Deep dive exploration of safeguarding partnership responses to county lines and serious youth violence

Question 1

1. Introduction

Accepted Answer

COVID-19 has resulted in a perfect storm for child exploitation: school structures and systems have been disrupted, concerns of increasing drug and substance abuse (NSPCC, 2021), teenage mental health crisis is escalating (UK Parliament, 2020), youth services are struggling to cover their remit (Local Government Association, 2020) and the pandemic has increased isolation and financial adversity amongst our most vulnerable (Gibson et al., 2021, BBC, 2020).

This evaluation was tasked with exploring multi-agency safeguarding arrangements in place across England in responding to serious youth violence risk and county lines exploitation. However, in undertaking this task it inadvertently opened Pandora’s Box into the vast and complex landscape demonstrating the realities of safeguarding children and young people.

Safeguarding partnerships are structured with a tripartite statutory responsibility held across police, health (via a clinical commissioning group [CCG]) and local authority (county council/borough). This set-up allows the tentacles of the safeguarding response to spread across universal services encompassing health visitors, community centres, schools and youth services. However, responses to child exploitation are reported to be more short-term, targeted at already ‘at risk’ groups and consequently missing opportunities for early intervention and ‘true’ prevention.

Health, policing, social care, education and the voluntary and charity sector have all produced numerous reports^{[footnote 1]} on how they have been working tirelessly, but often separately, to combat the problems we are facing. This report has brought together the views of 164 professionals from across all these roles and sectors dealing with child exploitation, in providing an abundance of evidence to help address the immense task surrounding child safeguarding issues, such as county lines exploitation and serious youth violence. Cross-organisationally, all professional interviews unanimously concur that county lines exploitation and serious youth violence risk are forms of child exploitation.

This report, through its key recommendations, requires an urgent response from sectors of government to join together to respond to child exploitation, via means such as county lines and serious youth violence. The mantra that ‘safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility’ necessitates a joined-up cross-government comprehensive vision and strategy to take action in addressing this growing crisis.

Question 2

2. Rapid review of literature

Accepted Answer

The literature review has been informed through a rapid review and synthesis of 108 relevant policy documents (see Appendix 1). A concise overview is provided here bringing key findings together from the wider reading, and a full reading list of relevant literature can be found in the main report. The literature review identified 7 overarching thematic areas of policy and guidance related to the safeguarding of children at risk of child criminal exploitation, county lines and serious violence. This includes policy documents and guidance related to:

County lines and drugs.
Serious violence.
Exploitation.
Children and young people.
Education.
Early intervention
Serious case reviews relating to child criminal exploitation and county lines.

Multi-agency safeguarding partnerships have been present within England and Wales since the 1980s. The Children Act (1989) established one of the first statutory requirements for inter-agency collaboration and joint working, concerning children and young people. Since then, other acts, policies and guidelines have been introduced to promote a multi-agency approach to safeguarding, including Working Together to Safeguard Children (2018). Despite much agreement on the benefits of multi-agency, collaborative approaches in safeguarding, it is widely acknowledged that transferring policies into practice is problematic, with implementation of these models varying greatly. Previous reviews have identified overlapping policies, guidance and practice making internal navigation problematic (McManus & Boulton, 2020; Ford, et al., 2017). Questions are often raised as to which agencies should be involved and how, with challenges surrounding governance, formalised structures, information sharing, funding and resources (Shorrock et al., 2019)^{[footnote 2]}.

Government approach to serious violence, county lines and associated criminal exploitation

The UK Government defines county lines as:

a term used to describe gangs and organised criminal networks involved in exporting illegal drugs into one or more importing areas within the UK, using dedicated mobile phone lines or other form of ‘deal line’
they are likely to exploit children and vulnerable adults to move and store the drugs and money and they will often use coercion, intimidation, violence (including sexual violence) and weapons (PHE, 2021)

There has been significant re-focus from government to foster relationships between frontline professional and young people at risk of child criminal exploitation (CCE) with a new statutory duty on public sector agencies and bodies in the prevention and disruption of serious violence (Serious Violence Strategy, 2018). Other developments have included the launch of the National County lines Coordination Centre (2018), funding of Violence Reduction Units, Early Intervention Youth Fund, the Youth Endowment Fund, and the ‘Trusted Relationship Fund’. A key concern is how these funded initiatives are being brought together to inform practice and improve safeguarding responses.

A recent systematic review of CCE (Maxwell et al., 2019) highlighted a number of issues when attempting to identify the scale, nature and characteristics of CCE. As there is no specific legislation for CCE and in the absence of a statutory definition for CCE, offences have utilised the Modern Slavery Act (2015), The Children and Young Persons Act (1933), The Child Abduction Act (1984) and The Children Act (1989). This makes responding to CCE difficult to identify, measure and audit (HMICFRS, 2020). This has been reflected through huge variances in how multi-agency safeguarding arrangements are able to identify, risk assess, intervene and effectively protect children and young people at risk of serious violence and exploitation by county lines (Children’s Commissioner, 2019).

CCE poses a significant challenge for multi-agency safeguarding due to its complex process and the diverse risk factors associated with it. The recent Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel (2020) and Children’s Commissioner (2019) suggest that current guidance is not sufficiently reflecting the increased risks posed to children and young people outside the home, including the risks posed by county lines and serious violence. County lines crosses disciplines, organisation accountabilities and thresholds, meaning that it does not fit ‘neatly’ into current partnerships (VVU & ATCM, 2018). As such, no single agency can respond to child exploitation alone and it requires skilled collaboration between universal and specialist services. An additional challenge in responding to child exploitation is that the source of threat and harm that the child or young person is experiencing, is most often from outside of the family home. Therefore, needing to move away from traditional views of safeguarding and take contextual safeguarding into account (Firmin et al., 2019). This does not neatly align to the safeguarding policies, processes and procedures within the child protection system, which is arguably structured to respond to intra-familial harm and is already operating with increased demand, alongside increased cuts to funding (Local Government Association, 2019). This presents challenges around safeguarding ownership, organisational remit and responsibilities, alongside highlighting the flaws in a fragmented system, which struggles to have the resource and flexibility to meet children’s needs and keep them safe.

Working Together (2018, p7) notes that ‘nothing is more important than children’s welfare’ and that ‘children who need help and protection deserve high quality and effective support as soon as a need is identified’. Whilst few would disagree with this statement, there appears to be a significant disconnect between legislative policy and frontline practice. It can be argued that child exploitation exposes the contradictory nature of how we view our children in society, particularly our perception of their ability to take responsibility for their unmet needs, despite us as adults acknowledging it is our responsibility to prevent impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development (Working Together, 2018). The abundance of legislation into child protection indicates that we recognise that simply by the nature of being a child, all children are vulnerable and therefore all children are entitled to protection. Yet, when we look at how we view and work with children and young people who are victims of exploitation, there is often an incongruence in these expectations. Despite the premise that all children are potentially vulnerable, our expectation is that once children are enlightened to potential risks they may face, that they are able to successfully act on this information and remove themselves from perpetrator manipulation, coercion and control. Whilst the perpetrator faces seemingly little consequence for grooming and exploiting the child, the child is expected to trust and cooperate with the adults, organisations and institutions, who have often failed to protect them in the past. In the absence of this cooperation, the young person risks being viewed as an offender in their own right, one who is now making informed choices, rather than viewed as a victim or vulnerable child. This is particularly poignant when a young person reaches the milestone age of 18, when expectations of the young person are arguably even greater, yet levels of risk, need and vulnerability remain unchanged (HMICFRS, 2020).

Although a child or young person’s experience in county lines can escalate rapidly, risk factors to exploitation can be identified much earlier in a child’s life and there are opportunities for organisations to respond to critical and reachable moments to support unmet need, before it can develop into a potential risk (Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, 2020). Whilst any child or young person can be vulnerable, there are additional vulnerable circumstances which can make them more susceptible to being groomed and exploited. These can include experiencing previous trauma, growing up in poverty, family breakdown, being within the care system or being known to social care, missing from home episodes, experiencing behavioural and developmental issues, being excluded from school as well as experiencing bereavement and parental mental health problems and substance misuse (PHE, 2019). Young people identified as at risk of becoming criminally exploited are not always known to children’s services or police but are almost always known to wider and universal services, such as health, education and youth services (ADCS, 2019), highlighting the crucial role of a collaborative and multi-agency response. There is also recognition that the impact of COVID-19 and associated restrictions have impacted upon increasing isolation and disenfranchisement for many young people, reduced protective factors and organisation’s ability to safeguard (University of Nottingham, 2021).

Subsequently, there is a wealth of research, policy and guidance relating to children, young people and families ranging from health to education, which can be relevant when looking at how we respond to county lines exploitation. This can result in overlapping of the information available, concerning safeguarding children with a variety of vulnerabilities and there is a definite need for this to be joined-up to enable an effective multi-agency response. A common theme arising is a persistent call for a public health, whole-systems and whole family approach, with the ability for collaborative and local flexibility using place-based approaches (PHE, 2019; Ofsted et al., 2018), recognising that young people are influenced by a range of environments and people outside of their family (PHE, 2021). There is a firm consensus that we must support all of our children and young people and this requires investment in universal support services, which are flexible and able to respond to the diverse needs of young people, at different points in time, without waiting for a crisis to occur. Professionals have a role to play in raising awareness and identifying risk and protective factors throughout a child’s life (PHE, 2021), yet too often practitioners are restricted from acting upon best practice, as they are constrained by strict statutory agency threshold criteria and governed by insufficient resource. As well as a substantial and mandated investment from national government in early intervention and prevention, there needs to be a move away from smaller short-term, single-issue funding streams, if we are to be in a position to deliver on a long-term strategy (Early Intervention Foundation, 2018).

There are a multitude of government departments which are focussed on various aspects relating to supporting children, young people and families and addressing surrounding societal issues and this broad range of departments allows for a wealth of experience. However, it can also result in a lack of collective ownership and a fragmentation within policy, governance and funding; all of which can be cascaded down to frontline operations, challenging the delivery of a whole systems approach. If we assert that a multi-agency response is the most effective way to respond to exploitation by county lines, the wealth of research and evidence which is available to us, must now be acted upon. To safeguard from child exploitation, we need a coherent whole systems-based investment considering structural inequalities and individual circumstance, to offer appropriate, coordinated and meaningful support, at the time in which they need it.

The evaluation overarching aim is to consider the response of multi-agency safeguarding arrangements to serious youth violence and county lines exploitation and to identify areas of promising practice, learning and recommendations for all safeguarding partners.

Question 3

3. Methodology

Accepted Answer

3.1 Study sites

Safeguarding partnerships included in the study were selected by the Home Office and Department for Education (DfE) following a selection process that:

Ranked all areas based on the extent and impacts of serious violence and underlying risk factors; and, county lines National Referral Mechanism (NRM) referrals
Split the ranked list into London and non-London areas to ensure geographical spread and creating 2 long lists.

The long lists were further refined based on additional considerations (for example, position in ranked list; flagged capacity issues, limiting participation in the study; importing or exporting county lines force). This resulted in an initial set of 4 London and 11 non-London safeguarding partnerships to initially approach, with a reserve list of an additional 7 in London and 11 non-London. In addition to the identified safeguarding partnerships, the evaluation was expanded to include voluntary and charity sector (VCS) and specialist charities who worked with children and young people, families and parents and carers, and supported local and/or national responses to county lines, serious violence and child exploitation. In addition, British Transport Police (BTP) were included due to their specialist county lines team and as the national police force that work with many safeguarding partnerships across the UK.

3.2 Recruitment

An email was sent to all safeguarding partner business managers (December 2020) introducing the Liverpool John More University (LJMU) evaluation lead and the project. Business managers were asked to either contact the evaluation lead directly if their safeguarding partnership was interested in being part of the work, or had further questions about the project, or to reply directly to Home Office and DfE if they were unable to participate. Due to low initial uptake (and time constraints) the wider list of safeguarding partners were contacted as per the reserve list. The final sample included 9 safeguarding partnerships: 2 from London and 7 outside of London, including 3 South East areas, one Southern area, one South West area, one North West area and one East Midlands area.

After initial agreement from the safeguarding partnership had been confirmed, the lead researcher provided a Microsoft Teams briefing to the safeguarding partnership along with a project briefing sheet to circulate to the safeguarding partnership board. From this, the business manager for the local area then provided the research lead for their area an initial set of names and contact email addresses to contact for an interview. These were deemed to be the key people within their safeguarding partnership that were part of their response to county lines exploitation and serious youth violence risk. These individuals were contacted via email separately with a participant information sheet and a consent form, along with the project briefing sheet. This began a snowball process, whereby from each interview more names were gathered that were mentioned as part of process who were subsequently contacted via email. An individual time slot for the interview was arranged, with most occurring via Microsoft Teams, with only a few opting for a telephone interview.

