Child criminal exploitation (CCE) and child sexual exploitation (CSE) are growing concerns nationally and have been described as a “hidden crisis” (Barnardo’s, 2023).

They include involvement in county lines drug dealing, gang violence, forced criminal activity, grooming and child sex trafficking.

Victims of exploitation have been neglected by different agencies for various reasons, but often due to the lack of sharing of knowledge and data.

With the addition of media interest in CSE country-wide, not only are victims forced to re-visit their trauma, but practitioners are also put under further pressure to ensure risk outside the home is minimised for the children in their area.

Most parts of England and Wales are affected by child exploitation and Northamptonshire is no exception.

The need for a change in the approach to exploitation in the county was identified by the Northamptonshire Safeguarding Children’s Partnership.

In 2024, Northamptonshire Children’s Trust (NCT), together with Northamptonshire Police, developed a collaborative initiative to safeguard children and young people from exploitation – a new multi-agency hub.

The hub, based in the Criminal Justice Centre in Northampton, focuses on child exploitation across North and West Northamptonshire.

This initiative ensures a multi-agency approach is taken, as the police, health and other services across the safeguarding partnership are often involved in interventions to support children and young people at risk.

Laura Isherwood, team manager of the multi-agency exploitation hub

Laura Isherwood, who has many years of experience working in child exploitation, heads up a social work team that currently consists of six advanced practitioners.

The team shares the space at the hub with police officers and support workers from police teams involved in diverting young people at risk away from criminality and investigating missing episodes, with these staff having all had training in child exploitation and trauma-informed practice.

Different approaches

Laura and her team have a slightly different approach to traditional social work.

“A real focus of our work is developing resilience, supporting young people to develop strategies, critical thinking skills and harm minimisation,” says Laura.

“This is so we can support positive risk-taking at a stage in their life where independence is increasing and they’re spending less time with their families and more outside of the home.”

The practitioners in the exploitation team take a mindful approach, striving to make sure children are not criminalised. “We see the exploitation and vulnerability as opposed to just seeing children committing crimes in the community,” says Laura.

Working alongside police teams enables the social workers to collaborate and step in when needed.

Morgan, an advanced practitioner at the hub

Morgan and Rhian, both advanced practitioners, have been at the hub since its inception. They usually support other practitioners from NCT who have identified children at medium or high risk of child exploitation.

“The purpose of [the hub] is to be multi-agency and work alongside everyone to best support and safeguard the children and look at what’s happening in the community rather than just focusing on the child and trying to keep that child safe,” says Rhian.

“We can try and keep the child safe, but then other children can be impacted by the exploiters, and it’s just not going to end that harm really.”

Morgan’s previous training in systemic practice helps her to build trust with the children and families she works with. Often, parents can be overwhelmed and confused, so the team support them even if the child is out of a high-risk situation.

“Another positive of the hub is that we can be quite dynamic with how we offer support,” says Morgan. “Maybe it’s to the young person, but also it could be to parents, maybe it’s to grandparents, aunties, uncles or family friends who are an area of stability and a positive influence on them.”

Assessing risk

A multi-agency daily exploitation (MADE) meeting is held, and the advanced practitioner on duty that day will attend. Representatives from all the different teams participate and highlight any new incidents or concerns, as well as giving updates on existing children supported by the hub.

One of the main advantages of physically co-working in this way is that the exploitation team is alerted to children at risk before they are officially referred to them. This helps them to organise the appropriate type of intervention much faster.

The child exploitation and risk assessment framework (CERAF) was adopted by NCT and its partners before the hub went live.

The CERAF form is completed when there is an exploitation concern and ensures there is consistency across the different agencies. When the score is ‘medium’ or ‘high’, the child exploitation team at the hub will receive the referral.

Sometimes, practitioners in other social work teams might not always recognise when a child is being criminally or sexually exploited. The team can advise their multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH) colleagues, who are also based at the hub, on recognising potential risks.

The child exploitation team also created a safety plan template to help practitioners. This was praised by children’s charity Barnardo’s, which requested that it be shared with local authorities.

The creation of the hub

Debbie Lloyd, the assistant director of children and family support services and youth justice service at NCT, says agencies have taken their time in creating the hub to ensure best practice and that all relevant partners are involved.

The social work resource in the hub was commissioned by both North and West Northamptonshire councils as NCT serves both, highlighting support and buy-in from all.

This is not a child exploitation single service. This is a collection of officers, within the trust and outside of the trust, and practitioners that come together to support this initiative. It’s all built on trust and working relationships”, says Debbie.

Positive impact

Although the hub is in its infancy, the child exploitation team has had many successes already.

One example is Chloe* who was already in care and was referred to the team after having repeated missing episodes. While the team were working with Chloe, who was a victim of exploitation, she expressed an interest in a career in security.

The exploitation team facilitated work experience and CCTV training for her. This ‘disruption and diversion’ technique gave Chloe aspiration to look to the future more positively, and through this support she has had a reduction in missing episodes.

Another example of the positive impact the hub has had is Miles*.

Miles was also having missing episodes, including kidnapping, and had an allocated social worker from the safeguarding team. He was referred to the exploitation team, and when his advanced practitioner met him, he was very open about being exploited to sell drugs.

After conversations about safety, risk and consequences, it was clear that Miles wanted to break free and move away. Police teams were also involved in investigating the perpetrators.

The team helped to move Miles out of his home town, which kept him physically away from the exploiters, in line with what he wanted. A safety plan was put in place and currently his social worker visits him weekly to support him. Miles is settled and focused on joining the army, and will return to his family when he is ready, and it is safe to do so.

Colin Foster, chief executive of NCT, says: “The hub is a really positive step forward in improving how agencies across Northamptonshire work together to safeguard and support children and young people who might be coerced or exploited.

“We are already seeing the huge benefits of having partners co-located together, making it more effective to create a team of support around that child or young person, and the impact that this is having. I feel privileged to work with such an incredible group of professionals who are driving this forward.”

*name changed for anonymity

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Home secretary Yvette Cooper has ordered a national audit of gang-related child sexual exploitation (CSE), to examine the current scale and nature of the problem.

