Relationship-Building In Mandated Work with Justice-Involved Adolescents: Evidence from Chinese Judicial Social Work

Background and Purpose:
Professional relationship-building is widely recognized as central to effective work with justice-involved adolescents, especially in mandated settings where young people may enter services feeling anxious, mistrustful, or resistant. Existing international scholarship has identified broad engagement strategies such as role clarification, responsive communication, and practical support, but little is known about how these strategies are enacted in Chinese judicial social work. This study examined how frontline judicial social workers in China build and sustain professional relationships with adolescents involved in illegal or criminal behavior. The study asked: How do Chinese judicial social workers build and sustain professional relationships with justice-involved adolescents, and what factors shape that process?

Methods:
This qualitative study drew on semi-structured interviews with 10 frontline judicial social workers from three Chinese cities. Participants were recruited through purposive sampling and all had direct practice experience working with adolescents involved in illegal or criminal behavior in justice-related intervention settings. Prior to data collection, a preliminary scoping review of English-language literature was conducted to identify broad relationship-building domains and to inform the interview guide and initial analytic framework. Interview data were analyzed using framework analysis, combining sensitizing concepts from prior literature with inductive coding of participants’ accounts.

Results:
Findings suggest that professional relationship-building in this setting involves five interrelated practices. First, workers framed the relationship within a mandated context by clarifying role, process, and expectations in ways that reduced confusion without intensifying resistance. Second, they communicated in ways adolescents could receive by adjusting tone, pacing, and language to adolescents’ developmental level, emotional state, and everyday communicative world. Third, they built trust through responsive and practical support, including attending to crises, transitions, and uncertainty even when material resources were limited. Fourth, participants described relationship-building as an ongoing process requiring maintenance, recalibration, and occasional repair rather than a one-time engagement task. Fifth, workers emphasized that relationship-building was shaped by contextual factors, including timing of intervention, adolescents’ prior experiences of mistrust, and the quality of coordination among social workers, police, prosecutors, and other actors. Overall, the findings indicate that strategies identified in prior international literature are broadly relevant, but require adaptation to local institutional conditions, relational norms, and adolescents’ developmental and legal circumstances.

Conclusions and Implications:
The findings suggest that relationship-building in Chinese judicial social work is best understood as an ongoing, adaptive practice rather than a standardized engagement technique. The study contributes to social work research by showing how professional relationships in mandated youth justice settings are shaped not only by worker skill, but also by institutional ecology and first-contact processes. Implications include the need for developmentally attuned communication training, clearer role introduction in judicial settings, and stronger interagency coordination to support trust-building with justice-involved adolescents.