On a sunny day in May, Cheryl and I headed south to Coventry to visit the Children’s Society project – Streetwise. We were happily welcomed by Jenny and her team – always impressed when the sandwiches and cakes come out!

Streetwise has been running as a project since 2008, it started out as a project working with young people running away from home, however after a change in their priorities they received funding to become a CSE focused project. The project mainly work with young people in a 1:1 context, working from where the young person is at, using creative means. At the moment they are a small team, so much of their work is done in partnership with other service providers in the area such as Kairos who are a charity that supports and empowers women and CRASAC – Coventry Rape And Sexual Abuse Centre, amongst others. It was great to see these partnerships in practice as we sat in on one of their mini team meetings. Streetwise are also doing some great work in raising the awareness of CSE in Coventry and surrounding area’s, with one of their specific focuses being on hotels in the city – using the ‘Say Something if you See Something’ campaign! Streetwise also provides awareness raising sessions with groups of young people throughout the city, as well as providing some basic training with professionals.  Also great to see how the Streetwise project interacts with other Children’s Society projects in nearby cities.

Thank you again to the Streetwise project for hosting us we had a great time visiting Coventry!