Alongside the three-month review, led by Baroness (Louise) Casey, the government will support – and fund – councils to carry out local inquiries into gang-based abuse, initially in five areas, Cooper told the House of Commons today.

The announcements are ministers’ latest moves to address the furore over gang-related CSE that has blown up in recent weeks.

Elon Musk’s interventions

That followed news that safeguarding minister Jess Phillips had rejected a request from Oldham Council to set up a public inquiry into CSE in the borough, instead advising it commission its own local review.

The revelation triggered a series of posts on X by its owner, Elon Musk, which were highly critical of Phillips and prime minister Keir Starmer. Meanwhile, the Conservatives called for a national public inquiry into gang-based CSE, with a focus on crimes committed by men of Pakistani heritage.

This was despite the issue having been covered by the seven-year Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), which reported in 2022, as well as by various local inquiries, for example, in Rotherham and Telford.

Mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse

Cooper responded, initially, with a statement to Parliament last week, in which she pledged to implement some of IICSA’s recommendations, including the introduction of mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse (CSA) by those in positions of trust over children.

She also said that Tom Crowther KC, who led the inquiry into CSE in Telford, would work with the government and councils where “more formal inquiries are required to tackle persistent problems”.

Today, she said Crowther would work with the government to “develop a new framework for victim-centred, locally led inquiries”, which would be piloted in Oldham and four other areas, backed by £5m of government funding.

Alongside this, Casey’s review would audit both police intelligence and child protection referrals, examine the demographics of gangs and victims, look at the cultural drivers of group-based CSE and make recommendations about further actions to address “current and historical failures”.

No public inquiry into CSE

Cooper’s announcement will be seen as a concession to the government’s critics. However, neither Casey’s audit nor the local reviews are public inquiries, with the power to compel witnesses to give evidence, as called for by the Conservatives and others.

On this point, shadow home secretary Chris Philp questioned how they could “possibly get to the truth when faced with cover-ups”.

Cooper said the government would work with councils “to bolster the accountability mechanisms that can support and follow up local inquiries, to ensure that those who are complicit in cover-ups, or who try to resist scrutiny, are always robustly held to account so that truth and justice are never denied”.

Inquiry implementation plan to come

In her previous statement, Cooper said the government would implement some of the recommendations from IICSA’s final report and its separate report into child sexual exploitation by organised networks, including:

• Mandatory reporting of CSA, which was recommended in the final report.
• Creating a new performance framework, with data collection requirements, for the police concerning CSA and CSE. This responds to IICSA’s recommendation, from its final report, to introduce a core data set for the issue, to tackle what it found was a lack of reliable data, particularly in relation to CSE.
• Legislating to make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences, a recommendation from recommendation from IICSA’s report on CSE by organised networks.

In her latest statement, the home secretary said the government would publish a plan for taking forward the 20 recommendations from IICSA’s final report before Easter, though did not commit to implementing all of them.

She said the government had accepted in full four recommendations that were directed at the Home Office and had started implementing them. Besides mandatory reporting, these include improving compliance by relevant organisations with their duty to refer concerns about people’s suitability to work with children to the Disclosure and Barring Service procedures.

Recommendations from report on CSE by organised groups

Cooper added that the government would also implement all remaining recommendations from IICSA’s report on CSE by organised networks beyond making grooming an aggravating factor in sentencing.

Of the other five recommendations, one – updating the Home Office’s child exploitation disruption toolkit to improve guidance to practitioners on tackling CSE – appears to have been met.

Another concerns improving police and local authority collection of CSE data, including by separating it from data on other forms of abuse, such as CSA, and collecting information on the sex, ethnicity and disability of both the victim and perpetrator. This will likely be covered by the plan to create a new performance framework for the police in relation to CSA and CSE.

Call for ban on unregulated placements

IICSA also called for a ban on the use of unregulated placements in independent or semi-independent accommodation for 16 and 17-year-olds in care who have experienced, or are at heightened risk of, CSE, in the light of the risks many have faced in those settings.

The recommendation came after the government had banned unregulated placements for under-16s, but before it ended the legal use of unregulated provision for looked-after children, by requiring organisations to register as supported accommodation providers and comply with regulations.

These include ensuring that staff “have the skills to identify and act upon signs that a child is at risk of abuse, neglect, exploitation or any other harm, and act to reduce such risk” and can “support children to maintain appropriate and safe relationships with family, friends and other people who are important to them”.

It is likely this recommendation will be interpreted as met by the government, despite longstanding criticisms from campaigners that the supported accommodation regime is insufficiently protective of children and young people.

CSE guidance to be revised

That leaves two recommendations, both of which concern the Department for Education updating its 2017 guidance for practitioners and leaders on protecting children on CSE.

This should include providing further advice on online exploitation and abuse by organised networks and making clear that, where there are signs that a child is being exploited, they should not be treated as merely being “at risk” of CSE, IICSA said.

The inquiry found “a distinctive professional language around child sexual exploitation has developed over many years, which describes children being ‘at risk’ despite clear evidence of actual harm having occurred”.

As a result, children who had, for example, contracted sexually transmitted infections or were regularly going missing with adults, were not being given the support they needed because they were not treated as having experienced CSE.

In her statement, Cooper told the House of Commons  that the DfE guidance would be updated, in response to IICSA’s recommendations.

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Legislation to reform children’s social care has cleared its first parliamentary hurdle.

MPs approved the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill in principle yesterday (8 January 2024), following a debate in the House of Commons that saw a Conservative amendment that would have blocked the bill overwhelmingly defeated.

The bill will now be considered in detail, and likely amended, by a committee of MPs, before returning to the Commons to be further considered and voted upon, prior to consideration by the House of Lords.

With Labour’s huge majority in the Commons and the Lords unlikely to hold up the legislation, the bill is likely to become law in the spring, though some measures will not be implemented until future years.

‘Biggest reform in a generation’

Introducing the bill, education secretary Bridget Phillipson said it was part of “the biggest reform of children’s social care in a generation”, though one inherited in significant part from its Conservative predecessor. As well as the measures in the bill, this includes:

• The England-wide rollout of the family help model in 2025-26. Family help involves merging targeted early help and child in need services into multidisciplinary teams, designed to provide families in need with better, less stigmatising support, with a view to keeping families together.
• The trialling of financial allowances for some kinship carers in order to improve their ability to care for children.
• Rolling out regional fostering hubs to improve recruitment of foster carers and tackle existing shortages.

