Conversations with two groups of young people in Queensland were used to explore how they experience risk. The groups placed very different emphases on two types of risk – technological and embodied. The authors argue that this difference is due to each group’s position within the risk society: one group, which consisted of young people experiencing homelessness, were ‘at-risk’, while the other, a youth advisory committee, acted as a buffer between youth at-risk and risk society. These results raise the question as to how such divergences in perception can be taken into account when developing youth participation policy and procedure.