There was a requirement for each safeguarding partnership to include between 10 to 15 interviews with a total of 134 interviews conducted across those formally involved in the local area safeguarding partnership. These included those within strategic roles, managerial, tactical and operational frontline roles^{[footnote 3]}. See table 1 below for the breakdown of sectors included across the 9 safeguarding partnerships. In addition, interviews were conducted with professionals outside formal safeguarding partnerships, which included: VCS (n=21)^{[footnote 4]}; BTP – Operation Defiant County Lines Task Force (n=6); and Rescue and Response (n=3; included as part of the London SPs as they were deemed to sit between VCS and statutory services). In total, the research project completed 164 professional interviews. Full table of breakdown per safeguarding partnership area is provided in Appendix 2.

Table 1: Participant breakdown summary within the SPs

Sector of interviewee	Total within SPs
Police	32
LA social care	23
Health	16
LA youth offending service	14
LA specialist team	12
Education	11
VCS/Lived experience consultant	7
Police VRU	5
LA housing	4
LA early help	3
LA community safety	3
LA intelligence data	3
Vulnerability lawyer	1
Total	134

3.3 Data collection and triangulation

A team of 7 researchers conducted all interviews, mostly on Microsoft Teams, between 14 January and 26 March 2020. The interviews ranged from 30 minutes to 1 hour and 47 minutes. All interviews were conducted by the lead researcher for the safeguarding partnership (with each researcher developing the report for this safeguarding partnership area). Each participant was assigned a participant number within the individual reports to ensure anonymisation. The research team met fortnightly to discuss emerging findings as interviews were being conducted and started to build some overarching themes to help guide initial approaches to the individual reports which they were responsible for. The interviews were thematically analysed both inductively (being led by patterns than become apparent in the dataset) and deductively (looking for specific concepts previously identified in the relevant literature). On completion of the 11 individual reports, the findings were merged to provide a national overview of safeguarding partnership working in response to county lines exploitation and serious youth violence. Case studies were also collected and can be found in Appendix 3

3.4 Ethical considerations

LJMU ethical processes assessed the study as no/low risk. However, usual ethical processes were implemented within the evaluation including participant information sheet, consent forms and a project briefing sheet that were provided to each participant. Each participant was offered to engage in the study via a telephone interview, or Microsoft Teams video conference call that would be recorded on a separate digital device. Once recorded, it was transferred to LJMU systems, transcribed and analysed. DfE Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) agreements were also required to be submitted and followed to ensure the study was GDPR compliant and Data Protection guidelines followed.

Question 4

4. Main Analysis

Accepted Answer

“It’s complex. It’s messy. It’s different for every child”

BTP

“I don’t think anybody has all of the answers. And it’s an ever evolving jigsaw isn’t it of different pieces. And sometimes you think you’re on the wrong jigsaw or have a piece from the wrong jigsaw because it doesn’t fit together sometimes as easy and as neatly perhaps, as we wanted it to. There’s lots of jagged edges with this work”

SE1

The main analysis thematically explores the views of 163 partners involved in multi-agency safeguarding responses to county lines exploitation and serious youth violence risk. Throughout interviewees are identified as per their safeguarding partnership broader area to ensure anonymity. The analyses of interviews identified 13 key themes:

Theme 1: Re-structuring and tripartite ownership.

Theme 2: Universal services as part of the safeguarding partnership.

Theme 3: Policy, guidance and risk assessments/screening tools.

Theme 4: Working across safeguarding partnerships and area boundaries.

Theme 5: Best practice within the safeguarding partnership structure in response to county lines and youth serious violence risk.

Theme 6: County lines typology.

Theme 7: Risk factors and unmet need.

Theme 8: Critical moments.

Theme 9: Contextual safeguarding and interventions.

Theme 10: National Referral Mechanism (NRM).

Theme 11: Child-centred approach in theory, but not in practice.

Theme 12: Impact of COVID-19.

Theme 13: Improving responses to county lines and serious youth violence nationally?

Question 5

5. Theme 1: Re-structuring and tripartite ownership

Accepted Answer

5.1 Tripartite ownership of safeguarding

The lead statutory body responsible for keeping children safe is jointly held by the county council/local authority (LA) area clinical commissioning group (CCG), and force constabulary. The safeguarding partnership responsible for the strategic oversight of local safeguarding arrangements in their area. For each of the 9 safeguarding partnerships, documentation was readily made available (mainly through their websites) that identified the structure of the ownership of safeguarding within the area. However, the reality was that for many, this tripartite ownership did not filter down into the strategic, tactical and operational working of safeguarding. This was most obviously reflected in the evaluation recruitment method, which tended to rely on the business manager for the safeguarding partnership within the local authority to make contact across their safeguarding partnership board to gain permission for the study access and agree an initial set of names across the safeguarding partnership that would of interest to contact first.

Out of the 9 safeguarding partnerships only 5 actually gave details of someone within the CCG (usually the designated nurse), with all safeguarding partnerships providing contact details for a lead within police at superintendent level and the local authority lead for safeguarding. See Appendix 2 for full breakdown of sectors across the safeguarding partnership.

Barriers were viewed as the regional, wider remit of police and heath. Health representatives stated this was requiring them to “double up on everything” (EM) and adjust to the local processes and systems within each of the local authorities of their area. This may also reflect the recruitment procedures initiated by Home Office and DfE, which targeted the local authority business manager as the main point of contact, with larger structures across police and health making contact details for safeguarding partnerships more difficult. When looking at table 1, it clearly indicates potential barriers in bringing ‘health’ formally within the safeguarding partnership structure, given 3 safeguarding partnerships did not provide any representation of health at any level (CCG, or tactical/operational roles, such as psychologists). A CCG health representative commented that “at strategic level, I have no idea why I am there?” (SOUTH). Whereas, others were clearly ensuring their ownership was reflected in their most senior strategic child exploitation panel, such as MACE (multi-agency child exploitation), with this being co-chaired between local authority, police and health: “MACE is jointly chaired by myself, police and health” (EM).

There was a lack of transparency across some safeguarding partnerships regarding how the senior role across health/CCG, local authority/county council and police were part of or consulted in processes and operating models regarding their approach in safeguarding children. It appeared that this was delegated down across all responsible owners. There were minimal discussions about the influence of those roles stated as responsible (for example, director of children’s services, director of nursing and quality assurance, chief superintendent) suggesting a gap in how those that seem to be driving the day-to-day responses of child safeguarding, were linked in or supported by the more senior structures.

Best practice, however, did identify some participants talking about their senior responsibility owners very passionately (2 safeguarding partnerships mentioned their director of children’s services) and stated that their director goes out on outreach with the youth work team and that this sends “a powerful message, a consistent and supportive message to the workforce” (South). For policing, the identified strategic lead tended to be at superintendent level, who was present, active and talked about positively across safeguarding partnerships. For CCG (health), there was no mention of director level of support, with the designated safeguarding nurse seen as the lead for those safeguarding partnerships that included ‘health’. Colleagues from health state that they often felt like the “third voice in that partnership” (SE2) echoing the need for the senior responsibility owners to ensure that representation across the services is active, meaningful and equally owned.

5.2 The merging of local authorities/county councils in safeguarding partnerships

The key factor that further complicated the transparency of structures and processes within the safeguarding partnerships was if the geographical area of the safeguarding partnership included more than one local authority or county council area. These safeguarding partnerships tended to have the usual safeguarding partnership board and oversight groups, but then had strategic structures that then all sat separately, which were called different names for the panels (despite having similar functions) and struggled to have a joined-up approach across the whole safeguarding partnership. The complex nature of some of these structures should not be underestimated when attempting to fully map out and understand the pathways of children’s safeguarding from locality level through to the safeguarding partnership board when there are different policies and procedures and groups that sit across the local authority/county council that make up the partnership. This was commented on by those people working within these safeguarding partnerships including at strategic level, who discussed the difficulty of being an organisation that works across the whole area but having to be aware of the different mechanisms and systems that they have to go through locally.

“The 2 local authorities work very differently. It can be very challenging for partners and challenging in trying to pull it all together”

SOUTH

The geographical spread and different profile and needs between the diverse and large number of districts/local authorities in safeguarding partnerships, and the wider region, was also noted as a challenge. This highlighted the complexities of bringing a number of organisations together for one integrated partnership approach, acknowledging that this brings multiple ways of working to the table. It was agreed that there can be some duplication with increased risks of separate plans being created, reinforcing the importance of having an overarching strategy across the safeguarding partnership footprint.

Those areas that were disjointed in their structures across local authority/county council boundaries in responding to children’s safeguarding were often seen as being dysfunctional by those within them due to lack of ownership and stability. This was seen to be as a result of some local authorities s being “stubborn” in holding onto their structure and processes with an unwillingness to flex or cooperate to join together, and ‘interim’ directors and managers who had no organisational memory of the decisions and structures that had been tried and tested before and had failed. That these interim managers were often “not present long enough to take things forward” (South). The result was a high turnover of staff, increased proportion of agency staff, with some reporting “60% are agency” within their social work team, leading to very low morale and a lack of collective responsibility within the safeguarding partnerships. This is especially worrying for those safeguarding partnerships that were entering into further financial cutbacks.

“There’s no time to stop, grow and embed. There is too much tunnel vision in thinking about our own remit and not thinking about other parts of the system”

South

Two safeguarding partnerships that included at least 2 local authority/county councils as part of their safeguarding partnership structure did not seem to display the same level of frustration at the lack of flexibility and cooperation in working as a whole safeguarding partnership. However, these safeguarding partnerships were potentially silent to the other parts of the safeguarding partnership local authority/county council area. Some talked very clearly about their overarching policies and structures, with little specific mention of professionals within these areas. They were almost treated as a separate safeguarding partnership all together. Questions need to be asked about the rationale for the joining of safeguarding partnerships across local authority/county councils, as it seems those that were functioning within the same geographical arrangements did not have this problem. There was a clear disconnect between the ‘mandated’ merging of areas in the formation of the safeguarding partnership and this happening in practice. Creating overarching structure diagrams and guidance documents for the partnership does not indicate effective joined up safeguarding partnership work across the area. The long-standing culture and processes that have been embedded within the individual local authorities that make up the safeguarding partnerships no doubt create huge barriers, particularly when trying to join up multiple processes and pathways.

Examples were also given for duplication of services between areas, with a lack of awareness of what was already being delivered. One stakeholder used the phrase “programme rich, process poor” (NW) and the need to find a solution together across the area. Whilst complications were flagged around issues with local authorities interpreting and doing things differently, the need for them to have autonomy and place based and flexible commissioning, was also seen as important.

“A lack of coordination, in my opinion. Somebody use the term programme rich and process poor. Organisations do the same thing at different rates with the same providers, because they never spoke to each other. So across the local authority areas, cross border coordination is quite poor at times. But also, internally. The lack of coordination communication, right across the board, for me is a real issue”

NW

However, if there is an intention to actually join the areas together this requires a joined-up drive and vision to be agreed by the safeguarding partnership statutory owners. This requires clear leadership and transparency in plans regarding the phasing in any restructure and allocation of roles within this, as to not tag onto a role of an already stretched and overburdened workforce.

“With local authorities, and sometimes quite complicated structure, I think that’s across the board. So the partnership is quite complicated. And then there’s lots of different teams doing similar things that are quite linked into each other. That’s one of my frustrations at the city is that you’re constantly trying to join the dots”

NW

Stakeholders also noted the complexities of bringing a number of organisations together for one integrated partnership approach, acknowledging that this brings multiple ways of working to the table. Participants also discussed the complex structures within their own organisations and complexities of restructures that impacted on wider systems and structures. Some stakeholders also identified that the multiple panels and multiple organisational leads can be confusing. It becomes problematic for some in trying to identify who is the right person to attend the meeting, who is leading and who takes away the actions and responsibility. A police representative mentioned about this confusion specifically:

“…about who is going to kind of lead and who is who is taking that lead responsibility for a meeting”

SE2

Most safeguarding partnerships acknowledged that safeguarding is “everyone’s responsibility” and whilst, in general, stakeholders believed that the response was well represented from key agencies, some did explain with multiple organisations involved, partners can pull away, believing responsibility sits with another partner. This potentially could lead to gaps. Another stakeholder stressed the importance of clarifying everyone’s role and organisations being aware of the limits of their roles to reduce the likelihood of gaps appearing.

“I think we do a lot silo working. I think the term partnership can be a little bit of a red herring. I think the reality is, it’s very difficult to deliver the plan at partnership level, because you will still have variations in the way that different agencies can do things or need to do things. But I think just the very nature of strategic is meant to be about that helicopter view into it and that oversight and planning across the board. I just think for me, we focus too much on an issue that has been defined and we can when miss the child”

NW

Interviewees noted that there can be sometimes 15 to 20 professionals involved with one child and explained that the focus of the child can get lost, stressing the importance of a having a strong lead managing the case. They also explained that having too many professionals involved led to ‘service overwhelm’ and can confuse the young person and lead to re-traumatisation if they are expected to re-tell their story. This highlights the need for the structures and panels to ensure that they can identify the best lead to work directly with the child or young person but acknowledging that this person might not actually sit around the table. This requires the panel and partners to support that individual and organisation in providing that ‘on the ground’ support.