Prioritising keeping children with families

Phillipson said that the reforms were designed to help more children stay with their families, while improving the care system for those who could not, including by tackling provider profit levels.

“Our first priority is to keep children with their family wherever it is safe to do so, so the bill mandates all local authorities to offer family group decision making,” Phillipson told MPs. “With the guidance of skilled professionals, families with children at risk of falling into care will be supported to build a plan that works for them. We are strengthening support for kinship care, so that vulnerable children can live with the people they know and trust, wherever that is possible.

“However, despite the best efforts of all involved, some children will inevitably need to enter care, so we must reform the system so that it works for them. I know that members right across this House share my outrage at the excessive and exploitative profit making that we have seen from some private providers. It is shameful, it is unacceptable, and it will end.”

Conservative opposition

Shadow education secretary Laura Trott said the Conservatives was broadly supportive of the children’s social care measures in the bill, though was opposed to its proposals to place academy schools under similar requirements to local authority schools.

Its defeated amendment also sought to require the establishment of a national public inquiry into child sexual exploitation (CSE) by grooming gangs, an issue that has triggered a huge political row because of repeated attacks on the government over the issue by X owner Elon Musk.

Pledge to introduce mandatory reporting

While the government has not ruled out such an inquiry, it has instead announced the implementation of measures proposed by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), which issued its final report in 2022. These comprise:

• Introducing mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse by those in positions of trust over children, with criminal, as well as professional, sanctions for a failure to do so.
• Creating a performance framework, with data collection requirements, for the police concerning CSA and CSE. This responds to IICSA’s recommendation to introduce a core data set for the issue, to tackle what it found was a lack of reliable data, particularly in relation to CSE. The inquiry said the data set should include information on the characteristics of victims and alleged perpetrators of CSA/CSE, including age, sex and ethnicity, the factors that make children more vulnerable to abuse or exploitation and the settings in which abuse or exploitation occur.
• Legislating to make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences, a recommendation from IICSA’s 2022 report on CSE by organised networks.

Story updated 2 April 2025

Professionals and others in positions of trust in relation to children will face a duty to report child sexual abuse (CSA).

Home secretary Yvette Cooper announced yesterday that the government would be reviving the mandatory reporting policy, dropped by its Conservative predecessors on the eve of the 2024 election.

The idea was one of the key recommendations from the 2022 final report of the seven-year Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), and was designed to address historic under-reporting of CSA by practitioners and others in a position of trust over children.

Watered down mandatory reporting plans

Though accepted by the Conservatives, the previous government watered down IICSA’s recommendations in two key respects:

• There would be no requirement to report CSA in cases where recognised indicators of abuse were present. Instead, the duty would only apply where a person had observed CSA or a perpetrator or victim had disclosed it, which the inquiry found or implied were relatively rare.
• There would be no criminal sanction for anyone who did not report cases of witnessed or disclosed abuse. Instead, they would be referred to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) to be potentially barred from working with children, with professionals referred to regulators for further sanctions.

Charities and campaigners criticised the Conservative proposals for lacking teeth.

Pledge to introduce criminal sanction

In a statement to the House of Commons yesterday, Cooper said that the Crime and Policing Bill would make it “an offence with professional and criminal sanctions to fail to report or cover up child sexual abuse”.

However, when the Crime and Policing Bill was published in February 2025, it did not include a sanction for failing to comply with the duty to report; instead, there was only a duty for preventing or deterring a person with complying with their duty to report.*

In its report, IICSA said these included sexualised or sexually harmful behaviour, physical signs of abuse or consequences of sexual abuse such as pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. While proposing that mandatory reporting should apply when indicators were present, it said failure to report should not be met by a criminal sanction, because of the complexity of identifying these factors.

Political row over CSE

The home secretary’s statement came in the wake of a huge political row over the government’s response to child sexual exploitation (CSE) by organised gangs.

This followed the government’s decision to reject a request from Oldham Council to set up a public inquiry into CSE in the borough to address gaps the authority had identified in a 2022 review into the issue.

In a letter to the authority, sent in October 2024, safeguarding minister Jess Phillips said it was for the authority itself to commission a fresh inquiry, citing the positive impact of previous local reviews, in Rotherham and Telford.

When news of the letter became public last week, X owner Elon Musk posted that Phillips – who had a long career in tackling violence against women and girls before becoming an MP – should be imprisoned for the decision, while the Conservatives also criticised the decision to reject Oldham’s request.

Prime minister Keir Starmer attacked Musk’s intervention – though without naming him – and defended Phillips in a statement yesterday (source: politics.co.uk). Meanwhile, Cooper called on MPs to respect the historic cross-party consensus on tackling CSE and showing respect for victims and survivors, while rejecting online misinformation.

Other pledges on tackling abuse and exploitation

Alongside her announcement on mandatory reporting, she also pledged to:

• Create a new performance framework, with data collection requirements, for the police concerning CSA and CSE. This responds to IICSA’s recommendation to introduce a core data set for the issue, to tackle what it found was a lack of reliable data, particularly in relation to CSE. The inquiry said the data set should include information on the characteristics of victims and alleged perpetrators of CSA/CSE, including age, sex and ethnicity, the factors that make children more vulnerable to abuse or exploitation and the settings in which abuse or exploitation occur.
• Legislate to make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences, a recommendation from IICSA’s 2022 report on CSE by organised networks.
• Set up a victims and survivors panel to work with the government on implementing reforms to CSA and CSE.

*The story has been amended following the publication of the Crime and Policing Bill to make clear that there will be no criminal sanction for failing to comply with the duty to report child sexual abuse. 

The use of technology

Technology can be used to both directly sexually exploit children and to facilitate offline child sexual exploitation (CSE). Technological developments have provided perpetrators of CSE with further opportunities to access children, network and share information with other perpetrators and develop additional identities to facilitate their exploitation of children (Lapsia, 2024).

