It really was a pleasure to say Hello and Welcome to you all, I enjoyed catching up with several of our friends who have come back regularly to this event, or those we’ve had a long working relationship with.

Some of you are returning but for others it’s your first time with us.  It’s a time to meet up with colleagues from further afield, share time and experiences and develop informal networks of support.

This is our 6^thyear, and as always, as I’m sure you are aware, the event costs more per head than we charge, as our aim is to ensure as many people as possible can attend.

We thank our exhibitors

Care4Children

Price Slater Gawne

Loudmouth Education & Training

Caldecott Foundation

AlterEgo

All our own NWG team are here and happy to help you so seek them out and have a conversation to see how they can help you.

Each year we focus on delegates feedback and evaluation forms from the previous conference but we also look at the trends we have seen as the team travel the UK supporting you all in your everyday challenges.

Over the past year much of our work, through our direct engagement with more than 95 local authorities, has focused on the vulnerability of adolescence today, the involvement as parents as partners, disruption, changing culture and attitude and ensuring we meet the needs of those aged 16 to 18 years moving into adult services.

It is clear we have witnessed a national move towards not seeing sexual exploitation as a single issue to be addressed, but to incorporate the lessons learnt from that journey leading to where we are today and using that knowledge to help tackle todays concerns of wider issues of vulnerability and exploitation.

Recognising that there are similarities and differences across diverse forms of exploitation, such as recruitment, grooming, threat of violence and coercion, national not just local issues and the under reporting from victims, parents and professionals are some of the similarities, whilst the level of violence, the gender focus and the organised nature are different.  To incorporate the lessons learnt from the journey in tackling CSE such as links to missing, human trafficking and modern slavery and the need to build on that work and see the whole picture of the exploitation of our children and to start awareness, prevention and intervention at the earliest stage possible.

To explore these issues further we welcomed a range of speakers to help us understand some of the complexities we face in tackling the issues of vulnerability and exploitation of our children in today’s society.

It was with great pleasure we were able to introduce delegates to our two keynote speakers of the day.

We were pleased to welcome SPACEto highlight the issue of county lines and young people entrenched within it and its devastating and wider impact on the entire family.

Our second keynote speaker wasDr Ella Cockbain,a lecturer in Security and Criminal Science from University College London. I first met Ella when involved in Operation Retriever and today she talked about her work on Offenders and Victim Networks in Human Trafficking.

The rest of the day was an opportunity to share improved practice from across the UK in the rich and varied special interest groups. Many of the delegates attending today delivered their special interest groups, sharing their own initiatives in their area of expertise.

People made the most of day and enjoyed networking with colleagues, making new friends and catching up with old ones.

Reflecting on the Space presentation from this morning where we heard how important it is to be trained in understanding Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery and Working Families we are welcoming Barrister Phillipa Southwell to the NWG HQ to deliver ‘Human Trafficking and modern Slavery in the Context of Forced Criminality’ specialist seminar (2^ndand 3^rdApril) as well as The Experts by Experience Training Courses challenge perceptions and practice around working alongside parents and families whose children have been sexually exploited.

The course is unique in that it centres around videos, audios and transcripts from parents’ recent experiences of their child’s exploitation. These stories and experiences of how families were viewed and treated by services helped to shape the course and was a driver to develop practice further.

The next course is at our NWG offices in Derby on April 9th. This also complements the Parents as Safeguarding Benchmarking Toolwhich is available to download for free for NWG members and is on our resources section.  New emerging practice documents for practitioners around Making Meetings Matter for Families and Supporting Parents to Share Information on CSE is now available.

Other NWG training coming up:

• Transition 16 to 18 and beyond
• Sexual Exploitation of children with learning difficulties and disabilities
• Combatting CSE in sport
• Understanding trauma
• Advanced level CSE

. Seminars

• Child criminal exploitation Barrister Phillipa Southwell Human Trafficking and modern slavery in the context of forced criminality reflecting the importance of understanding to tackle criminal exploitation.
• Harmful sexual behaviour – Zoe Lodrick
• Gang awareness and County Lines – Gavin McKenna

Keep an eye out for online exploitation, forced marriage, honor-based violence and exploitation seminars which are currently being planned.

Day 1 ended with our Unsung Hero dinner and Awards….nominations and winners to follow.

Thank you all for a great first day and a wonderful evening

Sheila Taylor MBE CEO