Conflict, Coercion and Change: What the CCE Transition to Adulthood Report Means for Practitioners

By Kim Logan, Managing Director, ADR Mediation & Training CIC.

When we talk about conflict, we often focus on the visible behaviours – the arguments, the resistance, the breakdown in communication. But behind many conflicts sit layers of trauma, coercion and unmet need that shape how people show up, respond and protect themselves.

The new From Exploited to Exploiter? report by the Alliance for Youth Justice (AYJ) brings this into sharp focus. It explores what happens when children who have been criminally exploited reach adulthood, and how the systems designed to protect them often fall away just as they remain most vulnerable.

For anyone working in mediation, safeguarding or community safety, the findings carry important lessons. They remind us that conflict rarely happens in isolation, and that our responses must evolve alongside our understanding of human behaviour.