Forms of exploitation facilitated by technology include children being forced to:

• send or post sexually explicit images of themselves;
• take part in sexual activities via webcam or smartphone;
• have sexual conversations by text or phone;
• receive pictures or videos they do not want to see (Farrer & Co, 2023).

How offenders access CSA material

With the use of technology and fast-growing online platforms, the spreading of child sexual abuse (CSA) material has grown exponentially, placing more children at risk of online sexual abuse and exploitation.

The distressing ease of accessing CSA material online was highlighted by a European study that surveyed over 30,000 active online CSA material offenders. Findings indicated that:

• offenders view and share CSA material on popular social media and encrypted messaging apps;
• perpetrators seek contact with children on social media, encrypted messaging apps and online games (Lapsia, 2024).

Online child sexual extortion

‘Sextortion’, or online child sexual extortion, is a form of online blackmail that involves the threat of sharing nude or semi-nude images or videos to extort money or force someone to do something against their will (NSPCC, 2024).

Reports of sextortion to the Internet Watch Foundation increased eightfold between 2023 and 2024. The majority of the reports were from boys who were being blackmailed after being coerced into sharing explicit images which criminals threatened to send to their contacts (Internet Watch Foundation, 2024).

Self-generated child sexual abuse images

There has been a reported increase in self-generated child sexual abuse images (CSAM) (OFCOM, 2024a). Although data indicates that this is more prevalent amongst teenagers, we must also consider the fact that there is an increase in the number of children under 10 using social media.

According to OFCOM (2024b), overall use of social media sites or apps among all five to seven-year-olds increased from 2023-24 from 30% to 38% of the group, with WhatsApp (29% to 37%), TikTok (25% to 30%), Instagram (14% to 22%) and Discord (2% to 4%) seeing particular growth.

Other forms of online exploitation

Other ways in which technology can be used to sexually exploit children include:

• harassment and bullying through text messaging;
• using threats to share images to coerce children and young people into ongoing sexual exploitation;
• purchasing mobile phones for children and young people and sharing their numbers among groups or gang members;
• random contact with children and young people via social networking sites;
• using ‘friends’ lists on networking sites of children and young people to target additional children and young people;
• viewing of pornography and discussing it during sexual assaults;
• posting images of children and young people with rival gang members to invite sexual assault as punishment;
• filming and distributing incidents of rape (College of Policing, 2021; Berelowitz et al 2012).

Sexting

Sexting, defined as ‘the use of technology to share personal sexual content’ (UK Safer Internet Centre), can, for example, lead to content being broadcast to groups using online spaces or shared via messaging systems.

In March 2024, the UK Council for Internet Safety updated the Sharing nudes and semi-nudes: advice for education settings working with children and young people guidance.

The guidelines advise education settings on when they should report incidents of sexting to the police or children’s social care, taking into account factors such as age, use of coercion and whether or not those involved have previously been involved in sexting. The guidance aims to prevent children from being victims and perpetrators of crime and to work closely with schools and families to set in place early intervention (NSPCC, 2024).

Challenges in protecting children

There are several challenges for both professionals and parents and carers in protecting children from harm through technology.

As noted by Palmer (2015), some children do not display obvious indicators that they are being sexually exploited or the vulnerabilities often linked to CSE.

Access to technology has facilitated instant connectivity and accessibility, and perceptions of anonymity and online experiences can act as a disinhibitor where children may say and do things they are unlikely to do offline (Palmer, 2015).

In addition, the time between initial contact and offending behaviour can be extremely short and is characterised by rapid escalation to threats and intimidation (CEOP, 2013).

The Children’s Society outlines certain changes in a child’s behaviour that may indicate online grooming and exploitation. These include:

• talking about older or new friends they’ve met online;
• talking about gifts or money they have received online;
• becoming withdrawn and secretive;
• having a new phone or more than one phone;
• receiving a large number of calls or messages;
• being worried about being away from their phone (Children’s Society, 2024).

If you have a Community Care Inform Children licence, log on to access the full guide and learn more about forms of child sexual exploitation.

References

Berelowitz S, Firmin C, Edwards G and Gulyurtlu S (2012)
“I thought I was the only one. The only one in the world”: The Office of the Children’s Commissioner’s Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups Interim Report

Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (2013)
Threat Assessment of Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

College of Policing (2021)
Responding to child sexual exploitation

Farrer & Co (2023)
Addressing child-on-child abuse: a resource for schools and colleges

Internet Watch Foundation (2024)
Teenage boys targeted as hotline sees ‘heartbreaking’ increase in child ‘sextortion’ reports

Lapsia (2024)
Tech platforms used by online child sexual abuse offenders

NSPCC (2024)
Young people’s experiences of online sexual extortion or ‘sextortion’. London: NSPCC.

OFCOM (2024a)
Tackling child sexual abuse under the online safety regime 

OFCOM (2024b)
A window into young children’s online worlds

Palmer T (2015)
Digital Dangers: The impact of technology on the sexual abuse and exploitation of children and young people 

The Children’s Society (2024)
Promoting online safety for children

UK Council for Internet Safety (2024)
Sharing nudes and semi-nudes: advice for education settings working with children and young people

Sue Williams, the mind behind the family safeguarding model, has been recognised for her outstanding contribution to children and families in the second annual Frontline Awards.

Her award was presented by chief social worker for children Isabelle Trowler, who described Sue as “a leading light in bringing change and innovation to children’s social care across England”.

“Her incredible tenacity, intellectual clout, creativity and commitment to the sector has made a huge and lasting contribution, not just to every practitioner she’s influenced, but to every child and family that they in turn have supported,” she added.

Sue, now programme director of the Centre for Family Safeguarding Practice, conceived the model in 2015 when assistant director of children’s services in Hertfordshire council. She secured funding from the Department for Education’s (DfE) innovation programme to test it in the county.

Family safeguarding involves teams of children’s social workers and specialist adults’ practitioners using techniques such as motivational interviewing to tackle the root causes of adult behaviours that increase concerns about children, particularly domestic abuse, substance misuse and mental health difficulties.

