What an amazing day! We began this morning with the launch of our new Legacy of Abuse 2-Day training. This in-person training has been designed in two parts. Over the first day, attendees will recap and update their knowledge of child sexual and criminal exploitation (CSE/ CCE). Day two consolidates knowledge using the lived experience of a CSE and CCE victim and is structured to encourage reflection on safety, disruption, roles and responsibilities at different stages of the victim’s experience. This will enable attendees to fully immerse themselves in the experiences of the victim and her family with the intention of reinforcing the human element of CSE and CCE and highlighting opportunities that are often missed to safeguard and protect victims.

Please be aware that this session is designed to be hard-hitting and impactful.

The training is available for commissions as well as in person at the NWG Derby office and we are pleased to be able to offer October – December at special discounted prices to mark the launch. Booking for our open courses can be accessed at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/nwg-exploitation-network-10661324498

Our huge thanks go to Bex who with her mother’s support enabled us to share the full impact of being a young person exploited, the effect on her family and the complete change it makes to the extended family dynamics.

We were delighted to welcome Clare Kelly, Clare holds a dual role; she is the Associate Head of Policy and Public Affairs for England and the United Kingdom at the NSPCC as well as Head of Programmes for the IICSA Changemakers. For her work as the Programme lead for the IICSA Changemakers, she coordinates and supports the delivery of outcomes agreed upon by the group as they respond to the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse so they can be effective in their objective of inspiring a national mission to prevent child sexual abuse and the provision of much-improved support to victims and survivors.

If you wish to join IICSA Changemakers, please contact Clare at [email protected].

Our conference runs with parallel sessions, and today we thank Paula Bowman from Barnardo’s with the Launch New Real Love Rocks SEND Healthy Relationships and Exploitation Educational Resources, another fabulous resource for frontline practitioners.

Chris Rice – Senior Youth Work Manager and Alex Broadley – Apprentice Youth Worker, work for Salford Youth Service, Salford City Council and lead the LGBTQ+ youth project. 

This includes LGBTQ+ youth groups, parent support groups, 121 work supporting young people and the development of citywide training on LGBTQ+ inclusivity and supporting transgender and gender variant young people. They share valuable insights into some of the difficulties faced by transgender and gender-variant young people.

Jessica Kelly is currently the Senior Policy Officer (Positive Action) for the East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s Children & Young People’s Safeguarding and Support Service. She also volunteers at a start-up company that delivers soft skills workshops in secondary schools.

Jessica shared with us her role at East Riding, she has created a bespoke training program to give staff access to the voices of those with lived experiences, provide a space for reflection and encourage new perspectives. She has also created an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion strategy and Anti-Racist Guidelines to put emphasis on building an inclusive learning culture that challenges and dismantles systemic racism.

Kathleen Hallisey,  a Senior Associate in the Abuse Team at Hugh James. Originally from the US, Kathleen began her legal career in New York before moving to the UK and becoming a solicitor. Throughout her career, she has exclusively acted on behalf of claimants, including those who suffered catastrophic injuries on the road or at work, were dismissed from their jobs as a result of discrimination, or were sexually assaulted on university campuses.

Kathleen shared with us that her practice focused solely on abuse claims for the past decade. In 2015, she acted on behalf of a client who brought the first successful claim against the Jehovah’s Witnesses for childhood sexual abuse, A v The Trustees of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society & Others [2015] EWHC 1722 (QB). Kathleen was so affected by her client’s profound bravery, as well as the obstinate refusal of the Jehovah’s Witness organisation to change its safeguarding policies, that she campaigned with survivors and activists at Westminster and hand-delivered a letter to Downing Street urging an inquiry into the issue of child sexual abuse in the organisation.

In the intervening years, she was contacted by survivors of abuse in the Jehovah’s Witnesses from around the world, and in 2017 was privileged to co-host an international conference shedding light on the issue with the Center for Investigative Reporting in the US.

Anne Rannard a Detective Inspector from Merseyside Police, is currently seconded to the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre. Prior to taking on this role, she was the County Lines Coordinator for the North West region for 2 years. She has been a Detective Inspector for 15 years and has worked in numerous different roles in Merseyside, including managing a child criminal exploitation team and a multi-agency safeguarding hub before joining the NCLCC. 

As the ‘Protect’ lead, Anne leads on Policy and Investigations for the co-ordination centre.  She maintains an oversight of the best use of legislation to tackle county lines criminality and has supported forces to utilise Modern Slavery legislation and evidence-led prosecutions. She works closely with colleagues from CPS, the Home Office and other key agencies to manage barriers to prosecution and enhance prosecution outcomes.

