controlling or coercive behaviour’ is a criminal offense under Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 and enshrined in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, the law strictly defines this harm as occurring between individuals who are ‘personally connected’ (such as intimate partners or family members). No parallel offense exists for institutional or faith-based patterns of control and surveillance.

Research and lived experience indicate that young people questioning, leaving, or changing faith can experience emotional abuse, coercive control, ostracism and so-called honour-based harm. Those seeking to exit high-control religious contexts talk about social exclusion, loss of family contact, homelessness, hate crime, and profound disruption to identity and belonging (Cottee, 2015; Johnson, 2019; Parekh and Egan, 2021; Mulvihill et al., 2023). Research on apostasy-related harm as a hidden form of abuse affecting adults is relevant here. Parekh and Egan (2021) found that of 154 adults who self-reported assault related to apostasy, only 5.8% reported to police and just one assailant was charged. This reveals how hidden this abuse can remain within safeguarding systems.

Survivors and researchers of apostasy-related abuse, including the work of organisations such as Faith to Faithless, highlight organised shunning, pressure to undergo ‘exorcism’, threats of forced marriage or relocation, and homelessness when young people are pushed out of family homes or communities after expressing doubt or a desire to leave (Humanists UK, 2025). The invisibility of apostasy-related harm within safeguarding arrangements suggests a significant blind spot that affects how services understand and respond to young people’s safety.

 Case examples

These examples, drawn from practice by Birmingham Humanists, are anonymised to protect identities.

David was raised in a Christian Baptist family. In his early teens, he came out as gay. Believing they were acting in his best interests, his mother and the church priest sought to counsel him out of his sexuality, telling him it was a sin. A schoolteacher noticed a change in David’s demeanour and intervened, starting a years-long journey of David leaving the church and his faith.

Maryam, a recent asylum seeker to the UK, stopped eating school lunches during Ramadan so her peers would assume she was fasting. Having faced violent threats in Bangladesh for leaving Islam, she hid her non-belief to avoid harassment. The resulting isolation and trauma caused severe anxiety attacks, deeply impacting her mental health and studies.

Two young people in different situations, illustrating a critical reality: youth workers lack the tools and frameworks to recognise and adequately respond when a young person’s changing beliefs expose them to hidden harms.

 LGBTQ+ young people and faith transitions

LGBTQ+ young people can find themselves at a particularly sharp intersection within high-control religious contexts. Family rejection on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity is a safeguarding concern; LGBTQ+ young people in the UK face more than double the likelihood of homelessness than their non-LGBTQ+ peers (akt, 2025). High-control religion can intensify these dynamics, combining strict norms, fear of spiritual or social consequences, and threats of exclusion. Some young people are pushed towards conversion practices that frame sexuality or gender identity as something to be corrected, a form of coercive control that sits in the same legal grey zone as the institutional harms described above (Purshouse and Trispiotis, 2021).

Mental health practitioners have limited understanding of conversion practices in counselling, coaching, peer groups and online spaces, leaving youth workers without a clear evidence base (Anderson et al., 2024). Even without explicit conversion effort, sustained pressure to deny or hide identity can cause profound psychological and spiritual harm, including moral injury (Jones et al., 2022). For safeguarding, what matters is whether young people are being pushed towards change or suppression, rather than supported to explore their beliefs, in line with National Occupational Standards for youth work (NYA, 2020).

Statutory frameworks and Contextual Safeguarding

Statutory safeguarding guidance covers faith organisations but does not mention young people questioning, leaving, or changing faith. A 2012 government action plan (Department for Education, 2012), and some regional procedures (London Safeguarding Children Procedures, 2022) address spiritual and religious harm, but there has been little systematic national analysis since 2012. Local government and partners have operated under austerity, reduced funding, loss of specialist roles, and cuts to youth and community services.

Faith organisations often lack clarity on what constitutes ‘regulated activity’ (Thirtyone:eight, 2025). The 2025 government call for evidence on faith-based out-of-school settings has not published outcomes. An APPG inquiry is examining ‘regulated activity’ definitions in faith communities (APPG, 2026) [Submissions open until 10th July 2026 – link here]. Yet neither this inquiry nor the 2025 call for evidence addresses conversion practices, which fall outside both their scope and current criminal law. Until that gap is named, professionals lack a safeguarding framework for young people pushed towards change or suppression.