It reduced the number of children going into care and onto child protection plans and was seen by parents as “participatory, supportive and empowering”, found a 2020 evaluation for the DfE, which has subsequently supported its rollout across the country. It has so far been adopted by 23 areas in England.

‘Challenge your biases’

Helena Oatts (photo by Frontline)

The outstanding contribution gong was one of two new additions to the Frontline awards line-up, the other being participant of the year, which recognises a trainee on the charity’s fast-track social work course.

This award went to Helena Oatts, who was praised for being a “fierce advocate for children and families and practising with empathy and passion”.

“I love every moment of [being a social worker] and to be recognised for doing something you enjoy is absolutely amazing,” she said of her win.

“I’ve always been someone who has loved people, I think there’s something in everyone that we can all resonate with.”

Helena’s piece of advice for future social work students was to always believe in themselves but also challenge their biases.

“We all have biases, but you have to be open to challenging the views that you have about the world and about yourself. Keep an open mind. When you’re meeting families, you might have a slight idea of what could be going on, but keep challenging yourself, there could be multiple truths and possibilities.”

‘It’s important for young people to feel seen, loved and wanted’

Addy Siwko, Annie Whitley, and Artur were selected as winners of the award for young people.

Addy Siwko (photo by Frontline)

Addy, who lives with cerebral palsy, set up his own car wash business to raise money for a charity raising awareness for the condition and, more recently, wrote a song, ‘I Can Do Anything’, about his disability not holding him back in life.

Annie has led a consultation on making care experience a protected characteristic, secured a household living fund for care leavers and helped review, reshape and relaunch children’s residential care in her area.

Artur is the chair of a children’s active involvement service and, for the past five years, has worked to improve support for care leavers. He has set up a food and toiletry bank, lobbied for suitable housing for care leavers and managed to increase care leaver allowances from £1,500 to £3.000 in his area.

Speaking to Community Care, he called for better funding towards allowances and housing placements for care leavers and said he would continue to advocate for a “better service so that young people have the best and easiest experience”.

He advised practitioners working with children to do everything “with their hearts and mean it”.

“A young person can always tell when a social worker means what they say,” Artur added. “Social workers do kind of take on the role of a parent so it’s really important for the young people [they support] to feel seen, loved and wanted by them.”

Big night for Islington

Kenneth Atigah (photo by Frontline)

The London Borough of Islington saw two of its practitioners go home with an award – Celia, who won the leadership award for her commitment to improving social work practice, and Kenneth Atigah, who won the award for practice.

Celia has helped deliver multiple initiatives, including the edge of care service, which provides prevention support for children and young people at potential risk of needing to become looked after.

Kenneth left Ghana for England in 2008 and has spent years caring for his autistic cousin, whose social worker inspired him to join the sector.

Other winners included Kasey Thompson, who won the fellowship award for being “an integral part of Frontline’s racial diversity and inclusion steering group”, and Darlington council’s Staying Close team, which won team of the year for their work supporting 22 young people transitioning from children’s homes or supported accommodation to independent living.

‘When we respond to sexual exploitation, we need creative approaches’

The final award, for innovation, went to Jo Ritchie for her decade-long work on sexual exploitation, including setting up ‘Night Light’ with Avon and Somerset Police, which sees professionals partnering with sex workers to support and identify children at risk.

“This award is very much shared with the women. They’ve been so instrumental and we couldn’t do Night Light without them,” she said.

“I think so often sex workers are criminalised, demonised and totally misunderstood. The women I know and love have the biggest hearts, are the bravest people – they keep on surviving. And the fact that they’ve got the strength to safeguard children, it’s phenomenal.”

She said that in the last few months, her team has responded to 12 children and gathered “lots of information on other children at risk and customers that can be dangerous”.

Her advice to professionals working to safeguard young people from sexual exploitation is to be creative in their approaches.

“We need to think about where the gaps are and how we can intervene in a way that will meet people where they’re at and make a difference. I think sometimes the more traditional responses don’t work, so it’s about being creative.”

‘Making space to ‘celebrate social workers’ brilliant work’

Introducing the awards, Lord Tony Hall, Frontline’s chair of trustees, said: “At a time when children and families are experiencing more complex issues and worsening living conditions, it is so important that we make space to celebrate the brilliant work that social workers do day in and day out.

“The endless commitment and support that they give to children and their families can help to provide both the essential tools and hope for a brighter future.”

You can read more about the other nominations and winners on the Frontline website.

This article will help you apply an understanding of trauma, and principles of trauma-informed practice, to work with young people experiencing extra-familial harm, including child sexual exploitation (CSE) and criminal exploitation (CCE).

Recognising behavioural indicators of trauma

Recognising behavioural indicators of trauma is particularly important as the experience of trauma can make it difficult or impossible for young people to formulate a coherent account of what happened.

While no two individuals are the same, there is broad consensus that trauma responses can be categorised as avoidance (ie attempts to avoid thoughts, feelings, conversations, places, or people that remind them of the trauma) and arousal (ie hypervigilance or tense or hostile behaviour).

Common trauma responses 

The following are examples of common trauma responses among young people affected by extra-familial harm:

‘Refusing’ behaviour (avoidance)

A young person might recognise, consciously or unconsciously, that they simply are not able to regulate their emotions in a particular environment. Perhaps their survival instincts have kicked in and their bodies are protecting them from feelings of overwhelm by staying away from situations or places where they are likely to feel unsafe.

Numbing, ‘checking out’ (dissociation)

Feeling numb, checking out or dissociating (the automatic response of disconnecting and detaching from an experience when feeling overwhelmed that some can experience) are necessary survival responses when people are unable to find ways to feel safe, calm and emotionally regulated.

If we are not trauma-informed, we may assume a young person who seems emotionless or removed when talking about difficult things is communicating that they are not bothered by distressing experiences, or are perhaps lying about them in the first place.

However, their bodies might be doing them a favour and placing an important protective barrier between them and the traumatic things that have happened.

‘On edge’ (hypervigilance)

Hypervigilance can seem like the polar opposite – in terms of observable body language – to the numb, ‘checked out’ response from a young person.

However, the kinds of hypervigilant behaviours you notice are also perhaps an indicator that a young person’s nervous system is activated; they are in fight or flight mode and sitting still and being calm isn’t a safe mode for their body to be in at that moment.