 Additionally, Anne leads on tackling cuckooing for the coordination centre and has supported forces in developing their cuckooing response. 

Russell Massie is a serving police officer and the Thames Valley Police (TVP) and Thames Valley Violence Reduction Unit (TVVRU) Tactical Lead for Child Centred Policing.

Russell shared his belief that children of parents in prison should be supported to succeed on their own merits and not be hindered by their circumstances or the actions of the adults in their lives. He has developed Operation Paramount, the UK’s first programme to recognise and support children affected by parental imprisonment through innovative use of shared statutory data.

Claudia Villa MBA, CMgr, MSc, BA(Hons) an international safeguarding professional experienced in working with the International Sport Federation and National Governing Bodies to develop and implement safeguarding best practices. As former Head of Safeguarding for Commonwealth Sport, Claudia has driven the Commonwealth Sport movement safeguarding agenda, developing their first ever global safeguarding policy; creating and leading on the development and implementation of safeguarding framework for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and Trinidad & Tobago 2023 Youth Games and today enlightened us all of the safeguarding difficulties in major sporting events.

Ruth Mullineux-Morgan and Craig Evans joined us to inform us about Dragon Sheild

Craig is a researcher on the Developing Resistance Against Grooming Online (DRAGON-S) applied research project. Craig’s research to date has focused on using discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to investigate how language is used in a variety of contexts, including online grooming and health and social care. He completed his PhD in 2021 on NHS staff replies to patient feedback at Lancaster University, where he was a member of the Corpus Approaches to Social Science (CASS) research centre. He has published work on online grooming discourse, the language of patient feedback and care leaver identity.

Ruth is Deputy Lead (Shield) and Research Associate to the Developing Resistance Against Grooming Online (DRAGON-S) research project, Co-Lead of the C2Chat Research Project, and Participation Lead on a new project for global hotline and helpline analysts (DRAGON+). Ruth is co-author of Online Child Sexual Grooming Discourse part of the Cambridge Elements series. Ruth is finalising her PhD on Children’s Communication in Online Grooming Interactions. Ruth is also a Policy and Public Affairs Professional with over 15 years of expertise in advising in the political and children’s charity sector in Wales.

DRAGON-Shield, a Swansea University Project funded by the End Violence Against Children Safe Online Fund is an interactive multi-media portal. Through 8 modules the training relays specialist knowledge to child safeguarding practitioners about groomer <-> child communicative behaviour during online grooming. The tool strengthens child safeguarding practitioners’ ability to prevent children from being sexually groomed online and support those who have experienced harm. The workshop presented the findings of the pilot and evaluation conducted from January to June 2023 across 4 countries and offered a demonstration and opportunity to engage with aspects of the training. They also provided an update on the next steps and plans for access to and roll out of the training.

Esther Richardson a serving member of the Metropolitan Police Service for 27 years has for the last three years worked on the MPS Modern Slavery and Child Exploitation, Vulnerability Command. She led one of the five Investigation teams dealing with Serious and Organised Crime as the Senior Investigating Officer. Esther runs both proactive and reactive investigations and targets those who seek to exploit the vulnerable, working in close partnership with other agencies in the UK and abroad. She is part of a dedicated and professional team on Modern Slavery and Child Exploitation to tackle challenges, improve ways of working and deliver an even better service to London and beyond.

Today Esther shared her experience of being an SIO in an Organ Harvesting case.

Our final keynote speaker of the day was Deborah Denis CEO of the  Lucy Faithfull Foundation, a child protection charity dedicated to preventing child sexual abuse before it happens. The Lucy Faithfull Foundation is a UK-wide child protection charity that is unwavering in its commitment to preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation. They are in a unique position because they are one of only a few organisations tackling the root causes of harm by working with those perpetrating abuse or at risk of doing so. They run the Stop It Now! helpline, the largest helpline of its kind in the world for people concerned about their own sexual thoughts and behaviour towards children and anyone concerned about child sexual abuse, and support more than 8,000 callers who make more than 16,700 calls each year. 

Today they share the breadth of work they covered by also sharing with us the launch of the Shore Project, A safe space for teenagers worried about their sexual behaviour https://shorespace.org.uk/

We rounded the day off over a relaxed dinner with a little dancing to follow.

We are most grateful to all our speakers for their dedication, their willingness to share their work and the time and effort it took out of their busy schedules to join us and increase everyone’s understanding.

Looking forward to tomorrow and increasing our knowledge still further.