“Make sure that the network behind that is sufficient to support the appropriate intervention by whoever is the best person to do it. You know, whether that’s, you know, whether that’s the manager of the football team, or ….the head teacher at the school, or the pastoral care manager at the school”

SE1

5.3 Benefits of joint safeguarding partnership

Only one safeguarding partnership generally spoke positively about the merging of safeguarding partnerships within their area, with their positive descriptions highlighting some key benefits that would be relevant to those struggling and seeking motivation and support within their own merging. It seemed that leadership of the chief executive and support and drive from the heads of service was the key factor in enabling to make these changes and start to consider the wider benefits of the whole safeguarding partnership area. This indicated the importance of joined up working across those heads of services into directorate level and the transparency of this across the whole safeguarding partnership system.

“But what the Chief Exec has done is looked at those core functions, sort of like her head of service level and…she’s made sure that those heads of service are across both authority areas. So I’m not a dog with 2 masters. So if I need to talk to a strategic partner, I know that strategic partner is working across both authority areas and that’s been relatively new over the last 12 to 18 months.”

SE1

It was felt that there were numerous benefits of joining the local authorities together in terms of identifying areas of best practice, but also the independence that the joint safeguarding partnership brought to that as an entity that is funded by all the statutory partners. This was evidenced by a partner when working on the safeguarding partnership strategic policies and guidance that allows good practice from a wider net to be brought together and maximised.

“…working in other areas where there’s more than one authority area, both sort of areas feel that they’ve got the best way of doing it, which may not necessarily be the case…..There are elements of good practice in both authorities, definitely, but it needed the independence of the joint safeguarding partnership to say, actually, this is what your child criminal exploitation policy is going to look like. This is what you’re missing from, how policy is going to look like that kind of thing”

SE1

5.4 ‘Too many hats’

Many stakeholders participating in this research had multifaceted and complex roles, with a number of roles and responsibilities. Many partners also worked across different boundaries and borders, meaning that multiple stakeholders would need to adhere to different policies and guidance of different organisations and different local authorities, who have their own ways of working. However, it also highlighted the need for areas and organisations to have autonomy and place based and flexible commissioning to tailor the responses and support provision to local community needs.

“So you don’t always get everybody aligned, it can be a sticking point, certainly for those that have got wider roles, where it can be really hard to try. You’re constantly trading off between all 4 [areas]”

SE3

Many participants across the safeguarding partnerships that were interviewed regarding their role and responsibility were initially asked to outline all their roles and responsibilities, those that related to child safeguarding, followed by those that relate specifically to county lines exploitation and youth serious violence. It became apparent that those individuals holding strategic and or management roles were holding “many hats” and had “large portfolios” (EM). When probed on this, participants commented that it was often better than what it was, that it was just part of the job, but also there were huge concerns about not doing the role to their full ability and how this personally worried them. They often commented on the role requiring a standard working pattern way beyond their contracted hours, to fulfil the basics of their role and that there was no back cover if they were to go off. This highlighted risks in terms of resilience and sustainability within the structure of their safeguarding, with concerns around wellbeing and burnout.

“I haven’t done 37 hours for as long as I can remember, I, I know I am resigned to that because I love my job, you know, and I’m in it for the right reasons. But actually, you know, for me, the level that I am at, I can’t do what I can’t do it all in 37 hours. So I will do extra. I will work extra. I have no issue with that. But yeah I think sometimes, because the portfolio is so wide, I’m sure this is across organisations, you sometimes worry about are you doing anything really well?”

EM

Those safeguarding partnerships that were seen as effective with clear collective responsibility were often driven by a handful of core individuals at the heart of this that all echoed these sentiments. This emphasises the influence of personalities that drive positive working within safeguarding partnerships and enable collective responsibility and ‘true’ multi-agency working, but also the very risky nature of the burden and workload this brings with it, questioning sustainability.

5.5 Fighting against organisational indicators and culture

Participants spoke about there being a collective responsibility to raise awareness around county lines and exploitation and the importance of services being able to link up with each other and make sure that they respond in a timely manner. Being able to have honest, open and transparent discussions across agencies and the confidence to challenge each other was also seen to be crucial. It was seen to be “everybody’s responsibility” to identify and respond to exploitation, but that there may, however, be “people who are ultimately responsible” (EM).

Organisational cultures that are often reinforced by indicators and measures were seen as problematic in trying to join up the strategic vision of the safeguarding partnership with responses on the ground. An example was given of a police officer, where they would be celebrated for identifying and detaining a young person dealing class A drugs. That this would be seen as a “gold star” and problems come when trying to encourage officers to “turn around and throw that away, essentially by saying actually there is no criminal case to be had here” (London2). With a need to “incentivise” (London2) prevention and diversion responses.

Question 6

6. Theme 2: Universal services as part of the safeguarding partnership

Accepted Answer

6.1 What is the role of ‘health’?

“Health is a bit like peeling an onion, I didn’t realise there was so many layers to it”

SE1

The evidence collected from across the 9 safeguarding partnerships and also voluntary and community service (VCS) professionals, indicated confusion and misunderstanding around what is ‘health’ and the role of ‘health’ within their safeguarding partnership. Those ‘health’ professionals that were interviewed echoed this sentiment and expressed frustration, noting that ‘health’ was not just one organisation and one structure and perceptions about that existence of ‘health’ was inaccurate. The governance and systems for health is complicated, with for example, GP’s and the hospitals having differing governance arrangements (with the latter seen to be more cooperative than the former). Hence, attempting to bring the right person to strategic CE meetings becomes problematic as no one individual has oversight of all the systems or health structures in their area.

“…and you know, one bit of the system doesn’t talk to another bit of the system. So you talk to the primary care network, and they can’t talk to you about mental health, because it’s a completely different system, and you talk to primary care, and they can’t talk about hospital. And I’m sure it’s for all the right reasons. But it doesn’t help when you are trying to do a joint a partnership approach”

SE1

As health is multi-faceted with many different areas/departments that would benefit the work of the safeguarding partnership, there has to be acknowledgement that to achieve this. This would require several people from health, from different areas and levels, at each meeting to ensure all parts of the ‘health’ system were engaged. It was suggested that there was a need to review the ‘ask’ of health within each of the various child exploitation meetings, to assist in who and how to approach and bring more formally into the safeguarding partnership structure. Again, there was some evidence of good practice from across the 5 safeguarding partnerships that included a CCG representative that was able to discuss more strategic input and ownership particularly around quality assurance, as well as those ‘health services’ that provided more contextual and psychological expertise within the relevant meetings. A health partner stated that her role within their strategic MACE opened her and her service up, without requiring a need to attend all meetings relating to child exploitation. By attending the strategic MACE group over a sustained number of years, she was able to input on issues such as identification of intellectual disabilities, organise assessments and explain and advise professionals:

“Explaining to other workers how to try and engage with that young man better because of his autism and to understand his level of functioning and how that might affect how he is manipulated by the gangs”

EM

This development of working relationships, professional trust and collaborative working across MACE led to further joint working and facilitated service managers to contact this health professional directly when they had specific concerns. For example, when a young girl was in custody, to understand whether an assessment was correct and therefore ensuring that the most appropriate interventions were based on any intellectual diagnosis. This indicates that when these regional services are low on resources and complex, there are ways to be innovative and prioritise the panels that health services need to attend and to assess what type of ‘health’ service is most needed.

From some safeguarding partnerships it was considered that there is a ‘really good buy in from a tactical level’ from health, but that information from strategic level was not necessarily being cascaded down to staff who are on the frontline. This led to implications in terms of levels of awareness and understanding around CCE and county lines and use of specific operational tools to respond to this. However, the increased visibility of the designated nurse (CCG) was seen to helping things “get better” and assist in activities such as “mapping” (SE1) suggesting although it was taking time, progress was being made.

The role of child mental health services (CAMHS) was seen as essential in the safeguarding response to all forms of child exploitation. For example, in one area the CAMHS partnership was described as a collaborative approach between NHS and third sector, with CAMHS sitting within a number of areas including primary and secondary care. They were also seen as key members of the MASH and MACE. Stakeholders acknowledged the challenges of mental health provision, noting how stretched CAMHS are, citing challenges such as long waiting lists and cases being closed due to missed appointments.

This links closely to discussions around young people needing a more flexible approach, which health cannot always offer. CAMHS were identified as playing a crucial role as areas recover from the pandemic, with stakeholders highlighting the significant impact on children’s mental health (see Children bearing brunt of ‘terrifying’ Covid mental health crisis The Independent). This poses the question around capacity and resource to cope with what is likely to be even more increasing demand. Wider impacts of COVID-19 and other social factors were seen to be problematic when young people are expected to make specific appointments for CAMHS services and interventions, when they may not be able “to afford a bus ride” to the appointment, amongst other reasons why they may not be able to attend an appointment This often leads to their case being “closed down” (NW).

“Sometimes it’s a lack of recognition of the risks that they face. You know, if you’re offering me, say, a mental health intervention and you’re telling me that I have to go to this specific place once a week, and if I don’t turn up 3 times, then that’s it I have to start again from the beginning, now, if I’ve got groups of people around me who are exploiting me, to my knowledge or not, who are telling me that I’m going to be harmed or are harming me, then my priority is not going to be attending that appointment, or if I’ve got to travel through an area that I know is potentially at risk or places me at risk to get to that appointment then I’m not going to do it and we don’t have that flexibility of statutory service”

VCS 17

Another challenge for service delivery is the criteria for thresholds. This was highlighted within health as CAMHS have in the past had very long waiting lists, but also there are examples of cases involving neurodiversity^{[footnote 5]} and young people being referred to CAMHS when it was felt that this is not necessarily a mental health issue. Within the area of neurodiversity there are often specific criteria for diagnoses, and this can mean that a significant amount of young people are not appropriately diagnosed in a timely way. What might be viewed as a “mild learning disability” (SW) at a young age does not get picked up, or monitored and therefore the child is left unsupported. These unmet needs have been identified as clear risk factors for later risk of exploitation (see further information in Theme 7).

One safeguarding partnership mentioned that they had completely “abandoned working with their local CAMHS service” (London1) due to waiting times, thresholds and inflexibility of their service. For this safeguarding partnership area, the provision of NHS mental health services was provided within another locality, with the service deemed as not responsive to the many children (and in particular ‘black’ children) who are not able to easily make limited appointment times in areas they are not familiar with. In addition, respondents voiced concern that use of their services can be stigmatising. The perception of multiple respondents was that their service was at best, “unresponsive to the complex needs of those who seek their help” and at worst “terrible” (London1). Therefore, the area has invested in their own bespoke systemic clinic service which provides psychotherapists and clinical psychologists, who will go out to visit vulnerable children. Other safeguarding partnerships had also invested in their own in-house, or bespoke health provision. This was often funded and part of targeted child exploitation teams (discussed in more detail under Theme 5). These tended to secure a seconded CAMHS worker into the team focusing on the health and mental health needs for young people, a drugs worker and also included therapeutic counsellors.

One safeguarding partnership noted they have an emergency department (ED) navigator based within A&E for 35 hours per week. The role is funded through their area’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) and supports young people affected by and at risk of violence, and puts wraparound support in place. One stakeholder noted that whilst this provision is effective within the children’s hospital ED, there is no such designated resource within the adult’s hospital ED, where young people aged 16 plus will be taken. The navigator role was described as providing that trauma informed approach that frontline staff in A&E may not always have time to consider, allowing for a trusted conversation and ‘reachable, teachable’ moment with young people at crisis point. It was however noted that work and trauma informed training was ongoing with frontline staff in emergency care. The same safeguarding partnership raised the emerging issue of ‘plugging’ and young people ingesting/carrying drugs and the role of A&E in the response to this. For example, it is the role of A&E to carry out physical examinations, and the complexities that go with this, highlighting a need for a pathway or clarity around this.

Primary care was also acknowledged in playing a role in the response to CE, but stakeholders acknowledged more work was needed to better engage GPs to help them work in a more trauma informed way. Stakeholders agreed that the GP can be the first and sometimes only point of contact for some individuals, and the importance of GPs having better awareness of the impacts of CCE and being able to see the wider picture and ‘join the dots’. One stakeholder also reported that the CE flag that is used by some safeguarding partnerships joint systems does not translate over to GP systems, which would be useful in supporting this. The GPs role was also linked to the longer-term needs of these young people who may require or look to engage with some form of support many years after their experience.

School nursing was also raised by a number of stakeholders who suggested that the current offer was not meeting the needs of young people in terms of CE. One stakeholder believed that their presence is not as strong as it could be, and another explained that school nursing is supposed to be universal but has become more targeted (due to reduced resources) and often the “wider needs of the child can be lost” (SOUTH). They were identified as having a critical role as schools start to return following COVID-19 lockdown periods, in identifying vulnerabilities and supporting the needs of children.

Furthermore, there was an observation raised that the contextualised safeguarding approach to exploitation often focusses on a collaboration between police and social care and whilst this has been positive, it could be extended even further to broaden the contextual multi-agency framework at an earlier stage in the life-course and allow a wider remit of health to be included and even take the lead.

