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Do you work with families affected by child criminal exploitation?
The session focused on learning about how to work in partnership with parents/carers of children affected by, or at risk of child criminal exploitation. The parents or carers of children affected by child criminal exploitation, can be an essential part of the multi-agency partnership involved in keeping children safe from child criminal exploitation.
We were joined by:
Dr Sarah Hall, Senior Trainer and Research Co-ordinator, The Ivison Trust
Sarah is a professionally qualified youth and community worker. She has worked in the voluntary sector for over 20yrs, mainly in the field of child exploitation. She has two Masters; The Ethics of Social Welfare and, Social Research Methods and Evaluation (Social Work) and a PhD. Her doctorate explored social workers’ understandings of CSE and sexually exploited girls. She was awarded the Association of Child Protection Professionals Research and Practice award in 2019. Her paper, “She doesn’t have to get in the car: exploring social workers’ understandings of sexually exploited girls as agents and choice-makers, was published in Children’s Geographies in 2019.
Sarah has worked as a trainer and evaluator within a multi-agency child exploitation team in South Yorkshire and currently works at Ivison Trust as a trainer and research consultant. She has also worked as a trainer for the Contextual Safeguarding Network and as an evaluator on a number of independent evaluations relating to CSE and the abuse of women and girls.
Her main areas of interest are Contextual Safeguarding; supporting parents affected by child exploitation and professionals’ understandings of the agency of exploited young people.
In this session, Sarah shared the Trust’s Relational Safeguarding Model, and how this is used to support parents who children are affected by child criminal exploitation across the UK.
Charlotte Flynn, Practice Manager for Contextual Safeguarding, East Sussex County Council & Amanda Singhateh, Parent Mentor, SAFER Family Network, East Sussex County Council
Charlotte is a Practice Manager in the multi-disciplinary Exploitation Team with a focus on developing the contextual safeguarding approach in East Sussex. Alongside the Strategic Lead for Specialist Adolescent Services, Charlotte leads on a number of successful and innovative projects including the Habitual Knife Carriers Project, Collaboration Against Child Exploitation (CACE) and the development of a YEF funded pilot project delivering multi-agency, neighbourhood responses for children, young people and families who are vulnerable to violence and criminal exploitation outside of the home. Charlotte has a background in Youth Justice, joining East Sussex County Council in 2007 and working in the VCFSE sector before this.
Amanda is a parent with lived experience of her son being entrenched in county lines and child exploitation for a number of years. She has since used this experience to support parents and carers in East Sussex in a range of ways and have played a pivotal role in the development of the Collaboration Against Child Exploitation programme. She is passionate about looking for other ways to support parents and carers in their journey’s by contacting motivational speakers, ex-gang members and exploring training opportunities. She provides support to the SAFER (Safeguarding Adolescents from Exploitation and Risk) Keywork Team in their interventions as she can support parents/carers on a 1:1 basis which has proven really successful.
In this session, Charlotte and Amanda talked about support services for parents/carers of children affected by child criminal exploitation in East Sussex, including their Collaboration Against Child Exploitation (CACE) programme.
Richard Eastwood, SafeCall Service Manager, Missing People
Richard is the Manager of SafeCall, a national Home Office-funded service dedicated to supporting children and young people exploited by County Lines, their families and care givers, as well as also providing support and guidance to professionals in the United Kingdom. With over 25 years of experience in working with children, young people, and their families, Richard is deeply committed to preventing domestic trafficking and exploitation. His career has seen him embedded within policing teams and has collaborated closely with law enforcement agencies to advocate for a compassionate approach that prioritizes support and rehabilitation over punitive measures for exploited young people. He has served as the Single Point of Contact for County Lines and MDSHT within Local Authorities, as well as contributed his expertise to national charities and non-governmental organizations. In response to global crises, Richard has travelled to conflict zones, such as the Russia-Ukraine border, to develop strategies aimed at preventing the trafficking of young people into the UK.
In this session, Richard talked about SafeCall, the national county lines support services for individuals affected, their families, and professionals.