Why adults that can be trusted are so important to children
At ECO, our work is grounded in a simple but demanding truth: children cannot be kept safe by systems they do not trust. Safety is not created through procedures alone. It is created through relationships – and at the heart of those relationships lies trust.
Professor Peter Fonagy describes this as epistemic trust: the child’s capacity to trust that information communicated by others is relevant, reliable, and intended to help rather than harm. When epistemic trust is present, children are open to learning, guidance, and support. When it is absent, even the most well-intentioned interventions can be experienced as threatening, controlling, or unsafe.
For children who have experienced trauma, exploitation, or systemic harm, epistemic trust is often profoundly disrupted — and our professional responses can either help repair it or further erode it.
Epistemic trust develops when children experience adults as:
emotionally attuned
consistent and predictable
genuinely interested in their perspective
acting in their best interests
Professor Fonagy’s work shows that when children do not experience adults in this way, they may close themselves off to learning from others altogether. This is not defiance; it is self-protection.
For children affected by exploitation, coercion, neglect, or repeated rejection, mistrust of adults is often an entirely rational response. Many have learned — through experience — that adults:
do not listen
do not act when harm is disclosed
prioritise systems over relationships
or punish rather than protect
In these contexts, expecting children to simply “engage” with services misunderstands what safety actually requires.
When epistemic trust is absent, relationships don’t just struggle – they become unstable. Not because there is no connection, but because there is no shared reality to stand on. It is critical that we understand that children’s epistemic trust is not only shaped by families and caregivers — it is shaped by institutions.
Repeated experiences of:
being criminalised rather than safeguarded
having disclosures minimised or disbelieved
being excluded from school or services
being assessed without being understood
It sends a powerful message: “Adults are not safe. Systems are not for you.”
Once that message is embedded, children may disengage, resist intervention, or seek belonging elsewhere. This is not a failure of the child. It is a failure of the system to act in a trustworthy way.
Children do not distinguish neatly between “personal” and “professional” adults. For many children experiencing harm, professionals are the adults — social workers, teachers, youth workers, police officers, and health practitioners.
This creates an ethical responsibility: professional power must be exercised in ways that build trust, not fear.
We can see organisations such as Juvenis as examples of where trust is built when professionals:
listen without rushing to judgement
explain decisions honestly and clearly
involve children meaningfully in decisions about their lives
acknowledge harm caused by systems, not just individuals
stay present, even when behaviour is challenging
When professionals default to control, surveillance, or punishment, epistemic trust collapses. Children learn that engagement carries risk — and silence becomes safer.
Criminalising children who have been harmed or exploited is one of the fastest ways to destroy epistemic trust.
It teaches children the following:
disclosure leads to punishment
help is conditional
adults will choose systems over safety
Once this trust is broken, safeguarding becomes exponentially harder. Children stop telling adults what is happening. They disengage from services. They seek protection and belonging elsewhere.
This is why ECO consistently challenges punitive responses to children: they undermine the very conditions required for safety.
Epistemic trust can be rebuilt, but only through relational consistency, humility, and accountability.
This means professionals and leaders must be willing to:
reflect on how systems have harmed children
slow down responses to prioritise relationships
tolerate uncertainty rather than defaulting to control
hold risk with children, not displace it onto them
If we want children to trust adults, adults must act in trustworthy ways. That means moving beyond policies that look safe on paper but feel unsafe in practice. It means recognising that safeguarding is not just about identifying risk — it is about creating relationships in which children feel safe to speak, learn, and belong.
At ECO, we believe epistemic trust is not abstract theory. It is a practical, ethical foundation for child protection. Without it, safeguarding systems cannot function as intended.
Children don’t fail to engage because they lack capacity. They fail to engage because they so often do not trust the source of what is being offered. Without epistemic trust, nothing meaningful can land.
Written by: ECO