“I think probably it needs to be more thought about how we can come to the table operationally . . . we’ve got a learning disability services and autism services, that you know aren’t represented earlier on, its massively underfunded”

SW

All safeguarding partnerships recognised a real gap in age transition when dealing with county lines and youth serious violence. Some areas had recognised this issue and had either adapted their MACE meetings and any child exploitation response/intervention to also include those young people up to 25 years or were in the process of creating roles within social care such as a ‘transition’ team. However, for most this was just seen as a “cliff edge” of services that “when they turn 18, they literally just get taken off the list” (SE3).

“They [young people] know at 18 things like CAWNS (Child Warning Abduction Notices) stop. They become, you know, the level of support they get from the social worker reduces, they know that at 18, they are much more vulnerable. And we do see that actually that generally before their 18 birthday that they start to deteriorate”

SW

Agencies were seen to be doing their best to work together, but this was sometimes constrained by governance structures. Some professionals spoke about safeguarding guidance from Working Together to Safeguard Children (2018), the Children’s Act (2004) and the Children and Families Act 2014 in the context of not taking into account extra-familial harm and safeguarding considerations applicable to county lines. It was felt that the development of adolescent social care teams alongside “adolescent risk strategy” and “transitional policies” (EM1) would be a positive response to this.

“The introduction of the adolescent teams in social care that was a big, big step forward. And I think that’s made a huge difference. So we’ve got those working in those particular adolescent social care teams, just focusing on those children at the risk of going into care at risk of exploitation. I think that’s helped an enormous amount because the normal Child Protection procedures don’t work. Not that they don’t work, they don’t fit”

SE1

It was felt that child and adult services needed to link together more and that having adult services as part of the strategic group may help to facilitate this. This was seen to be particularly important given the national MAPPA (multi-agency public protection arrangements) process for adults where statutory agencies have legal responsibility, and other agencies have a duty to co-operate, but it was seen that this statutory responsibility /obligation was missing around child exploitation. Further, probation had intermittent involvement of strategic groups. It was seen that this would be beneficial in having those conversations around what happens when a young person turns 18 but is not reaching the threshold for adult social care, or the national probation service, but legally they cannot be kept open to children’s services.

“So what happens to those 18 year olds that maybe aren’t yet, you know, reaching the threshold for national probation service, or reaching the threshold for adult services, adult social care services, and but we know they are involved in county lines, youth violence, exploitation. And we can’t keep them open as children’s services, you know, we have no legal remit to be able to continue working with those children beyond the age of 18”

SE1

One safeguarding partnership addressed this issue by ensuring that there were representatives from adult social care on their MACE panel.

Whilst a gap in service provision regarding support and interventions for adolescents was acknowledged, and being addressed in part, some interviewees also highlighted a lack of confidence, competence and skills in terms of understanding and responding to adolescent risk, particular amongst social workers. This was particularly evident where the risk is outside the family. Some areas were seeking to address this by prioritising adolescent training to their social workers, but still found issues due to being “run ragged” (SW) and that there is “no mandatory adolescent development training” (EM2), which is contributing to this confidence, competence and skills gap. An example was given by the service manager within a target child exploitation team explaining the communication, engagement and language with a young person. When the young person spoke about the gang and exploiters as “family” the response from the social worker was “well they are not your family”. And this results in that young person “never speaking to the social worker again, that because it’s about understanding what was important to them and understand the influence of the community and the peer group” (EM2).

This was linked to the expectations of social workers, when working with adolescents would just refer to the targeted child exploitation team to work with the young person. This was seen as a lack of understanding and availability of time from social workers regarding the time needed to build a relationship and trust with the young person and that immediate ‘connections’ rarely occur with young people. This was a particular concern given that most child exploitation teams were funded through short-term funding calls and therefore may not be a sustainable feature of the service. Consequently, ensuring the core social work team are equipped to be able to respond similarly to those professional within these targeted adolescent teams is essential.

“You know not expecting them to engage with them the first time or second or third or fourth. They will tell you to go away a lot. You will get comments that they’ll engage with (name of CE Team) and, yes, because that’s probably taken weeks and weeks and weeks”

EM

6.3 Voluntary and charity sector (VCS) and practitioner lived experience within safeguarding partnerships

The role of the VCS varied considerably across different areas and there were examples of challenges in collaboratively working, but findings also identified examples of best practice, whereby the partnership working with the VCS was inclusive and proactive. This was at both a strategic and operational level and this was highlighted through working with community organisations, as well as local authority commissioning the VCS to deliver key service delivery as part of the safeguarding response to exploitation. The VCS was viewed as an essential complementary service to statutory organisations when responding to all areas of child exploitation, as well as safeguarding more generally. This was highlighted for a number of reasons, such as being able to offer a more flexible service that is more tailored to the young person’s needs, less restriction of time constraints and less rigid threshold criteria. It was noted that with an independent organisational identity, the VCS are in a unique position to forge relationships with children, young people and families, given that they their services are usually consent based and therefore driven by a requirement of trusted partnership working.

“A lot of young people will be better able to work with local or voluntary community organisations, who they see as being on their side or not part of the kind of part the government. . . it means something different to the family, to be working with a charity”

SW

It was noted that young people and their families can be reluctant to work with statutory agencies if they feel previously there has been a negative experience. A key strength of the VCS organisations is that in addition to building relationships directly with children, young people and families, it was felt that VCS organisations often had a crucial role in bridging the gap between statutory services and families.

“A young person that we are working with, may have a really bad or difficult relationship with a statutory agency like a YOT worker or a social worker. Once they see the relationship the case worker has with other professionals, we encourage them (the young person) to then to build up that relationship with a social worker on the YOT worker themselves, they can see that they can trust, that the young people trusts us and they can see that we trust the professional, so we build that up and encourage that as well”

VCS 24

It was observed that there may be a trusted professional already working with a young person or family and the VCS recognise that whilst a young person may not benefit from another professional becoming involved in their life. The flexible nature of the VCS role can still provide specific support, but directed to the lead and trusted professional so that the child is able to benefit from that specialist knowledge and support.

“When you’ve got that many bodies coming in and out, that many people coming in and talking to you about the same stuff, what we do sometimes is rather than just getting involved directly we can share resources and provide support to another professional child already knows and trusts”

VC7

Some areas had very good and active presence of the VCS as part of the county lines and wider child exploitation response and this was within operational multi-agency meetings and strategy meetings. Many of these involved the larger well-known organisations such as St Giles Trust, Barnardo’s, PACE, Children’s Society and Redthread, as well as more specific services such as ‘We are With you’ and some areas had involvement with more local and community engagement focussed VCS. The VCS and particularly those with a workforce that had practitioners and consultants who had lived experiences of criminal exploitation, child sexual exploitation, serious violence and county lines, were seen as a crucial part of the safeguarding partnership response. They were identified as having best practice with good representation across all levels of safeguarding from the strategic MACE meetings, through to working directly on the ground with young people. Practitioners and consultants with lived experiences of exploitation, serious violence and county lines had unique insights and understandings which were seen as key for responding to exploitation and understanding the young person’s situation.

“People who can relate to the young people and have a way of building a relationship that isn’t so static and so the kids know they’ll trust you more if they think that, you know what you are talking about and you actually have seen some of this stuff in real life and haven’t just read it all in textbooks”

VCS 9

The VCS role within MACE meetings was varied across safeguarding partnership. In some areas there was a good representation of VCS professionals within MACE, including core MACE members and also those VCS organisations who attended when relevant to what and whom were being discussed. However, it was noted in some areas that VCS presence could be problematic due to concerns around having an unfair advantage, in the sense of being better known by the local authority, as various VCS competed against each other for commissioned services. It was acknowledged, that further exploration around the involvement of VCS may be needed to identify how best to utilise and include the sector.

“How you involve the voluntary agencies when they are all so disparate and individual so and so I think there’s a bit there’s a piece of work that we probably need to do about how we’re involving volunteer agencies. And I think it probably happens more at the safer partnership than it does at the strategic board”

SE1

Some safeguarding partnerships stated that VCS organisations do not always feel recognised or have enough of a presence within strategic multi-agency forums. Others acknowledged that not enough is known about what services are available and there needs to be a better understanding of support available to have a more consistent, joined up pathway (this was also acknowledged in terms of funding). However, it was felt that great efforts have been made in strengthening links in recent years with statutory agencies and the VCS working in partnership and it was noted that “that gap is getting closer and closer. We are all working all a lot closer now” (VCS 24). It was felt that the larger VCS organisations were often being included at multi-agency panels and meetings and being recognised as to what value they can bring:

“We have as a voluntary sector organisation seen a real shift in terms of being included in strategy level strategic groups, but also early help locality meetings and networks. Yeah, and I think more recognition of how the work we do can complement what is happening and what’s trying to be achieved”

VCS 1

It was suggested that community safety partnerships may have VCS organisations sitting on their panels, so that they had a more tactical involvement. This, however, was not the case for all community safety partnerships with one participant commenting again that it was considered a conflict of interest. They instead highlighted that VCS groups do presentations around their work and service that they offer and that their community safety partnerships has informal networks established with some of local community groups. In one safeguarding partnership, the early help team who sit on MACE were also seen as a mechanism by which to engage with and take any actions back to the communities and link up with relevant services.

“…we haven’t got any representation [in area] from voluntary agencies. We did have, but that funding ceased for that project, so they no longer attend. And so it’s a little bit more tricky. And there’s quite a few individual bits that happen, it’s very difficult to know how to collectively kind of engage them. But we have got in [area] early help teams and the early help teams sit on MACE. So they take information back into the communities and link up with the family centres, the youth clubs”

SE1

However, this may indicate an assumption that community safety partnerships (CSPs) will feed down to community groups as well and that there are ‘informal’ relationships in place. This informal structure could be seen as quite risky in terms of there being no processes by which these groups can formally feed in, so they are missing out of lots of that softer intelligence around what is going on in particular areas, with particular young people. It was felt that there was a need for greater VCS involvement because of the ‘ever increasing thresholds’ for statutory organisations. Best practice in one CSP showed impressive partnership working between statutory services and the VCS and within the early help team there was a specific role dedicated to linking statutory services and the VCS. This allowed for up-to-date knowledge of what VCS services were available within the community and an opportunity for the VCS to let the statutory services know what services they offer, enabling a more seamless service of support offered to children, young people and families.

Interviewees noted the importance of tapping into and better integration with the community, recognising the skills and knowledge available in the community and using a more community asset-based approach. Examples were given for volunteers and for street pastors who had reported that they were underused during the pandemic and could look to support in other ways. Better support and longer-term funding for sustainability was raised as a big gap nationally, as was investing in communities.

“We need to get better at engaging the voluntary sector. A lot of face-to-face work that should have done been done in terms of relationship building has to be put on hold”

SE3

It was acknowledged that due to lack of funding, there has been a reduction in the VCS:

“In [area]…beyond the statutory agencies that we can refer to, so the third sector….we basically don’t have any, we used to have some really good locally set up third sector agencies, that would be good we could refer to, but austerity kicked in, and all of those unfortunately, were disbanded….unfortunately, thresholds for all professionals is getting higher and higher and higher. And that gap between those that really need the help down here to prevent and educate these are getting further and further and further apart. And we don’t have anything to plug that gap”

SE1

Children’s safeguarding multi-agency teams responding to exploitation often included representation from the VCS and these teams were said to be effective for sharing information and coordinating a multiagency response. It was noted as more effective due to being within a shared team, co-location and established relationships. Despite not having a shared computer database, the VCS noted that they did use email to ensure all professionals working with young people could regularly communicate and update each other.

As well as areas working well, it was reported that there were some tensions around sharing information between the VCS and statutory services and confusion over which data was appropriate to hold and share and in the absence of shared databases, how this was shared and with whom. < redacted >. Some areas had a comprehensive method of sharing information through the use of a police portal, which allowed different agencies to complete an online form and share any concerns they had.

Due to issues with commissioning requirements, short-term funding and reviews of services resulting in a lack of data sharing agreements, some VCS organisations sometimes saw themselves as the “poor relation” (VCS 20) with regards to information sharing and safeguarding of children and young people. It was felt as though there was a clear expectation for them to share all the information that they have on the young person, however, there were frustrations that the information was not always shared back. This was despite the fact they were often the main trusted professional working with that individual and family. This resulted in VCS organisations feeling concerned about not having a full picture of the young person they are working and therefore not able to support them as effectively as they could.

There were also issues around sharing sensitive information at large multi-agency meetings and concerns that that it may not always be appropriate for those from wider organisations to be privy to sensitive information and this could hinder data sharing amongst partners further. Additionally, VCS organisations do not always feel it is appropriate to share all the information they have concerning a young person at large panel meeting, as this can compromise their relationship with the young person they are working with, due to their relational approach. While the VCS would still work in partnership with organisations, they would not necessarily attend all multi-agency meetings.

“We would be we’d be signing up to the information sharing whereby all of that person’s information becomes fair game”

VCS 18

Participants from the local authority commented that they were aware of excellent work being done by VCS organisations in the community but that some organisations were neither formally registered with the council and others that were did not have formal data sharing agreements in place.

“Volunteering bodies do not need to be signed off to work in the borough and the sharing of information between them and us (statuary bodies) is terrible”

London1

There can be issues about what to share and when between statutory agencies and the VCS. Rescue and Response for example can share information/intelligence they glean from young people with the police, whereas with most VCSs this is a complex and challenging balance. It must be very difficult for a child to negotiate what they can say and to whom. It must be noted that although the government have invested heavily in child advocates to assist with this issue, there was no mention of them across any of the interviews.

