On 15th October we held our quarterly CSE coordinators forum at the YMCA training centre in Birmingham. The event was very well attended by a range of multi agency practitioners from a range of services including voluntary and statutory organisations. I am always pleased to see such a variety of practitioners at these events as I am reassured slightly that more and more we are moving towards ensuring a multi agency response is afforded to victims of Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE).

 

It is important that we all work in partnership by sharing information and ensuring joint risk assessments are conducted so that we are aware of all the relevant facts about a young person, aware of information that might escalate or reduce risk, and identify the needs of these young people, both short term and long term.

 

We need to ensure that we are constantly identifying opportunities for prevention and intervention to minimize risks and reduce the trauma that a victim faces.

 

The forum members heard from Michelle Diaz who presented on the Brook Sexual Behaviour Traffic Light Tool, which is a tool that has been designed to support professionals working with children and young people to identify, assess and respond appropriately to sexual behaviours.
Michelle very effectively demonstrated how there are numerous barriers facing victims of CSE when it comes to identifying themselves as a victim of CSE and subsequently seeking support and disclosing offences once they have bravely decided to try and stand up to their abuser(s). These barriers include fear of blame, not being believed, seen as ‘consenting’, fear of the consequences/repercussions from the abuser(s), fear of court process, fear of isolation, attitudes of professionals, fear of abandonment by friends/family, shame, dishonour, stigmatisation, threats of violence, intimidation and the list goes on.

 

The group then went on to discuss some of the barriers that frontline professionals might face when attempting to identify and respond to a victim of CSE, including lack of knowledge /training on the issue, insufficient information sharing routes, insufficient referral pathways, not being believed, risks being minimised/ignored, lack of escalation processes, high thresholds, lack of independent support services, lack of resources, lack of partnership working, insufficient risk assessments and reviews and again the list goes on.

 

We need to ask ourselves one question – where is the young person in all this? –

 

• The answer is under all the mess above that are the challenges and barriers that young people and professionals face. The young person gets lost in the mess.
• We need to ensure that we have a robust response in place to protect young people from early help to longer-term support post court and beyond.
• We need to make our services accessible and child focussed. Far too often are young people being let down, far too often are they being ignored and left to be victimised. Far too often are we allowing this to become normal in our society.
• We all need to work together to create a zero – tolerance to vulnerable young people being abused.

 

Our next presenters reinforced the above to the forum group. Workers from the Jack Raine Foundation passionately discussed the work they are doing to raise awareness of the issue of CSE within the boxing world to help communities fight against child abuse. The workers delivered a very passionate and inspiring input; discussing the direct engagement they have with young people and the support that a safe place such as their boxing club provides to vulnerable teenagers. They talked about the time they spend to build trusting meaningful relationships with the young people in order to provide support and stability to an otherwise chaotic life.

 

The club openly shared the challenges they face with partnership working and the frustrations of not being valued as a voluntary organisation.

 

For me, this particular input was inspiring and demonstrated the need for a child centred approach to these cases. It was refreshing to hear them talk about how simple it can sometimes be. We need to listen and we need to care. We need to be persistent and we need to give them a voice and advocate for them.

 

The last presentation of the day came from a practitioner working in a secure unit, discussing the appropriateness of secure accommodation for some victims of CSE. Grace described the work that is undertaken with the females in the setting and the therapeutic care given to them in order to help them recover from the trauma they have suffered. Grace also described the work undertaken to ensure a robust transition back into the community in an attempt to minimise future risks to the young women.

 

At the Health Forum this week I had the privilege to hear from the mother of a daughter who had been murdered as a result of trying to support her friend who was the victim of CSE. This was a very emotional and hard hitting story but the reason I mention this is because we talk about the risks young people face and the consequences of saying ‘NO’ to the abusers but we need to remember that exploitation of this type can have very long lasting and tragic consequences – this is not an attempt to sensationalise the issue but to reinforce the reality of what happens to the young people in our society.