Each month, Catch22 gathers the latest research, information and resources for professionals involved in protecting children and young people from harm outside the home.

Has this email been forwarded to you? To sign up to the Research and Development Round-Up and receive it directly in your inbox, please get in touch with us with the subject heading ‘R&D subscription’ at [email protected].

 Image courtesy of neotam on Pixabay

  Sextortion

The National Crime Agency (NCA) has issued an alert to hundreds of thousands of education professionals following a considerable increase in global cases of financially motivated sexual extortion – a type of online blackmail widely known as ‘sextortion’. The NCA emphasises that this is a form of child sexual abuse.

BBC New item Pupils get rare alert over dangers of sextortion covers the story of the NCA’s unprecedented alert to teachers over the alarming worldwide surge of sextortion cases among teenagers and the hugely damaging impact this can have on young people’s mental health.

Guardian article ‘It can happen to any child’: parents of sextortion victim send out warning features an interview with the parents of Murray Dowey, who took his own life after being duped by criminals online. Warning: contains upsetting content.

Guardian podcast on which the above article about Murray Dowey was based. Warning: contains upsetting content.

Guardian advice to parents  How can parents protect their children from sextortion? says the most important thing parents can do is simple: talk to children about what they are doing online.

UK Safer Internet Centre has released a new page with advice for professionals, parents and carers, and young people on Sextortion .

Information and leaflet for parents on Sextortion will be available on the Catch22 resources page from early June.

Child Exploitation

Blog from 10and23 about the importance of working with parents whose children are affected by exploitation.

Times article Excluded children are being ‘served up on a conveyor belt’ for gangs features an interview with Anne Longfield from the Centre for Young Lives and Alison Cope, whose son was stabbed to death in 2013.

Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) and Exploitation (CSE)

The Government has published its response to the consultation on the proposed mandatory reporting duty in England. It summarises themes arising from consultation responses, sets out proposals for the new duty, and outlines next steps, and confirms the duty will be introduced as an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill. The IICSA Changemakers group of organisations supporting victims/survivors of CSA (including Catch22) has responded here.

Advice from Parents Protect website on how to respond if a child tells you that they have been sexually abused.

New report from Internet Matters on ‘self-generated’ CSA explores effective messaging to prevent children sharing explicit images of themselves. Many children said they didn’t feel this issue was tackled well enough or early enough by schools. They expressed a preference for learning in small, gender-based groups with specially trained staff, and many favoured alternative learning methods such as through games or real-life stories.

ITV News item ‘He stole my child’: Children as young as three manipulated into creating sexual imagery covers the ever-increasing number and severity of cases of online sexual abuse of children.

Children’s Social Care

Guardian article claims vulnerable teenagers are being  ‘dumped and abandoned’ in budget hotels by councils in England, making them targets for grooming by criminal gangs.

The NSPCC has published Assessments: learning from case reviews, which highlights that professionals conducting assessments should: focus on the voice and needs of the child; involve all significant people in the child’s life; gather and share information across agencies; critically evaluate the information they collect.

The UK Trauma Council has produced Toolkits for providers of Supported Accommodation, for Education settings and for Community Organisations working with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. On the same web page, there is also a literature review focussed on understanding the education experiences of children and young people seeking refuge and asylum.

BBC news item about the increasing use of Deprivation of Liberty Orders (DoLs) and children and young people’s experiences of being on a DoL order.

The NSPCC has produced a briefing based on a sample of child safeguarding practice reviews published between 2019 and 2023 where practice issues around hearing the voice of the child were identified as a key factor.  Learning includes the need to understand what the voice of the child is, how it can be incorporated into assessments and arrangements, and how to build relationships and cultures to centre their voice.

CYPNow article reports that Children’s charities and sector leaders have raised concerns about the “painfully slow progress” of implementing reforms to the children’s social care system two years after recommendations were made in Josh MacAlister’s Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.

Child Criminal Exploitation and County Lines

The Government has tabled an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill currently passing through parliament with the aim of making ‘cuckooing’ a specific offence.

Education

The Children’s Society has produced a Behaviour Policy Checklist for schools to support inclusive behaviour policies, including insights from peer consultations with young people.

The Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition (CYPMHC) has published a report and a parliamentary briefing on the mental health barriers to school attendance. It finds that certain groups of children, such as those with special educational needs, those living in poverty, those experience bullying or racism, young carers and care experienced children, can be disproportionately impacted by both school absence and mental health problems.

YouTube podcast episode looking at why children miss school. Experts from the NSPCC and Childline discuss: what school absenteeism is; the potential safeguarding implications; and what schools can do to prevent absenteeism and support persistently absent children.

Mental Health

Centre for Young Lives and Children of the North publish their latest report on improving mental health and wellbeing with and through education settings. The report calls for the widening of Mental Health Support Teams to all schools, new ‘one-stop-shop’ hubs for parents and children to find local support, and national roll out of local wellbeing surveys to track ‘emotional temperature’ of school children.

Missing

Missing People charity has produced some Principles for the Police Response to Missing People and their Families which they are asking all Police Forces to sign up to.

 News article about Charlie Hedges, a retired Police Officer who has worked on some of the country’s most high-profile disappearances, from David Kelly to county lines to grooming gangs. He discusses some of the past weaknesses in Police investigations and argues the same mistakes can still be made today despite enormous progress.

Modern Slavery

Guardian article drawing attention to the hundreds of potentially trafficked children ‘abandoned by Home Office’ as they turn 18 and drop out of the National Referral Mechanism (NRM).

The Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group has produced a briefing on the above issue of young victims of human trafficking transitioning to adulthood, claiming that they experience significant barriers to accessing support.