6.5 Housing: everybody has a home

“Everybody has a home and they deserve to have one that’s safe and maintained. Somewhere they want to be”

EM

Quite simply housing colleagues very much centred the importance of their role in a very simplistic, but powerful way. That as a basic principle your home should be safe and have basic things like heat, electric, food and be clean. That when these things are not there, this results in people not wanting to spend time at home, with more time on streets with risk of being involved in exploitation and criminal activity increasing. By thinking of the home and doing what we can to ensure these are suitable for children should be an absolute priority in reducing the risk of exploitation outside of the home too.

“Why would a teenager 12, 13 year olds, why would they be wandering around the streets on a day when it’s pouring with rain? It’s because the house is full of damp, there’s broken doors, broken windows. They don’t want to be at home, it’s not a nice place to be. So they go out and about so go find somewhere else to live. So for me, housing needs to be in there.”

EM

Through working jointly with police, housing colleagues were seen as enabling disruption of criminal activity and child criminal exploitation within properties often using the additional powers under the Housing Act (1988). They discussed actively liaising with a single point of contact within the safeguarding team when an at-risk child or young person is identified, to share information and decide on next steps together as a multi-agency decision.

“We got everybody on board and we work very closely with the police now because they have realised that under the Housing Act we have legislation that helps us get into a property an awful lot easier. So that has rolled over now to any safeguarding issue of all adults and children and any vulnerable adult. If we’ve got concerns over a property, if the property is in the state of disrepair or worried about how many people are in it, they get us involved and we can assist. […] And basically, what they call disruption because I go in and then I get repairmen to go in and I get the landlord to go in, then we go back to do re-inspection. We keep the tenants on their toes”

EM

VCS, however, noted the importance, but often problematic nature of housing support across the various safeguarding partnerships in trying to safeguard and support young people they were working with. This was seen as particularly difficult for those areas within the evaluation that were known to be at the higher ranks of housing barriers. These VCS organisations were having to engage with lawyers in trying to provide housing for their young people and that this “was not rare” to be seeking legal challenges to decisions. Housing was seen as having the “biggest impact in terms of safety. And legally, a young person should be able to approach any country, any local authority in the country saying that my risk is my life’s at risk, I need to be moved” (VCS 19).

6.6 Community safety partnership (CSP) involvement

Only 2 out of the 9 safeguarding partnerships provided links to any professionals within their CSPs, with 3 individuals from CSPs being interviewed in total. In one area where a CSP was interviewed, it was clear that the CSP was very much integrated and aligned at both a strategic and operation level with members of boards attending each other’s meetings to ensure coordination and coherence. The CSP also had a strong emphasis on safeguarding and clearly understood their role in ensuring that a response to exploitation must involve contextual factors and ownership. This CSP was key in developing their exploitation strategy. Interestingly, in the other partnership related to the above points regarding VCS involvement that included 2 members of the CSP was an area that openly identified as not engaging with the VCS due to issues around favouritism in future commissioning. Therefore, it seems that those that volunteered members of CSPs forward as a key part of the safeguarding response to county lines and serious youth violence risk, relied on them to provide the community engagement and intelligence input and lead some of the “preventative and educational elements” (SE1).

Generally speaking, CSPs were seen as another good example of multi-agency working with board/strategic level and delivery groups made of up senior roles/managers from key agencies (police, fire and rescue, health, youth offending, early help, housing, education), and then a problem-solving group (PSG) with ‘the doers’. It was felt that joining information from these agencies together helped to “put the bigger picture together” (SE1). The CSPs were seen as a way of engaging the ‘wider partnership community’ around active targeting of individuals/groups. They are also closely aligned to some partnerships CCE strategic group and this was something that had developed recently but was a “long, slow process” (SE1).

“We’ve only just started to mature our relationship with local community safety partnerships and that has been a very recent thing over the last few months. I think prior to that, quite rightly, they were going anywhere and everywhere they could do to try and find information on county lines and we should have been there from the beginning to give them that clear steer”

SE1

It was acknowledged that there can be challenges around the provision of information being fed down from the CCE strategic group. Specifically, this related to sensitive information and the CSPs being an open community forum. This made sharing information with CSPs consider whether this may “create a climate of fear in a particular area” so it can be a “tricky balance” (SE1).

A key benefit of the CSP was their arrangements within their problem-solving group and the fact that it involved both adult and children’s services rather than having separate meetings for each. This was seen to be invaluable in terms of information sharing and ‘those other little bits and pieces that you wouldn’t necessarily capture if they were split into 2 meetings’ (SE1). But this was not mentioned within other CSPs. The presence of schools on the CSP and problem solving group was also seen to be very important as they were in contact with the young people, although it was acknowledged not as much over the last 12 months with the COVID-19 pandemic.

CSPs were seen to be a key facilitator in the dissemination of information to frontline staff as they work across a number of services and feed down information from the CCE strategic group as well as feeding into the strategic group and the CCE strategic action plan. However, it is worth noting that the increased engagement seen from one safeguarding partnership with their CSP is likely due to their absence of voluntary sector support with their exploited young people.

“Last year, we were feeling that we were a bit separate and that sometimes we didn’t quite know what the safety partnership groups did and we didn’t feel that they were quite aware of what we were doing so we joined them up a bit more. So I would say those are the kind of key, the strategic board is the kind of key bit that brings it together”

SE1

Question 7

7. Theme 3: Policy, guidance and risk assessments/screening tools

Accepted Answer

7.1 Guidance and policies: Lost in translation

County lines and serious youth violence is a complex and evolving phenomenon that involves a myriad of people and varied levels of exploitation. Therefore, a number of policy, guidance and assessment tools existed across each of the safeguarding partnerships. Across the 9 safeguarding partnerships each one was structured differently in terms of their strategic, tactical and operational panels and groups that respond to child exploitation. Although most had some form of MACE panel, structures also included various meetings, policy and guidance on various forms of exploitation, all relevant to county lines and serious violence. This included, but was not limited to:

child sexual exploitation strategy/guidance/procedures
child criminal exploitation strategy/guidance/procedures
contextual safeguarding strategy/guidance/procedures
missing from home guidance
missing from care guidance
children missing from education guidance
gang strategy/guidance
young people vulnerable to extremism guidance
radicalisation guidance
online exploitation guidance
modern day slavery guidance
trafficked children guidance
child protection policy

The complexity and ability to navigate across all these policies and panels, which existed within the safeguarding partnerships, but also within the organisations themselves, which included additional separate policies, departments and guidance. The scale of this complexity was extremely difficult to unravel, similar to the structures and processes. This became even more complex when the safeguarding partnerships contained multiple LA/county council (CC)/unitary who also had their own policies, panels, guidance and assessments.

Regardless of this complex landscape, many participants spoke about having a strategic level awareness of national policy guidance such as Working Together 2018 (and how this may be set against performance indicators) and Time to Listen, and utilising national policy and documentation around CCE and CSE and disruption toolkits. It was acknowledged that this information, along with other examples of best practice, were used to develop their own safeguarding partnership level strategy and policy for their area. However, this task required ‘reviewing’ much national documentation, seeking policies from other areas to develop a policy, with acknowledgement that this would need to be “refreshed on almost an annual basis” (SE1).

It was highlighted at a national and local level, however, that because county lines exploitation and serious youth violence span across a number of areas, information was not necessarily found all together under one umbrella. Within each safeguarding partnership there was a move to drive towards developing a single policy that covered all different types of exploitation. Some had created an ‘adolescent risk policy’ others saw this as a ‘contextual safeguarding policy’. But certainly, there was positive movement and drive in recognising more formally the overlapping nature of all forms of child exploitation dealt with. The benefits of placing all forms of child exploitation into one overarching document allowed professionals to see the various statutory offences each form of CE covers along with information regarding specific sources for national definitions and so on.

“We will follow, like utilise the kind of like national guidance around the disruption, toolkits, that kind of thing. I think the difficulty for us in the police is the legislation that goes with county lines, because it covers a multitude of statutory offences is not all together under one umbrella. A lot of sexual offences activities, you know, it covers drugs offences, it covers modern day slavery offences”

SE1

It was also evident that additional safeguarding agencies outside the ownership of the safeguarding partnership (for example, the housing association) had their own procedures around adult and child safeguarding. It was also commented by a number of participants that they knew who to speak to if they needed guidance or sign posting rather than necessarily referring to any specific policy / guidance.

In line with the key strategies, polices and guidance, the structures in response to county lines exploitation and serious youth violence differed across the safeguarding partnerships. Strategic meetings/groups tended to be seen as MACE panels, with some named differently but generally including words such as exploitation, adolescent risk. Some of the structures had these across the whole safeguarding partnership, others had these meeting duplicated across the localities within their area and then an overarching strategic group. These were often structured as:

MACE at local authority level (for example, one in each local authority area area), that then feed into an overarching whole safeguarding partnership CCE strategic group
some had a pre-MACE meeting that sat similarly at local level, which then fed into a strategic safeguarding partnership MACE meeting

Other thematic panels/groups often sat underneath these groups, with additional locality meetings, which all fed into the safeguarding partnership MACE/pre-MACE group. This was all outside any structures that sit within organisation themselves such as policing, which have various groups and thematic panels that sit at strategic and operation level, covering related issues, such as missing, domestic abuse, SOC (serious organised crime), gangs team and so on. To enable effective processes throughout these structures was acknowledgement that “the same people tend to be at the key panels and groups regarding child exploitation” (EM) and therefore ensured a joined-up approach across the whole SP structure.

7.2 Risk assessment/screening

In terms of the child exploitation risk assessments and screening, many partners acknowledged these as not fit for purpose as there were not adequately capturing contextual risk factors outside the home. Most safeguarding partnerships had already recognised this and had within their safeguarding partnerships agreed and adapted the CE screening tool/risk assessment to capture all forms of child exploitation. This was seen by most as working much more effectively.

“That’s why we changed our screening tool because we have separate screening tool for CSE and CCE, why? Actually we have incorporated it all into this one screening tool because we know that all elements are linked. So that’s working much better”

SE1

However, there were still some that recognised their screening tools and risk assessments were not appropriate and required needed amending.

In one safeguarding partnership, stakeholders spoke about the current CE tool that was in use “with 12 out of 13 questions focused on the child and family, and only one question focused on adults/peers, no taking contextual safeguarding into consideration” (NW). This stakeholder highlighted that whilst vulnerability factors (discussed in theme 7) do play a part, it is the external exploitation from a perpetrator which causes CCE and county lines involvement, expressing the importance of risk assessments considering the external factors and the perpetrator involvement in more detail. They also highlighted that the current CE form can appear to be victim blaming, with an onus on the child, for example to say they are a ‘high risk child’, rather than they are at a higher risk of CE. They explained that this can label the child and internalises the risk for the child and leaves them asking ‘why am I high risk?’. Concerns from this safeguarding partnership also mentioned that risk assessments can lull professionals into a false sense of security that ‘their job is complete’. They also noted that plans developed from risk assessments need to consider those wider contextual issues, as parents may not be capable of enforcing plans at home if the external issues are still present. For this particular safeguarding partnership, they had developed a new CE tool that was described as “more contextual and strength-based approach” that would be available for professionals to use soon. Interestingly this notion of being contextual and strengths based was seen as an important feature of CE risk assessments, allowing a whole picture, and stops focus on onus on the “child being a risk”.

“Risk assessments with exploitation just don’t work because it’s not appropriate. And it also again, part of victim blaming mentality, sort of internalises the risk within the child because you go through and you tick all of these boxes in terms of, you know, it’s medium risk for this, and it’s high risk for this, and it’s low risk for this and you come up with an overall medium, low or high, but then that becomes a label to the child. So Johnny becomes high risk, as opposed to Johnny’s risk of exploitation is high… we’ve launched a new assessment tool, which embeds contextual safeguarding and signs of safety and is more of a holistic picture of what’s going on for this young person, and where we feel their exploitation risks are, and also focuses on the perpetrators and the people that might be targeting them”

NW

It was clear that safeguarding partnerships had been left to try and find a solution to the problem of having their current CE tools not fit for purpose due to the increase of CCE and need to capture contextual risk factors outside the home. In one safeguarding partnership they had a county lines pathfinder lead^{[footnote 6]} and had looked to identify best practice from other areas in terms of what their risk assessment tool(s) look like to identify whether there was anything ‘better’ out there, but it was felt that there was not and that the CCE tool was working well (SE1). This quite often resulted in partners calling for a National CE tool that brought together all forms of child exploitation together recognising the importance of contextual and signs of safety within assessments. Also, that these CE risk factors would be similar across safeguarding partnership areas and that some guidance on this was needed that also allowed for professional override in resulting risk levels.

