Dr Steve Barracosa1, Ms Sarah Stevenson2
1The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, 2University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Biography:
Dr Steve Barracosa is a researcher and practitioner in the field of countering violent extremism (CVE). His PhD in criminology was conducted at the University of Queensland and focused on youth radicalisation and violent extremism risk assessment. Steve holds several CVE practitioner and leadership roles across the private and public sector. He is the inaugural chair for the Commonwealth youth-extremism advisory group. Steve is a psychologist, published author on the topic of preventing and countering violent extremism with youth, a court appointment expert, and has experience in the development and implementation of CVE services for both youth and adults.
This presentation will explore the outcomes of a primary source study of at-risk and radicalised youth referred to countering violent extremism services in one Australian state. The study adopts a holistic developmental life-course lens to understand and explain youth engaged in extremism. This includes Australian minors convicted for terrorism offences. The findings indicate that youth radicalisation can be conceptualised through a constellation of individually specific life-course vulnerabilities, experiences, and influences across multiple domains. This encompasses non-ideological and extremism specific risk factors. The study highlights the need for a similarly broad life-course approach to be adopted in the field of violent extremism risk assessment to improve the utility and suitability of the available suite of tools for implementation with youth. The findings of the study will be positioned in the context of direct practitioner experiences in preventing and countering violent extremism. This includes canvassing the impact of an increasingly divisive sociopolitical landscape, the role of extremist content online, clinical complexity, and emerging challenges due to terrorism and hate crime legislation. The presentation will conclude by providing recommendations to evolve research, policy, and practice to support outcomes for at-risk and radicalised youth.