Investigating young people’s reflections on wellbeing, care, and constraint in a Scottish youth work setting

The COVID-19 pandemic intensified existing social and economic inequalities across Scotland, deepening poverty, environmental neglect, mental health challenges, and pressures on public services. These conditions disproportionately affected young people in under-resourced communities. This thesis examines how young people understand and experience wellbeing in this context, and how relational spaces, including youth work and this study, shaped opportunities for reflection, agency, and imagining change. Situated within a community-based youth work setting, the study draws on participatory visual methodology. Six young people took part in a photovoice project, using photography and group dialogue to explore their everyday lives, relationships, and environments. Their contributions were co-curated into a public exhibition and later discussed in semi-structured interviews. Fourteen local stakeholders who attended the exhibition provided written reflections, offering additional perspectives on the relational and structural conditions shaping youth wellbeing. The analysis draws on a theoretical framework centred on Empowerment Theory and Feminist Ethics of Care, with Critical Pedagogy providing a contextual lens for understanding reflection and structural awareness. The findings show that young people experienced wellbeing as shaped by feelings of safety, connection, and recognition, as well as by structural factors of poverty, stigma, environmental neglect, and limited access to services. Participants valued spaces where they could reflect and feel listened to, but expressed frustration when opportunities for voice were not followed by visible action, highlighting the emotional demands of participation in constrained systems. Youth work spaces offered trusted environments that supported connection and emotional wellbeing, while also having limited capacity to influence wider structural inequalities. This thesis argues that youth wellbeing is shaped at the intersection of relational care, structural inequality, and opportunities for critical reflection. It offers a context-specific account of how youth work and participatory research can support wellbeing and agency, while recognising the limits of these approaches without sustained structural change.