“And we wanted to try and see if there’s anything better out there. And but I think we didn’t really find anything better. It’s interesting, isn’t it that sometimes when you when you look at something key in review it and look at what else has happened out there, you actually you know, you find that what you’ve got is actually doing it for you”

SE1

Additionally, some areas had recognised that there was a need for a CE screening tool, which was a shorter, scaled back version of the fuller CE risk assessment tool. This was seen as important to ensure professionals from all services could feel comfortable completing the initial referral and the screening that took place was cognisant that this was often based on only part of the information. Subsequently a fuller CE risk assessment would take place after multi-agency information had been shared and would be completed by a safeguarding professional, such as a social worker. This was also linked to the dynamic and fast paced nature of risk for these children and young people seen to be at risk of county lines, serious violence and wider CCE, with the need to ensure regular reviews of risk regardless of whether noticeable changes had been seen:

“So a CCE tool is completed… [and the] CCE tool should be reviewed if risk changes… if nothing changes at all, it should also be reviewed every 3 months. So it’s not a tool that stands still at risk assessment is a dynamic tool that can change anytime and should be reviewed”

SE1

7.3 Data, mapping and intelligence

Processes such as operation and strategic multi-agency meetings allow for professionals to come together in a formal setting to share information and intelligence around risk. Good partnership working between organisations was seen as important in having conversations and sharing of information outside of meetings. All safeguarding partnerships highlighted the importance of their intelligence departments, which provided deep dive analytical work often highlighting trends and areas of high risk. This was often fed into key multi-agency meetings. These can include the constabulary’s performance data and child at risk matrix maps, current trends for CE and associated missing episodes. Intelligence logs also inform partnership meetings, an analyst within the constabulary is developing harm factor intelligence. A couple of safeguarding partnerships with VRUs mentioned problem profiles being used, which is again police led, looking specifically at crime intelligence. However, it was acknowledged that unpicking county lines, serious violence and wider CCE data within this would be useful for the safeguarding partnership whole picture.

Forms of ‘vulnerability assessment trackers’ were mentioned, as reported in the HMICFRS (2020) report, which was hoping to improve multi-agency information sharing. The vulnerability assessment tracker is a multi-agency tool, where when a young person is identified as at risk, the professional will fill in a referral to the vulnerability assessment tracker to request that information is put on there. The vulnerability assessment tracker contains static information like name, gender, ethnicity, address, but also asks a number of questions, which are then given a score, similar to some of the various child exploitation tools being used. The vulnerability assessment tracker was seen as assisting with “cross-county applicability” (SE1) rather than different areas using their own risk management tools, and the challenges that this posed around bringing the information all together. It was felt that the benefits of the vulnerability assessment tracker were that data from numerous difference services/agencies (for example, police, education, social services youth justice) would be fed into it and it would then be easier to build up a collective picture of intelligence around a young person, group of young people or a specific geographical area of concern. Also, that it would replace some of the ‘archaic’ and ‘cumbersome’ systems that are in place in some services at the current time.

“So I get all that information in which is going to be easier in the future because of this VAT (vulnerability assessment) tracker because rather than asking different partners to pull it off their own systems, that information will be in one single system. So I won’t need a cast of thousands around the table for that first initial meeting. And I can just go with a list of names I have read and also access onto the VAT tracker. I can put those names into the tracker and pull them out straightaway and get a picture of what I need there”

SE1

It was, however, seen to lack some of the subtleties when looking at softer, contextual information and was acknowledged that partners were unsure how it would fit into the any CE screening or risk assessment tools.

“We’ve still also got the CCE risk assessment, which is a different way of assessing what level of risk the young person. I think at the moment, we don’t know how well those 2 things are going to agree with each other. So and also we are looking at the moment to try and iron that process out instead of somebody filling in a CCE risk assessment tool and a referral to the VAT, we’re looking at, can they be combined”

SE1

Some safeguarding partnerships also had various forms of ‘portals’ that were seen as a system usually help by police but allows information sharing from across partners. Partner agencies can report intelligence or information which they feel the police would benefit from. It is clear that it is not a way of reporting crime, or making a referral, but it is a quick and effective mechanism for partner agencies to share bits of information which they feel may be relevant around children and adults, risks and suspicious behaviour. This can be accumulated to enable a comprehensive view of a situation. The portal encourages information to be shared without a significant issue attached to it which means it is time effective and allows someone else to decide how relevant it is, depending on what additional knowledge is known. It can be voluntary or statutory agencies.

< redacted >

Additional challenges were also identified. Whilst it was seen to be an aspiration that the vulnerability assessment tracker (and any future similar systems) would be a multi-agency process with key people from each service potentially accessing and inputting data, it was felt that considerations should be made around the resource required to do this, whether it would be duplication information and also how quality control of information may be achieved. Other areas of exploration were around data protection and information sharing and the need for data protection impact assessments and information sharing agreements to highlight what the data collected was going to be used for and why. Concerns were raised around data being input for a young person onto the system that would then stay with them for a number of years. It was highlighted, however, that a ‘case’ would need to be made for putting information onto the system and that it would need to be substantiated; also that sometimes when ‘you get everyone in the room’, they also have information on that young person as well to begin to build that picture/that case and pull together a picture that might not have been present before. This again reiterates that data sharing is important, but also not losing the live and dynamic multi-agency conversations that allow a whole picture to be developed, action plans set and agreed, with clear ownership going forward.

The ability to apply CE flags for children at risk of CE was seen an invaluable in not only identifying risk, but also brought the risk to professionals’ radar, enabling them to work in a more trauma informed way and look at the bigger picture. Two safeguarding partnerships mentioned they were active in doing this across their systems. It was agreed that the whilst the markers were important, and the systems and processes are in place, the systems do rely on professionals, who need to feel competent and confident in making informed decisions, hence the importance of it being a multiagency decision. For the 2 safeguarding partnerships, CE flags can be actioned (this is discussed in further detail in theme 8) on police, children’s services and health systems. This will notify professionals that a child is at risk of CE. Stakeholders agreed that this promoted a more trauma informed approach. It ensured services that the child may come into contact with are more aware of the situation, more likely to look at the wider picture, more likely to view the child as a victim, and more likely to spot signs and act, therefore increasing the child’s safety. The flags were seen as particularly useful in enabling young people to exit situations. An example was given of police stopping a car with a young person present with adult perpetrators, and that arrest provides an opportunity to safely remove and release that child from their control without the child needing to disclose that they are at risk (a CE flag placed on these children also supports this action). This stakeholder explained that sometimes a child has lost control in situations and cannot find a route out, and this type of intervention can give them that route out.

“I’ve had another young person who was pulled over and in a car. And he did have a CE flag on his on record when the police pulled them over, because they could see when they’ve checked his name, they could see that these the CE flag and just treated them differently and ask more questions, who’s the driver? And you feel okay with them? Do you feel safe?”

SE3

Other forms of intelligence were via the use of apps around that help build pictures of hot spots and can provide alerts to devices when needed and safety mapping apps for young people themselves.

Gaps were identified in data, mapping and intelligence in relation to “social media recruitment” (BTP) activities such as county lines and CCE more generally. There was agreement from all safeguarding partnerships s that due to demand and referrals being so high, it inhibits more proactive intelligence work in preventing recruitment.

“We are not strong enough on the digital space, what do we know about the young person and their use of online spaces, what can we find out and what does that mean”

London2

Interestingly, a participant spoke about how the intelligence and adaptability of the county lines business model cannot be underestimated, and that how we, across society, have adapted and changed our ways of communicating and existing, with this shifting significantly to online and remote communication, the county lines model will be similarly adapting. This then causes problems when the organisations in responding to these changes get left behind in intelligence gathering and methods due to internal processes and mechanisms:

< redacted >

In addition, stakeholders argued that real intelligence comes from hands on engagement directly with young people, acknowledging the challenges of this during the pandemic. There were some innovative ways to try and capture some of these intelligence gaps during COVID-19 by raising awareness in some of the key workers that were continuing to work public facing during the pandemic, for example, refuse collectors:

“Can you speak to your street rangers and your refuge collection? Can you tell me if there’s a specific area where they’re picking up things like drug paraphernalia or alcohol, that kind of thing? Or is there an area where, I’ll go back to the local council and say, is an area where you’re getting lots of complaints of antisocial behaviour with children”

SE1

Only one safeguarding partnership mentioned that the police were quite reluctant to share intelligence. Information sharing between partners was seen to be sometimes lacking and was mentioned by several partners within this specific safeguarding partnership as an area that should be working on in the future to improve the effectiveness of the partnership.

“Police to be sharing their intelligence with us, it should be a 2-way street. So for example, we might get a request on police to say, tell me the names of everybody that lived in an address and they will not really tell us why. So they expect us to give them all the information”

SE2

< redacted >

Question 8

8. Theme 4: Working across safeguarding partnerships and area boundaries

Accepted Answer

The final area of concern is dealing with children and young people travelling in and out of area, which is a key feature of county lines. Whilst all safeguarding partnerships stated they were proactive in communicating with other areas, they do not feel other areas are quite so willing to engage with them, for example if a young person was being talked about at an out of area MACE. Even across London, the different boroughs have different protocols in being able to achieve this. Issues arise regarding confusion around who takes responsibility for the young person and also, it can be a challenge even to ascertain the right person to contact within that area to liaise with. Some safeguarding partnerships have been proactive in that they have made contact with out of area bus companies to make plans if a young person is found out of area and also exploring ideas for MACE-to-MACE communication, in the absence of a national protocol.

For police, there are signs that this is changing and the police in one safeguarding partnership reported that they had a colleague from an out of area force attend their meetings around county lines and this was helpful in drawing up joint plans and protocols. Generally, it was seen that the different forces are keen to cooperate with each other, but they work on different systems, and it can be time consuming to share intelligence. However, there can be issues with responsibility between areas as they have their own challenges and set amount of resource, this can prove problematic with the travelling nature of county lines:

“Trying to get people to open their eyes and see the bigger picture, where these things are going, and just how we can deal with them, because it is very much people don’t want to share their trainsets”

SW

< redacted >

“We’ve had a few cases where, for example, a young person is open to a different area. She’s come into our area and clearly been exploited. And we’ve then had to go out and safeguard her and we’ve done that because we care and we can’t wait around for another local authority to get there and do what they need to do. Same as our young people go into different areas, we’re asking the local authorities to help support, and it’s very difficult because people say no”

EM

8.1 Moving children out of area

All safeguarding partnerships mentioned that there was often pressure to move some of the more complex young people that feature regularly within MACE out of area, however, this was deemed by one professional to be about “reducing professional anxiety rather than actually keeping the young person safe” (EM) and that actually “time and money is better spent engaging them here” (EM). This is particularly relevant for those young people with unmet needs, with the movement of them to any location not addressing these basic needs.

“They are vulnerable because of those unmet needs. And despite moving them that that’s going to remain the case. So sometimes making arguments for staying in or close to area, despite there being a risk, because a young person may have their own set of safety measures that they can implement in an area that they know that they can’t implement in an area that they don’t know”

SE1

The main issue raised by several respondents was the failure of other boroughs to notify them when looked after children were placed in accommodation in their area, with this most problematic when dealing with private care homes. This meant that social services and the police could be slow to respond to what they saw as predictable issues that followed. It was felt that there was a need for better coordination and communication between local authorities when young people were being moved out of/into areas. That this required clear discussions around their vulnerabilities and agencies, instead of “having to play catch up” (EM). Regardless of the mandated requirement to notify host local authorities of a young person being considered for a move, there was still a request from professionals that a cross-local authority policy/protocol is needed.

“And then when we have young people placed with us, one of the things that has been a bit of an emerging pattern is that we’re not being contacted in advance by other local authorities. And this is particularly relevant to some of our high-level young people where they’re asking us to take over the supervision of young people”

SE1

Furthermore, it was highlighted by a number of respondents that ongoing issues with the placement of children in care homes outside of the area is a cause for concern when looking at exploitation by county lines and the development of ‘home grown’ county lines. This was specifically because of young people are establishing new ‘networks’ that then ‘becomes a risk when they move back into county’. This was also seen to be a real issue with young people who were placed within as well as outside of the county, for those same reasons. When placing young people outside of their areas a risk analysis is done as in some cases (for example, links to the area, current networks, MACE identified vulnerabilities) it was acknowledged that placing them outside of area can ‘become more problematic’ as some of the supporting ‘structures around them aren’t there’, for example where additional individual safety measures need to be implemented. This resulted in some partners stating that safeguarding partnerships are “responsible for creating some of our own county lines every now and again” due to placing these children and young people “miles from anywhere” and therefore starting those “additional lines” in these areas (SE1). Therefore, the issue of having discussions before movements of children and young people are confirmed are essential when they may be placing their children in an area that is a higher risk for CCE, county lines, gangs and, or knife crime. This comes down to ensuring that professionals always consider that moving children outside of area does not necessarily reduce the risk of exploitation.