Online Safety & Online Harms

Tech Shock, the Parentzone podcast, has made a half-hour programme looking at Smartphone bans for under-16s: the parent perspective based on contributions they’ve had directly from parents themselves. 

Ofcom has published its draft safety codes for children using online platforms along with a corresponding consultation ending 17th July 2024. This Guardian article covers the story, focusing on social media firms being told they must “tame aggressive algorithms” that recommend harmful content to children. Catch22 has responded to the draft safety codes of practice here.

Article by Ian Russell, father of Molly Russell (who took her own life after viewing online material promoting suicide), which argues that for children to be safe online, it’s the tech companies that need to change their behaviour, not children themselves. Banning smartphones may cause more harm than good, in his opinion.

The Internet Watch Foundation Report 2023  has been released, which shows the organisation received 392,665 reports suspected to contain child sexual abuse imagery in 2023. 92% of content removed contained “self-generated” child sexual abuse material.

Relationships, Sex & Health Education (RSHE)

The NSPCC has launched a new Whole-School Approach Framework for sex and relationships education, which includes: an implementation guide with step-by-step advice; the framework setting out the components of a whole-school approach; a snapshot tool for self-assessing RSHE provision; an editable action plan template.

The government has announced age limits introduced to protect children in RSHE and its consultation on the new curriculum is open until 11th July.

 Safeguarding

Free webinar hosted by the independent Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel to share key messages and recommendations from its briefing paper on safeguarding children in elective home education. The webinar will explore common themes and patterns identified across reviews where children died or were seriously harmed while being electively home educated. It highlights practice issues raised by safeguarding partners and shares learning to improve multi-agency responses.

Substance Misuse

Glasgow University article about the latest Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study they have coordinated for the WHO, which paints a concerning picture of adolescent substance use in the UK. Recent declines in smoking over the last few decades had stalled, and there was evidence of increase in alcohol use among 15-year-old girls in England. In addition, the study highlights particular risks for older girls around vaping and alcohol use. BBC coverage highlights that England child alcohol use tops global chart

ITV News item about the rise in Ketamine addiction among young people. The article draws attention to the irreversible damage that can be caused to the bladder and to the links between ketamine and exploitation.

i-News article claiming that schoolchildren are falling victim to vape spiking after Police warn they are increasingly concerned, as officers have found devices containing substances such as THC (the main active ingredient in cannabis) and spice (a powerful synthetic drug). This BBC article states that children are also falling ill after using vapes spiked with potentially deadly nitazenes.

The Institute of Public Health in Northern Ireland has published a review of research on the health effects of vaping on children and adolescents. It found strong, high-quality evidence of an association between vaping and subsequent cigarette use based on longitudinal data. It also found evidence to support the association between vaping and having asthma, increased coughing, mental health, marijuana use, and alcohol use.

Trauma

Academic article from Carlene Firmin et al looks at the language we use about young people at risk of harm and how that affects our relationship with them: ‘Known to services’ or ‘Known by professionals’: Relationality at the core of trauma-informed responses to extra-familial harm. The report find professionals may say young people are ‘known-to-services’ but be distant from them, and that being proximal to young people and advocating for their needs helps to know them and understand their experiences.

Violence affecting young people

Extended BBC News article about the fatal stabbing of 16-year old Mikey Roynon by another 16 year-old child and the impact this has had on those around him.

 Article in The Conversation claims that rising knife crime in London is linked to austerity cuts to youth services , after the latest ONS data release shows that knife and gun offences have increased by 20% in the capital. (Evening Standard article here).

Youth Justice

Academic research article looking at approaches for supporting youth involved in both child protection and youth justice systems. Findings suggest future policy reforms should prioritise developing whole-government strategies; involve children’s perspectives; emphasise prevention, restorative and diversionary responses, and multi-agency collaboration.

Academic research article looking at drill rap lyrics as criminal evidence in group prosecutions argues that the state uses violent rap lyrics to build secondary liability in group prosecutions by exploiting drill’s power to ‘invoke stereotypes and mislead the court’, targeting young Black people through their expressive culture.

Ten years on from the publication of Catch22’s acclaimed research on the impact of gangs and violence in prisons, this blog explores what we know about violence in prison and what needs to happen in the next ten years.

The Scottish Parliament has just passed the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill , which enshrines in law age-appropriate care and justice for children and young people. It will ensure children and young people are kept out of prison, ending the placement of under 18s in Young Offenders Institutions, with secure accommodation being the normal place of detention, and will allow all children to access the Children’s Hearings System if they require it.

OTHER

Fearless (part of Crimestoppers) has produced a range of new/updated resources to support professionals working with children and young people at risk of harm outside the home. Topics cover: ‘snitching’; Harmful Sexual Behaviour; Knife Crime; County Lines: Drugs & Alcohol; Child Financial Exploitation.

Excellent BBC documentary series in which teenage boys around the UK talk to Catherine Carr about becoming a man; life online; and sex and consent, amongst other topics.

Northern Irish campaign against illegal money-lending by paramilitary groups, which can lead to  debt entrapment and exploitation.

Protecting Young Black Lives, Celebrating Black Professionals report has been written in partnership with Power the Fight and the Contextual Safeguarding Research Programme. It focuses on two key matters: issues that currently compromise the safety of young Black people, and the contributions made by Black professionals who are committed to keeping them safe.

This Community Care Inform guide supports professionals in understanding and responding to shame in direct work with children and families. It explains what shame is, what coping mechanisms people may use and how to work with someone experiencing shame due to their past experiences.

 The Children’s Commissioner has published Reflections from my Ambassadors who presented at the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children on 14th May 2024. The aim of the APPG was to ask how the next Government will prioritise the issues that matter to young people.