Inability to plan for the future (foreshortened future)

It can be frustrating when young people are at an age that requires them to be thinking and planning responsibly for the future and they seem unable to.

However, when a traumatised young person’s body is working so hard to try and ‘find calm’ – to emotionally regulate and to stay present in the moment – thinking about GCSEs, work placements, the impact of their behaviour or how a criminal record might follow them into the future may simply not be possible.

It does not mean that it will never be possible, but when they are in survival mode, we shouldn’t expect that they have the capacity to think about the future.

Traumatic bonding

The ‘trauma bond’ they might have developed with a person exploiting them is not just misplaced affection, but one way a young person might subconsciously be attempting to manage those feelings of overwhelm.

In an abusive, exploitative relationship, in which they are continually scared or unsure of what is going to happen and what they should believe, it can be an easier survival response to cultivate feelings of safety and connection with the abusive person when they are not yet sure if it is possible to get away.

Self-harm and self-destructive behaviours

Self-harming can be an attempt to feel something different than the young person feels at the moment. This might mean that they want to stop feeling distressed, dysregulated, numb or dissociative (Edmondson, Brennan, & House, 2016).

They might also feel a need to understand the limits and boundaries of their body. The latter experience might be particularly important for young people whose experiences of physical or sexual abuse mean that they don’t trust or understand their own body’s feelings and sensations very well.

Young people engaging in behaviours that seem risky and destructive might be trying, as best as they can, to stay in the present moment. For a young person who is experiencing flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, or dissociation, doing something that is both exciting and dangerous might bring them back to the present and help to avoid them re-experiencing or thinking about past trauma.

It can also help them feel powerful when they often feel powerless. Some of these high-risk behaviours might also be attempts by young people to relive or recreate past trauma in the present as a way of trying to feel mastery or control over it.

If you have a Community Care Inform Children licence, log on to see the full guide and read more detailed information about developmental trauma, applying trauma-informed approaches in your ongoing work with young people and caring for yourself as a professional working with traumatised people.  

Social Work Recap is a weekly series where we present key news, events, conversations, tweets and campaigns around social work from the preceding week.

From a report warning of inadequate risk assessments increasing the vulnerability to domestic abuse by people on probation to an initiative calling for better care for pregnant women involved with children’s services, here’s the week in social work:

Child victims of exploitation left ‘invisible’ during school holidays, says charity

(credit: fizkes / Adobe Stock)

Barnardo’s has raised concerns over child exploitation victims being “invisible” during school holidays due to the absence of trusted adults.

Police records of child sexual exploitation dipped by one-fifth during school holidays of two weeks or longer, and then increased by the equivalent amount when schools reopened, according to Freedom of Information data the charity obtained from UK forces.

Barnardo’s warned there was a lack of specialist support in place for victims, as two-thirds (68%) of councils and four in ten police and crime commissioners had not commissioned any child sexual, criminal or combined exploitation services in the past year.

“With many children spending several hours a day without adult supervision, and without activities like youth clubs, there’s a greater risk of harm and a higher likelihood they will go unidentified and unsupported,” said Bernardo’s CEO Lynn Perry.

She further called for the government to invest in a nationwide specialist support service for child victims and in services that provided safe spaces with trusted adults during school holidays.

Perry said such specialist provision was necessary for children to rebuild their lives in the wake of “horrific abuse” whose impact was felt long into adulthood.

Charity urges better care of pregnant women involved with children’s services

Photo by SianStock/AdobeStock

Charity Birth Companions has launched an initiative advocating for better care for pregnant women and new mothers involved with children’s services in England.

According to the charity, outcomes for mothers with social care involvement are getting worse as they remain overlooked in national policy and guidance on social care and family justice.

“The health of many mothers in these situations is poor, and their treatment is often unfair,” said Birth Companions’ director, Naomi Delap.

“For example, women can be required to attend family court hearings very soon after birth, when they are still recovering, and they are not always given help to understand complex legal documents or processes.

“Despite the clear evidence of need, most general and specialist services are not designed with these mothers in mind. There is no national pathway and these women are missing from key health and social care policies.”
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Launching its Birth Charter for women with involvement from children’s social care this week, the charity set out 14 principles to help inform and shape policy, commissioning and professional practice.

This included mothers receiving support that was woman-centred, culturally appropriate and trauma-informed during pregnancy, birth and early motherhood, access to mental health services and opportunities to bond with their baby and retain or regain care where possible.

The charter was backed by chief social worker for children and families in England Isabelle Trowler, who said: “Today we see a great milestone towards family justice. I am very happy to support this charter as a signpost to us all, that we can do great things collectively to support women and their families throughout pregnancy, those crucial early years and beyond.”

Inadequate risk assessments by probation increasing vulnerability to domestic abuse, report finds

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Inadequate risk assessments and a lack of services are leaving many vulnerable to domestic abuse by people on probation, a report has found.

The probation inspectorate said 30% of people on probation were current or previous perpetrators of domestic abuse.

Yet, in the 60 cases it reviewed of offenders with a history of perpetrating domestic abuse, only 17 had a “sufficiently clear and thorough analysis” of the risk the person could pose.

In 45% of the cases, the inspectorate found that the person on probation should have received a domestic abuse intervention but didn’t get one.

The report found that probation officers’ caseloads were often too high for them to do meaningful work, while in “too many cases”, information sharing between probation and services including children’s social care had been inadequate in managing domestic abuse risks.

“I had hoped that more progress would have been made to address the very serious need to improve probation practice around the risks of domestic abuse,” said chief inspector of probation Justin Russell. “Unfortunately, there has only been minimal positive change.”

Charity Women’s Aid called the findings “alarming” and “unacceptable”.

“The scale of change required is significant and urgent. Improving training, which must be designed and delivered by specialist domestic abuse services, is a vital first step for improving the Probation Service’s response to survivors. Perpetrators must be held to account and prevented from inflicting further harm while serving probation.”

8,000 Afghan individuals and families at risk of homelessness, says LGA

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About 8,000 Afghan individuals and families are at risk of homelessness due to housing shortages, the Local Government Association (LGA) has warned.