“…we’re seeing a bit of a trend, particularly in (area), of families being moved out of London because of risks because of county lines. And they’ve been moved into (area). Okay, and I’m sure other county authorities with very little prep, very little communication, very little understanding that actually the risk doesn’t reduce because (area) is not 100 miles from London”

SE1

8.2 Role of British Transport Police (BTP): Operation Defiant County lines Taskforce

Regardless of the huge public presence that BTP have within policing due to their borderless patrol on visibility of people via transport links, CCTV and intelligence, with the specialist Operation Defiant County lines Taskforce team in identifying, disrupting and safeguarding county lines activity, there was still a concern regarding whether Home Office forces (and likely other agencies) are aware of their role and what support they can provide:

“But a lot the police forces forget we exist and the investigation into human trafficking and county lines context and really have forgotten that we are interested in the line of enquiry”

BTP

The Operation Defiant County lines Taskforce team within BTP are a specialist county lines team funded by the Home Office consisting of a multi-agency workforce. They have a clear dedicated and stable structure since their inception in December 2019 including a superintendent police lead, specialist safeguarding lead, a dedicated intelligence resource, geographically response detective inspectors, with teams that sit under them, as well as a seconded in VCS representative from the Children’s Society. Interviews from across the team clearly indicated a positive, multi-agency response to county lines exploitation that had fully embraced the child-centred and safeguarding approach as a key priority, alongside disrupting the criminal exploiters. This is joined up strategically and operationally on the ground with the Op Defiant team.

“Thinking all the time safeguarding, actually the mantra became it’s all about the safeguarding rather than it’s all about the arrest”

BTP

The stable nature of the team has allowed individuals to feel confident and accepted for their specific expertise and able to challenge appropriately when required, with this being welcomed and encouraged. Although the superintendent was seen to be the lead for the team, the additional role of the safeguarding lead was commented on as a real indication of the priority in seeing the child perspective within exploitation and safeguarding responses. This was further strengthened with the addition of a seconded Children’s Society member to the team. In a difficult and challenging area of work, supporting each other and learning from each other were seen as a key feature of the team and no doubt fundamental in their success so far.

“We have equipped the guys, not only with the skills which they’ve developed over time, but we’ve given them, bespoke training and safeguarding training as well, they are all field drug testers some of them are behaviour experts, behavioural detection officers (BDOs). We’ve given them the kit the skills, the scales, but more importantly, the mandate to chase it down”

BTP

Due to the nature of the line often (but not always) crossing counties and use of transport links within the business model, it was deemed that the specialist team within BTP were best placed to respond to county lines in their ability to pull on various forms of intelligence and lead or assist investigative work due to their borderless operating model.

“Particularly for county lines, we hold it all together, really, because the trains are used the majority of times. We are key to it”

BTP

Even though BTP have the structures to be able to see a county lines investigation through from intelligence to investigation and charge, it was clear that BTP work openly and flexibly, particularly with Home Office forces across the UK regions. Good relationships with Home Office forces was noted in that they were open to supporting BTP operations by providing support with their own officers.

< redacted >

Although there could potentially be issues in some instances of who is taking ownership due to the nature of the railways and Home Office forces, effective and clear processes and relationships were in place that enabled resolutions and responsibilities to be agreed for each case, on a case-by-case basis. This highlighted that it if occurred on the railway BTP would deal with it, however, it links with something off the railway then discussions would take place to agree on who takes ‘primacy’. There saw it as not being problematic for them in that they “work together” and promote “joint working”.

In further support of their flexible approach to working with Home Office forces and using the advantages of the expertise and specialist team, a member of the team outlined a case that they were able to respond to and assist in linking what was a repeat missing person (misper) to county lines exploitation. This example highlights the difficulties many Home Office forces may be experiencing when trying to deal with high demand and limited resources. The intelligence picture was seen as key in the uncovering of county lines exploitation within this example. However, this was only possible due to the BTPs dedicated intelligence team to almost ‘step back’ and take the time to pull all the data together.

< redacted >

A key feature enabling the effective work of BTP was seen as the relationships built with key roles within Home Office forces. Relationship building, being approachable and this notion of helping each other out was key to the success of working collaboratively. Importantly, the importance of feedback, updating those that have assisted in sharing intelligence was seen as integral in maintaining good joint working across Forces: the simplicity of saying ‘thank you’.

“There are 18 intelligence development officers based regionally, each aligned to a Home Office force or a regional crime unit and we are relying on the Home Office forces sharing the information. And so it’s making sure there is BTP attendance at their meetings or their discussions and that we are approachable and we are able to support and assist that investigations as best we can”

BTP

Cross border police working

Although BTP found no issues in confirming ownership across joint work with other Home Office forces, the same could not be said when investigations crossed various force borders. This was seen as particularly challenging and often required BTP to try and assist with negotiations on the ‘owner’. Furthering on the example given above regarding the misper, it was commented on that the Home Office force often only hold a piece of the puzzle and do not see the wider risks, or links. That by providing BTP intelligence and expertise allows the Home Office force to gain new lines of enquiry to assist their investigation. So again, the flexibility of BTP not requiring to ‘own’ the job, allowed information to flow more freely and assist exploitation investigations, ultimately enabling safeguarding.

“it’s a lot of relationship building and talking to other people that do similar jobs to me from different forces, getting to know what their intel requirements. And can we support them? Yeah, and if we can support them, what can we take from them? < redacted >

” BTP

Stakeholders described county lines as transient and the importance of building relationships with forces from other areas. This was highlighted in terms of drugs being exported out of Liverpool, Manchester and London and imported into other areas such as Cumbria, Wales, Scotland and Dorset. This increased the likelihood of these forces working closely with British Transport Police for operations. One participant highlighted the importance of ‘borderless policing’ for an effective response.

BTP and wider safeguarding partnership working

The involvement of wider safeguarding partnership agencies involved in safeguarding and exploitation was seen as crucial as part of the joint response, again with the importance of trust in being able to do this effectively, with acknowledgement that “you can’t have an investigation team just ploughing on by itself and not talking to social workers” (BTP). Broadly, it was commented on by BTP that safeguarding partnership areas do differ in how they respond to county lines exploitation, with particular reference to differences in how a young person in custody is dealt with.

“It differs county to county, that is for everything we come across, you know, I worked all over the place and our teams are all over, go into different custody, different home office forces and everyone has their own process really”
BTP

Barriers in joint working were identified as the location the young person was arrested, the individual on shift and also the time of arrest that all impact on how effective the decision making and response. Concern was centred on challenges when trying to bring key practitioners together to agree plans and actions, with virtual engagement able to facilitate this more than ever before. Barriers within social work responses were also mentioned that often required BTP to intervene. This occurred when social workers seemed unable to connect and engage with the young person but were reluctant to go down an offending route in managing the young person’s behaviour. Costs were also seen as potentially blocking decision making by social care. There were also examples of social services thresholds of risks and decision making not aligning well to the Taskforce’s recommendations. A case was discussed with a 15-year-old found with Class A drugs but deemed a possible victim of county lines. The child mentioned that they were at risk, however, children services were not willing to assist in trying to find him accommodation, deeming his home with his gran an appropriate and safe place. This resulted in the child sleeping on the floor in a police station due to concerns they had about their safety and putting their family at risk.

< redacted >

Question 9

9. Theme 5: Best practice within the safeguarding partnership structure in response to county lines and youth SV risk

Accepted Answer

Within a couple of safeguarding partnerships, a huge strength was the relentless drive of dedicated, compassionate and tenacious professionals at all levels in responding to child exploitation, serious violence and county lines. There was great enthusiasm and drive to generally do everything within their power to safeguard and protect young people from exploitation. These safeguarding partnerships displayed a consistent evolutionary approach in its identification and response to exploitation and demonstrated reflective practice at all levels and a commitment to scrutiny.

“There is a lot of knowledge across the partnership as well, we were really lucky with some of the key people that we’ve got…There are disagreements and little hiccups along the way. But that’s part parcel of collaborative work, isn’t it? But generally, I would say we’ve got a really, really good working relationship, both kind of like the frontline services. But what as well to kind of board level as well, it works through all of the kind of governance of it already, which is great”

SE1

We’ve come quite some way to aligning what we do, talking to each other about priorities, making sure we’re not duplicating or overlapping…We do still bump up against each other. . . passionate people that work in this area that have really strong ideas about what they want to see. And I think that’s actually a strength” SW

A number of safeguarding partnerships outlined their key structures, processes, policies, risk assessments and targeted support/intervention in response to county lines exploitation and wider forms of child exploitation. These were seen by all that were interviewed within the safeguarding partnership to be providing an “effective response”. The key features of these structures and working relationships have been pulled out across the safeguarding partnerships to identify best practice.

9.1 MACE meeting

Those safeguarding partnerships identified by those interviewed as “working effectively” had a form of MACE panel that existed across the whole safeguarding partnership (sometimes named ‘Adolescent risk teams/CE Teams’). This was seen as the strategically responsible group that allowed for higher risk and complex cases to be reviewed, but also, importantly, provided a more contextual safeguarding approach to child exploitation. One safeguarding partnership described their MACE as dealing with those more complex high-risk cases that are “on everybody’s radar” (EM) and how the whole partnership works intensely together to reduce that young person’s risk. Taking this deep dive approach with their most complex cases and overlaying this with particular contextual information allows them to be more creative in diversion and escalation of activities for these young people.

“So there might be a certain area within like (area), a certain park where we know that young people are being targeted for hanging about. So what we do is do like contextualised safeguarding plan around the park rather than just doing it around children. We’re doing it around areas. So what we’re going to do, we’re going to send the police to rock up on one of the police buses to stay outside the park to kind of then, then communicate with the young people and talk about what’s going on and see if they can offer any support”

EM

Best practice MACE meetings were very well represented and were co-chaired by police, local authority and health. They usually had in regular attendance social care, police, community safety partnership (CSP), targeted CE team, youth justice, education, housing, VCS, psychologists, inclusion teams, CSPs, early help, as minimum. However, only 2 of the 9 safeguarding partnerships indicated that their MACE chairing was jointly shared across police, LA and health. Others tended to share between police and the LA.

“[MACE is] the largest multi-agency meeting, across the partnership, where we discuss all manner of different things. We try and focus on key young people that need safeguarding, but actually, you know, the breadth of things that we’re discussing there is quite wide. So that has really good attendance at meeting for a variety of agencies, health, education, social care, that type of thing”

SE1

There is a core established team who regularly sit on the MACE and have done for a significant period of time and this allows for an in-depth intelligence picture to be gathered. There are times when serious cases require additional partners to be present such as youth workers and the specific school, who are invited for an allocated slot to participate in that element of the discussion. There is also opportunity to negotiate who is best placed to sit on the MACE and a recent suggestion has seen that rather than an education safeguarding lead across a number of schools, actually the most appropriate person to be sat on the MACE is the family support staff in schools as they have a working knowledge of a wide range of children and families which can help to map connections between children very quickly.

“Having people from education there, from nursing, people from social care backgrounds, police, licensing, that’s great. Having people that can say, you know, we’re talking with taxi drivers and premises that have for people to look for this more broadly transport stuff so that it’s it feels like it’s accomplishing what it should”

SW

“I think is good with that is the willingness from partners across the board to actually take the lead when it’s appropriate. Because it’s not something that we can always do what we call to do on our own, if you like. So, I’ve been involved in partnership working for many, many years. And a lot of times I would suggest years ago there was lip service to it. Now I think there’s a genuine commitment to actually achieving that locally”

SW

Those that were seen as working well from all those interviewed within the safeguarding partnership had a panel admin, or even more effective was an intelligence/analyst function that existed as part of this multi-agency group. One safeguarding partnership mentioned their analyst collated all the information and intelligence from across key systems (with data sharing agreements allowing access to local authority and police databases). The sharing and collection of information would occur prior to the meeting to help the meeting be more efficient in decision making, setting actions and assigning responsibility.

Having a lived experience/VCS representative within MACE was seen to aid decision-making around action for these higher risk children and young people. In addition, the representation of a clinical psychologist and SEND/SENDCO practitioner ensured consideration of the root causes, assessments that needed to be done (IQ testing, ADHD, autism, etc) as well as how to best communicate with the child/young person based on their needs to ensure it was child centred.

“Many years and when I when I first was asked to attend, I didn’t know if it would be useful, but it quickly became apparent that it was useful. I can very quickly get somebody’s IQ done, and I can very quickly get them into our services if we feel they’ve got mental health crisis”

EM

SEND/SENDCO and inclusion team representation at the MACE also allowed education to be consulted and involved. Effective partnerships often had an inclusion team that liaised regularly (fixed day, bi-weekly) with head teachers (or nominated safeguarding leads) across all schools, which allowed the Inclusion team to have a good oversight of regular issues arising concerning child exploitation and vulnerabilities more broadly. This resulted in thematic understanding across the areas from the local inclusion lead worker, as well as being able to pick up concerns as and when they happened. Housing were also seen as a key partner around the table for those effective MACE meetings, particularly regarding their additional use of powers under the Housing Act and disruption techniques available to them. Some effective work was seen whereby Housing Enforcement officers were continuously considering safeguarding and exploitation issues within the daily basis with clear lines of communication into neighbourhood policing teams and children social care, to raise any concerns. They often worked closely with the more targeted street-based teams within the safeguarding partnership response too.

One safeguarding partnership had expanded the remit of their MACE acknowledging that exploitation does not stop at the age of 18 and so the MACE takes referrals up to the age of 25 years. What is impressive is in addition to simply changing the age so that adults can be referred into MACE, children’s social care worked with adult’s social care colleagues to align their workflow system to mirror that of children’s social care, embedding their MACE risk assessment. This ensured that there was a workable process to refer in adults, as well as young people.