Contextual Safeguarding assesses and changes harmful contexts beyond the family, recognising harm in peers, schools, neighbourhoods and online networks (Firmin and Lloyd, 2023). For young people questioning, leaving or changing faith, this means recognising faith communities, supplementary schools, youth groups and online religious spaces as key contexts, usually protective, but sometimes sites of harm. It also means attending to non-faith settings where public shaming, exclusion, surveillance and harassment of those who leave occur. Contextual safeguarding in youth work requires nuanced judgment, rejection of assumptions, and curiosity to understand the young person’s situation from their perspective. Youth workers are well placed to offer this attention, working in the settings where harm takes shape, often noticing what formal services miss (Williams and Reaching Higher, 2025). For young people questioning, leaving or changing faith, tensions surface first in informal settings, before reaching formal safeguarding thresholds.

Relational practice with young people in faith transitions

Youth work relationships with young people are typically voluntary, informal, based in youth rights, and in spaces young people choose (Davies, 2015). This matters for those navigating faith transitions. Young people disclose more readily in safe informal settings – some within faith-based youth work, others outside their faith community. Relational practice supports the curiosity and nuance that young people questioning, leaving or changing faith require. This section draws on the framework for conducive conditions for resonance and collaboration (Michel and Billingham, 2025) to set out what is needed to support youth workers in this area of practice. Two capacities underpin this work: attunement and analysis (ibid). Attunement is connectedness and empathy, enabling genuine presence to the complexity young people experience. Analysis is stepping back to make sense from multiple angles: the young person’s immediate experience alongside family dynamics, community norms, migration history, racism, housing precarity and the structural absence of statutory guidance on this harm.

Multi-agency alignment is essential, bringing youth workers into dialogue and decision-making alongside statutory partners. Youth workers are well-placed for early support across fragmented provision. This requires leaders to recognise youth work’s contribution, resource it adequately, and support practitioners to build the specific knowledge and relational capacities this work demands. Mediation or intervention should focus on mutual respect and understanding, without collusion with harmful behaviour. Situating discussion in values and acceptable behaviours helps clarify what is negotiable, acceptable and where differences can be expressed.

Children’s social care interventions are shaped by the intersection of racialisation and deprivation (Bywaters et al., 2017), and race and racism remain too often unspoken in safeguarding practice, leaving the needs of Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage children inadequately recognised (Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, 2025). Religious discrimination, hostile immigration policies and social exclusion persist alongside this. When professionals lack confidence working across cultures, harm is missed and culturally insensitive practice causes further harm (Mirza, 2010). Some young people prefer to speak outside their faith community but may distrust those outside it, where stigmatisation has been externally imposed. Nuance, curiosity, attunement and analysis are essential. Practitioners must notice and respond with curiosity, holding complexity before moving to reassurance or escalation. Empowering young people to make informed choices requires practitioners to act as supportive sounding boards and create space to explore the consequences of sharing beliefs, balanced against risks of family conflict and rejection.

Conclusion

The challenge for youth safeguarding systems is clear: how can local systems create the conditions for youth faith transitions to be recognised and met with care? The answer lies in multi-agency alignment, anchored in the distinctive strengths of relational youth work. Young people questioning, leaving or changing faith need adults who can hold the complexity and non-linearity of their experience without rushing to procedural responses, or to frameworks that place the burden of change on the young person alone.

Youth workers are well-placed to be those adults. They work in the spaces where open conversations happen, build relationships over time, and are often trusted by young people who have found other institutions unsafe or unresponsive. What they need are the organisational conditions, professional development, multi-agency connections and specific knowledge, about faith transitions, high-control religion, conversion practices and LGBTQ+ harm, to make the most of that position. With shared language and structural awareness across safeguarding systems, the shift from crisis intervention to early, agency-nurturing support becomes possible, and faith transitions can begin to be embedded in policy, partnership and practice.

We hope this is a timely contribution that brings youth workers into a wider debate about safeguarding for young people questioning, leaving or changing faith, especially as recent government and parliamentary inquiries signal new policy on safeguarding in faith settings. It sits within our broader work on this issue, and we hope youth workers will join us at our our one day conference in Birmingham on 21 October 2026 to be part of the discussion.