The refugees have been housed in 59 temporary hotels across England, but were recently served notice by the Home Office to leave by the end of August.

The government has provided £35m to councils for case working in such hotels and any potential homelessness demand, along with £250m to help house Afghans leaving this accommodation.

However, councils are struggling to house the refugees because of the short notice period and acute lack of housing, the LGA warned.

The association also raised concerns about a lack of government recognition for wider pressures on councils including rising numbers of homeless Ukrainian households and small boat crossings, and a lack of notice to authorities of where and when hotels will be used for asylum seekers.

“We are at a crisis point,” said LGA chair Shaun Davis.

“We want to work with the government to get this right. Not just in a way that best supports the people arriving in the UK but also tackles the unsustainable pressures on our local services and on our communities.”

Tweet of the week: Happy 75th!

Lots of people are celebrating#NHS75, but fewer people know it’s also the 75th anniversary of the modern adult social care system – see below for a thread on the history of social work, Birmingham’s role in it and why celebrating where we’ve come from matters https://t.co/JOh6RMbhYb

— Jon Glasby (@JonGlasby) July 5, 2023

As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the NHS, professor of health and social care Jon Glasby reminds us that the modern adult social care system shares the same birth date. Find out more about the history of adult social care by reading the thread he shared.

Social Work Recap is a weekly series where we present key news, events, conversations, tweets and campaigns around social work from the preceding week.

From the missed opportunities that led to devastating first few months of the pandemic for social care to the true cost of the shortage in secure accommodation for children with complex needs, here’s what you might have missed this week in social work:

Unaddressed weaknesses left social care ill-prepared for Covid, study finds

(credit: dontree / Adobe Stock)

The government missed opportunities to prepare the social care sector for a pandemic in the years before Covid, a review has found.

The two-year study, led by the Nuffield Trust and the London School of Economics, concluded that a lack of representation in government, along with poor funding, workforce conditions and infrastructure, the immense challenges social care faced in responding to the pandemic.

This saw 20,000 care home residents die in the first three months of the pandemic, inadequate access to personal protective equipment and many people left without adequate support due to the lockdown-induced closure of services.

The sector was excluded from cross-government pandemic-planning testing and, even after exercises that did include the sector identified some issues, no action was taken, the study found.

“The fragmented nature of the system and a shortage of civil servants working on social care contributed to confusion over who was responsible for decisions and implementation in the Covid-19 response,” said the review report.

“Had the sector had the tools it needed then some of the confusion and delays that led to so much distress and heartbreak could have been avoided,” Natasha Curry, the study’s co-lead and the Nuffield Trust’s deputy director of policy, told The Guardian.

PAs’ high caseloads leaving care leavers without emotional support, says report

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Personal advisers’ (PAs) high caseloads are reducing their ability to provide emotional support for carers, a study has concluded.

Support for care leavers’ emotional wellbeing also varied widely across the five English councils studied, found the research by What Works for Early Intervention and Children’s Social Care.

None of the local authorities collected data to monitor the support they provided, amid a wider lack of evidence on the effectiveness of mental health support for care leavers

Care leavers’ access to wellbeing support was hindered by high thresholds for acceptance, practical barriers, such as the location of services, and a lack of consideration for diversity, the care leaver experience and internalised stigma.

While PAs’ relationships with care leavers were critical to the support they received, the study found these were hampered by practitioners’ high caseloads.

In its recommendations, What Works called for PAs’ capacity to support care leavers to be increased, including through training and reduced caseloads.

It also urged the government to support councils to improve the diversity and consistency of the support they provided.

Must Listen: ‘Children locked away: Britain’s modern bedlam’

Photo by Tortoise

Vulnerable children with complex needs are waiting for months, or even years, for a  secure children’s home placement, an investigation has found.

News organisation Tortoise found that children waited an average of two and a half months for a secure bed, in the two years to March 2023.

Of the 50 authorities to respond to Tortoise’s freedom of information request, nine had average waits of at least six months.

Photo by Tortoise/NHS

Some councils told Tortoise that the wait was so long that they simply “gave up”.

The shortage of secure beds has forced councils to, increasingly, seek the High Court’s permission to place children in unregistered – and therefore illegal – settings through so-called deprivation of liberty orders. The Tortoise investigation, which is available as a podcast, found 40 councils were paying at least £10,000 a week for such accommodation for individual children.

The investigation was prompted by the recent case of a 12-year-old girl from Staffordshire, who had attempted to take her own life several times. Due to the severe shortage of secure accommodation in England, the girl, known as Becky, had been placed in isolation in a hospital room for eight weeks and fed through a hatch on the door.

Those supporting Becky had called the accommodation “unsuitable” and “actively damaging”.

Among two other stories explored in the podcast was that of Child X, the subject of a 2017 judgment concerning her need for a secure mental health bed after several suicide attempts. Six years on, aged 22, she is detained under the Mental Health Act in Rampton, one of the England and Wales’s three high security hospitals, found journalist Louise Tickle.

You can listen to the full episode here if you are a Tortoise member or, otherwise, wherever you get your podcasts.

Must Watch 1: Here I am – Leah

Children’s charity Bernardo’s has produced a thought-provoking and emotional short film based on the experiences of young people it supports.

The five-minute video puts the viewer in the shoes of Leah, a 14-year-old girl whose story encapsulates those of various vulnerable young people, and offers a glimpse into child sexual exploitation and how difficult it can be to turn to adults for help.

Must Watch 2: Kids – Channel 4

Photo by Channel 4

Channel 4’s new docuseries, Kids, offers viewers an unfiltered glimpse into the experiences of six young people in care in Coventry.

The first episode follows 19-year-old Annabelle and 17-year-old Xorin. Annabelle, who was pregnant during filming, said she was determined to “break the cycle of care” that saw her taken away from her parents when she was five.

Xorin, who had been exploited by a gang as a child, was seen transitioning back home after three years away and multiple placements.

The episode started with Kayleigh, a therapist from Coventry’s reunification project, making a  visit to Xorin’s mum, Kelly, to help with the transition. However, when interviewed, Kelly admitted that, after having a series of practitioners come in and out of her home over many years, trust was hard to establish.

