Peer-reviewed article
Co-producing proportionate responses to adolescent sexual behaviours: The development of the Young People's Sexual Behaviours Mapping Tool (YSB-MT).
King-Hill S ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This paper describes the development of the Young People's Sexual Behaviours Mapping Tool (YSB-MT), a framework designed to help frontline services respond to adolescent sexual behaviours in a rights-based, proportionate way. The tool was created by synthesizing evidence from multiple research projects conducted between 2021 and 2025, including surveys, helpline records, and youth voice studies. It involves three stages: practitioner reflection, collaborative mapping with young people across multiple life domains, and integrated action planning. The tool aims to move away from risk-focused, shame-based responses toward structured, shared understanding that centers adolescents' participation and considers broader socioecological contexts.
Key points
- The YSB-MT has dual functionality for both youth-facing engagement and professional planning when direct youth participation is not possible
- The tool's socioecological structure aligns individual behaviour with interpersonal, community and societal determinants
- It supports multi-agency coordination and considers proportionality prior to escalation to statutory pathways
- The framework centres adolescent participation and minimizes shame, moving beyond categorical labelling
- The tool was developed for ages 13-18 and integrates reflective practice, children's rights and contextual safeguarding
Limitations
This is a development and synthesis study rather than an empirical evaluation, so it does not provide evidence of whether the tool actually improves outcomes for young people or changes practitioner responses. The document does not describe implementation outcomes or comparative effectiveness against other assessment approaches.
Abstract
Background Sexual behaviours in adolescence are complex and exist within multiple socio-ecological domains, yet frontline assessment tools are often practitioner only, risk led and insufficiently participatory. The development of the Young People's Sexual Behaviours -Mapping Tool (YSB-MT), a socioecologically grounded, youth facing framework has been developed to support proportionate, rights based responses across public health services. Methods It draws together evidence generated across a multi-project research programme to articulate the conceptual foundations, methodological integration and applied design of the YSB-MT. Guided by a multi-project research programme led between 2021 and 2025, the YSB-MT was designed through synthesis of survey, helpline record analysis, scoping reviews, qualitative youth voice studies and prior tool building work on sibling sexual behaviours. The tool comprises three stages, practitioner only problem formulation and reflexivity; collaborative domain based mapping with young people across digital, relational, developmental, educational, family and community contexts and an integrated action plan. This paper presents a development and synthesis study rather than a conventional empirical research. Findings The YSB-MT provides a structured framework that moves beyond categorical labelling toward structured, shared understanding that centres adolescents' participation and minimizes shame. The YSB-MT's dual functionality allows both youth facing engagement and professional planning/supervision when direct participation is not possible. Its socioecological structure aligns individual behaviour with interpersonal, community and societal determinants, provides a structure to support multi-agency coordination and supports consideration of proportionality prior to escalation to statutory pathways. Interpretation Embedding reflective practice, children's rights and contextual safeguarding within a single structured framework intends to offer a pragmatic route to more consistent, compassionate and effective responses to sexual behaviours among 13-18 year olds.