Priti Patel publishes paper on characteristics of group-based child sexual exploitation

Those of us working in the field of tackling child exploitation know we have much more work to do to attempt to eradicate this crime.

There are challenges to the identification, prevention, disruption, and prosecution of perpetrators of this crime, due to the complex nature of abuse, including coercive and controlling behaviour. However, agencies and professionals continue to develop and improve their services to better respond to this crime and provide adequate support for victims and their families.

Data gathering and analysis of this data to understand the true prevalence, and drivers to understanding perpetrator behaviour need to improve. Without understanding the number and demographics of children this affects, the drivers to the behaviour, how can we begin to understand what education and strategies are needed to improve prevention and disruption.

Regardless of race or religion, regardless of online or offline abuse, the exploitation of children is a crime that has a life-long impact. The work of IICSA and my own engagement with victims and survivors who have been abused through exploitation, who now work to ensure our society is a safer place for children today, are testimony to the life-long impact of the abuse and the struggles they face.

There is a continuous need to share good practice, as child exploitation, by its nature, constantly changes, we are seeing the increased awareness of criminal exploitation through county lines, modern slavery, and trafficking however, we need to ensure the learning from tackling child sexual exploitation is embedded within the whole complex intertwined child exploitation responses.

The NWG have concentrated on sharing the progress made across the country, allowing all to explore opportunities to improve responses.

Plymouth shared their trauma informed programme, Greater Manchester Shared their Complex Safeguarding approach, South end on Sea shared their Public Health model, North

Yorkshire shared their ‘No Wrong Door’ model, plus many more shared their good practice examples through online learning events.

The operational learning from these events helps to shape services and allow creative thinking to improve responses. Listening to the voice of children is critical in helping us to see how we might support them more effectively.

Over the past few years, we have seen a focus on adverse childhood experiences (ACES) and a trauma informed approach. In addition, there have been exciting developments around safeguarding including contextual safeguarding and complex safeguarding, all providing important messages to inform local responses. Understanding the vulnerabilities of each child and their own needs whilst incorporating those with additional needs such as educational or cultural complexities allows us to focus on the child in a holistic way.

Some of our focuses include:

– the support adolescents require, especially when transitioning into adult services, moving from one service that sees them as a victim one day, to someone making life choices the next day, means a gap in support increases their risks to further harm and exploitation.

– Parents are valuable safeguarding partners, including them in safeguarding plans and supporting the family to manage the impact

– Raising the profile of abuse in sport to ensure we support Sport England to make sporting activities for our children safe to take part in is important to us.

– Avoiding victim-blaming language and seeing them through the lens of coerced, controlled and abused young people.

– Awareness and prevention as a community approach

– Disruption is key in tackling perpetrator behaviour and we have developed a toolkit to assist law enforcement.

Independent scrutiny shows us that the sharing of progressive practice and resources, linking people up for peer support and learning is crucial to improved developments to help us create a society that has a zero tolerance to child exploitation.

 

Sheila Taylor MBE – Chief Executive – NWG Network