“I need to see her say what she’s going to do before I trust her or even like her. I need to see people’s words meet their actions,” she added.

You can watch episode one here.

Tweet of the Week:

As a baby, I was abandoned and left to die. After hearing my cries, neighbours called the police. I recovered in hospital from malnutrition, dehydration.

1/5

— Fatima Whitbread (@FatimaWh1tbread) May 15, 2023

Former world javelin champion Fatima Whitbread will be running from 15 to 18 May in support of charity The Fostering Network’s ‘Foster Care Fortnight’, which aims to raise awareness for foster care and its impact on young people in need of a home.

In a series of tweets, Fatima shared her own story of being fostered and the motivation behind her support for the campaign.

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Social workers and other children’s services staff and volunteers will be mandated to report child sexual abuse (CSA), Suella Braverman has pledged.

The home secretary said the government would introduce a mandatory reporting duty, subject to consultation, in response to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse’s final report, published last October.

This was one of IICSA’s central recommendations, which it said would combat systemic under-identification of CSA.

Pledge to address failings

Braverman did not commit the government to implementing IICSA’s specific proposal, instead saying it would issue a call for evidence shortly to start an “extensive consultation to ensure everyone’s views are represented ahead of implementing the new duty”.

She said: “The protection of children is a collective effort. Every adult must be supported to call out child sexual abuse without fear.

“That’s why I’m introducing a mandatory reporting duty and launching a call for evidence. We must address the failings identified by the Inquiry and take on board the views of the thousands of victims and survivors who contributed to it.”

Response awaited on call for expert child protection bodies

The government will publish the call for evidence alongside its full response to the inquiry, whose other recommendations included:

1. The creation of Child Protection Authorities (CPAs) for England and Wales, independent statutory bodies that would be repositories of expertise on child protection and tasked with improving practice, advising governments on policy and, where necessary, inspecting institutions. It said this would fill gaps in current inspection arrangements by subjecting non-statutory or unregulated organisations where children spend time and multi-agency child protection arrangements to checks. It also said the CPAs should be able to direct existing inspectorates, such as Ofsted, to carry out checks in certain cases.
2. Introducing the regulation of care staff working in children’s homes in England and young offender institutions and secure training centres in England and Wales. After the inquiry recommended registration of children’s home staff in England by an independent body in 2018, the Department for Education commissioned a review of the issue, which was inconclusive, though it told the inquiry it would keep it under review. The inquiry said this response was inadequate, and that workforce regulation was necessary to better protect children in residential settings. The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care also recommended extending workforce regulation for children’s home staff, starting with managers, and the DfE is currently considering its recommendations and is due to report before the end of the year.
3. A single redress scheme for victims of CSA and child sexual exploitation (CSE) connected to institutions in England and Wales, which would run for five years.
4. Giving children in care, or others on their behalf, the right to apply to the family courts to rule on whether they are at experiencing, or are at risk of, significant harm, with the court able to make orders mandating or limiting the local authority’s exercise of its parental responsibility. This would apply both to children experiencing harm in their placement or those who experience abuse or exploitation as a result of an inappropriate placement or inadequate supervision.
5. A guarantee of specialist therapeutic support for child victims of sexual abuse.
6. A ban on the use of pain compliance techniques on children in custodial institutions.
7. The creation of a cabinet-level minister for children in the UK government.
8. Improvements in the availability of data on CSA through the creation of a single dataset covering England and Wales, including information on the characteristics of victims and alleged perpetrators, factors that make victims more vulnerable to CSA or CSE and the settings and contexts in which abuse occurs. The data should be published regularly and collated nationally, regionally and locally.

Sarah’s Law update 

Alongside its announcement on mandatory reporting, the government also unveiled measures designed to ease the process of disclosing information on child sex offenders to concerned members of the public.

Under the child sex offender’s disclosure scheme (CSODS), people can make an an application to have information disclosed about a person (subject) who has some form of contact with a named child or children (‘the right to ask’).

If the subject has convictions for sexual offences against children, poses a risk of causing harm to the child concerned, and disclosure is necessary to protect the child and is a proportionate response to manage that risk, there is a presumption that the police will disclose the information.

Known as Sarah’s Law, after eight-year-old Sarah Payne, who was murdered in 2000 by a convicted sex offender, the CSODS also allows the police to disclose without request where they find children are at risk (‘the right to know’).

Under the update to Sarah’s Law guidance, people will be able to make online applications and the timeframe for dealing with applications will be cut from 44 to 28 days.

The revised guidance also advises the police to consider making a ‘right to know’ disclosure under Sarah’s Law or the domestic violence disclosure scheme (DVDS), where relevant, where a person makes an application under the other scheme. The DVDS, otherwise known as Clare’s Law, works similarly to the CSODS, but in respect of disclosing information about past domestic abuse by a perpetrator.

Grooming gangs controversy

Alongside Braverman’s announcements on CSA, prime minister Rishi Sunak unveiled the creation of a “grooming gangs taskforce”, under which specialist police officers will be brought in to help forces investigate CSE cases, including through improved use of data.

This was mired in controversy, after Braverman, in an article for the Mail on Sunday, claimed that “almost all” perpetrators of CSE carried out by grooming gangs were British-Pakistani, that the victims were overwhelmingly white and the authorities had “often looked the other way”, due to fears of being labelled racist.

The latter point was echoed to some extent in Sunak’s announcement as he said that, “for too long political correctness has stopped us from weeding out vile criminals who prey on children and young women”.

However, a 2020 Home Office paper found that, while a number of high-profile CSE cases had been perpetrated by men of Pakistani heritage, the research literature showed “significant limitations to what can be said about links between ethnicity and this form of offending”.

“Research has found that group-based CSE offenders are most commonly White. Some studies suggest an over-representation of Black and Asian offenders relative to the demographics of national populations,” it said. “However, it is not possible to conclude that this is representative of all group-based CSE offending.”

On the back of Braverman’s remarks, NSPCC chief executive Peter Wanless said: “Sexual predators will target the most vulnerable and accessible children in society, and there must be a focus on more than just race so we do not create new blind spots that prevent victims from being identified.”