Many spoke about conducting their MACE meetings using the Serious and Organised Crime Strategy’s (2013) 4P approach: Pursue, Prevent, Protect and Prepare. One MACE detailed how they do a 4P plan for each child and “provide columns and actions for each responsible agency” (EM) to ensure collection of information from all key agencies before the meeting and to log actions and responsibilities. Another safeguarding partnership talked across their strategic partners about the importance and reliance on the JTAI guidance on MACE preparation, with one person in another safeguarding partnership mentioning how to extract out best practice from this document. However, this was not mentioned by any other safeguarding partnership.

“So, we have moved now to a model where we all do our research, we come to look at the 4P’s- protect pursue prevent and prepare for people. So, all our discussion is much more about that. It can be child abduction notices for the adults, partial closures on building areas that I feel very proactive in terms of the adult disruption which then dissipated to children”

SW

9.2 Pre-MACE meeting

The effectiveness of MACE meetings was seen to further improve if there was a pre-MACE meeting within their structure that dealt with those cases flagged as medium/high risk of child exploitation. Some areas had this as a specific adolescent risk group, and others termed this more as a more operational vulnerability group. Similar to MACE, a dedicated intelligence/analyst function that had information access across police and LA helped in the collection and sharing of information and also recognises contextual safeguarding factors, such as particular groups of children/young people and particular areas, such as parks, but still with an operational focus on driving plans, actions and responsibility. These meetings were particularly effective in managing risk within the communities often using specialist youth teams along with VCS services and interventions.

“At the (pre-MACE), everybody, police, health, education, our (targeted CE) team, children’s social care, everybody, and then they formulate a plan around that child. Yeah. And so it’s monitored…But the plan from that is just reviewed every single time, actually, is that reducing? Is it increasing? And when you get very, very high risk children where they’re not being able to reduce that risk, it comes to MACE”

EM

“So every single child that goes missing and every young person where there is a concern about exploitation, we discuss them weekly, what’s called a vulnerability screening meeting. So that’s police, health, myself (CE targeted team) manager, operational manager, any health specialist lead around vulnerabilities and the missing person coordinator. So we have the discussions about what next steps are best? Is it that we just need to give the social care some resources and support them in intervening with the person? Or is it that it needs to go to the next level? So there’s a lot of tasking out. It’s a partnership response. So it might be that we say that the school needs to do some work with this young person it doesn’t matter who the person is that’s doing it, it is who’s got the best relationship and who’s the trusted person. So if they’ve got that, we don’t then issue somebody else and we support the person who’s doing it”

EM

Due to many of the same professionals attending MACE and the pre-MACE, evidence indicated that although there was often a struggle to get representation from ‘health services’ at the pre-MACE, due to relationships formed across professionals at MACE where there was, for example, a clinical psychologist that professionals would often contact direct (termed as consult) with any queries. This varied from a quick call to understand the difference between CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) and counselling, to the police contacting them directly, for example to query a result back on an IQ test for a young girl arrested which initially was carried out by a private company and found to then be inaccurate by the clinical psychologist and team.

Most of the safeguarding partnerships did not have a separate contextual safeguarding conference/meeting, although some mentioned they were bringing into their structure, with the contextual safeguarding approach seen as a function of the MACE and pre-MACE meetings.

9.3 Targeted child exploitation (CE) teams

Three of the 9 safeguarding partnerships talked a dedicated, targeted child exploitation team (names of these teams varied greatly). They tended to work more within a locality that had been shown to be problematic in terms of child criminal exploitation. Interestingly, most of these teams were set up to initially deal with just either child sexual exploitation or child criminal exploitation, but quickly recognised the cross over and adapted their responses to be across all forms of child exploitation.

“It was built around criminal exploitation. But what we quickly realised locally is that there’s too much of a crossover. We need to pick up CSE as well”

EM

These CE teams worked very closely with their police force and their own internal missing/exploitation teams, early help services, but also worked closely with a number of organisations, particularly youth justice teams The team were often described as having a close, strong working relationships. It was noted that ideally the teams would prefer to be co-located with a core team that spanned these services but that they were benefiting from the virtual meetings and access across all agencies due to COVID-19. The teams meet (virtually) on a weekly basis to share information, sometimes dialling into daily morning updates, as well as undertake joint assessments and meetings, and the CE team also attend the wider strategic multiagency meetings. These were funded either by Home Office short term funding, or by their PCC, with concerns raised around the sustainability of what was seen as an “essential function in their response to child exploitation” (EM) and particularly county lines exploitation and serious youth violence risk.

These CE teams were multi-agency and were often led by a strong personality. In one safeguarding partnership out of the 16 interviews, each participant across all sectors and roles mentioned the manager of the targeted CE team by name. This certainly reinforced that this team and particular this individual was the sticking glue that brought everything together regarding child exploitation in that area. Within this key role, they were clearly driving the agenda of CE and had presence across all key panels and groups. A youth justice colleague from one SP talking about this individual specifically in that she provides the “concrete base” and that “without it you are building a house on sand and it’s going to sink” (EM). His comments below highlighted the key features of leadership, challenge and positive working in achieving this.

“You need to have those elements of management and actually what (name) has done is bring an element of really effective safeguarding to the manor. She’s connected safeguarding from a children’s social care point of view to exploitation, which was never there before. And actually what she’s done is she’s tried to change the practice of social work from ‘oh I am not dealing with I’ll refer to somebody who can’. To, ‘No you are a social worker get on with it’. So I feel we are in a healthy place, but we’ve been on a really, really long journey to get there. (Name LA Safeguarding Lead) coming into the authority has been a breath of fresh air. And so, (name), the Assistant Director (LA), because they’ve brought in a restorative focus, we said we were a restorative borough before, we weren’t, everything was done TO rather than ‘with’. Now there is really, really big ‘with’ approach”

EM

The CE targeted teams were part of all panels (such as MACE, and pre-MACE) meetings, and fed directly into daily morning police briefings regarding for instance, potential child exploitation or missing, that have come in, which may also be open to the CE team. These CE teams were seen to work alongside children social care (CSC) with cases where child criminal and/or child sexual exploitation outside the home was present and CSC were seen as struggling to ‘connect’ with the child/young person. Importantly, these CE teams also worked with children and young people not involved with CSC. They have a team of family practitioners, and street-based attachment team that work alongside any youth service street based team.

“(CE Team) will work alongside social care. But generally all the cases that are open to (CE Team) are open to statuary social care as well due to the level of risk. However, some aren’t anymore because we won’t close a case but sometimes social care close, but we will stay open and we’ll continue to support until they feel that they don’t need that anymore”

EM

Their flexible approach was seen to be one of the key factors that allowed it to respond effectively to CCE such as county lines, using their team that included lived experience consultants, well-known VCSs such as St Giles Trust, alongside their own in-house psychologists, or therapeutic counsellors.

“We have a commissioned some trauma therapists who we can refer people to that aren’t time limited. Could do it at the pace of the young person, could do it when they feel comfortable, which is very different to what the supporting (MH service name) matter are. Because if you don’t engage they close, and our young people, we get all the peaks and troughs”

EM

Flexible approaches were also seen in their ability to work with young people aged 18 years and over, with teams discussing their ability to continue working with them, building up their skills to provide a safer exit point for them. Importantly the CE teams also had a focus on the whole family as a response to child exploitation and offered a variety of localised courses and support for parents and carers.

It was the persistence of the specialised CE teams that was a key feature within their continuous efforts to connect with children and young people, recognising the small gestures and engagement that were helping to build trust.

“We had one young boy. We did a bit of engagement, then he dropped off the radar fully so our practitioner went consistently every day to his door, every single day. Then when he was arrested for possession with intent to supply, he called this (name) practitioner to be his AA (appropriate adult) and said he wanted us to be there. So even though he pushed us back and when our practitioner went round he kept all the calling cards”

EM

The CE Teams were also seen as the key group to be involved and continuously drive s.45 and the NRM process due to their expert knowledge around county lines and CCE, and having a multi-agency team that feeds into MACE and any pre-MACE meetings.

“We are really trying to drive s.45 because we’ve got them partnerships, you know who to ring and say, I know that they are in custody can you go down there and say, are you asking them, can you double check you are asking them that question. And so it’s that type of challenge back really and if it hasn’t been done, we escalate that. We need to take learning from it.”

EM

One-to-one direct work with young people focused on reducing risk and making them safe, improving health and wellbeing and education and awareness. This included teaching young people about the signs of CE and inappropriate relationships, safety awareness, and supporting them with tools to undertake their own risk assessment on relationships and situations, and tools to exit these situations. They also described persevering and not ‘giving up on young people who do not engage straight away’. The teams also work with parents to upskill them to safeguard, stressing that the responsibility should not be placed solely on the child. This was also discussed in terms of increasing parents understanding of their child’s behaviour and the impacts of the CE, but most importantly it was about “raising aspirations” (EM).

Two of safeguarding partnerships that had a targeted CE team had also been involved in a media campaign with young people who have engaged with the service and moved forward with their lives. They worked with their young people in co-producing their media stories around the various forms of CE, which was seen to not only be really beneficial and enjoyable to the young people themselves but ensures that message is realistic and powerful to young people themselves.

9.4 Triage: Integrated multi-agency children front door service and pathways to localised early help

Another key feature of effective safeguarding partnerships was the presence of a MA integrated front door service that was staffed by a multi-agency team of social workers and often VCS to aid decision making at the front door about pathways of further intelligence gather and decision. Those that worked particularly well had a manager that owned both the integrated front door service and the early help service to ensure the 2 were aligned. The pathways were clearly set out and screening tools separated out to differentiate the level of intelligence known at front door, to what is then later developed and completed by a professional after deeper multi-agency information sharing (see later CE screening tool). The integrated front door service allowed ‘anyone’ to contact and refer into the service that was then subject to an early CE screening. This would either result in a form of information, advice and assistance (as mandated in Wales^{[footnote 7]}), or would be referred to early help, or if deemed high risk, would go straight to strategy meeting. The early help offer would review and it would then, usually, be allocated to a locality hub to own the case and response. This offer of support within their local community was seen to maximise engagement and support for the young person and their family. Some use their MASH processes to screen the initial referral (for example, multi-agency referral form (MARF) in deciding whether to step up with more information and intelligence needed, or step down to early help, signposted to community support, or closed.

“We have an exploitation tracker with the front door. It’s basically screened straight away. And (name), they have an exploitation meeting so they’ll go through it. If the score’s medium or high. And then it’ll go to (name of meeting). And that’s multiagency, it’s almost like pre-MACE meeting”

EM

Finally, local disruption support meetings (LDSMs), or early help locality meetings are seen as a contextual response to COVID-19 and involve mapping exploitation patterns of activity or areas of concern. The LDSM’s are a more localised and operational extension of MACE process. They are multi-agency and involve frontline staff who are involved, or could be potentially involved, in addressing an issue and provide the opportunity to share concerns and review situations to assess what needs to be done further. They could include practitioners from specialist voluntary agencies, as well as statutory and the aim is to map areas of concern and look for holistic ways to address challenges:

“We will pull together a local meeting with the local school, secondary school. It tends to be police, youth offending, probation, social care. And we all sit and say, okay, what do we know? We literally map”

SW

9.5 Valuing and embedding the lived experience throughout the safeguarding partnership structure

“Having the understanding of what these young people are going through, but then also having the authenticity because young people are very receptive. Pick up on who’s being fake and who’s not, who really cares and who’s not and who’s in it for the long haul because they’ll test you out, you know, they’ll push you and do all sorts just to test the waters and see exactly where your loyalties lie”

EM

Some safeguarding partnership areas had a lived experienced consultant, or lived experience VCS specialist organisation (experience relating to county lines/CCE) that was fully embedded across all layers in their response to child exploitation, particularly child exploitation, county lines and risk of youth violence. They were seen as a key in attending formalised multi-agency meetings, such as MACE, with those sat around the table really valuing the expertise and knowledge in helping to formulate plans and actions that are child-centred and realistic. Importantly, given the VCS/lived experience role in having to challenge decisions and always advocating on behalf of the child, this was seen as being embraced within these effective safeguarding partnerships with the VCS/lived experience individual discussing very clearly how valued and welcome they feel, with others across the safeguarding partnerships constantly mentioning their name and work. In one safeguarding partnership all those interviewed were aware of and positively mentioned the work of their lived experience worker, who seen to be having a significant positive impact on all layers of their safeguarding response from strategic input and direction to operationally on the ground working with these young people.

“He doesn’t realise how good it is. You know, when you get someone where they sit in the MACE meeting and go, ‘I feel really awkward. I never know what to say’. And I’m like, no, what you are saying is way better than anyone else. He is inspiring. So he meets with all these vulnerable young people and it’s really open and honest about his role. They know exactly what he’s doing. But because he has had the experience of it himself personally, they connect with him”

EM

VCS and the lived experience consultant were used at various points within the safeguarding partnerships, as mentioned above such as within the strategic and contextual safeguarding meetings, but with much of their work out on the ground at the defined ‘crisis’ points for young people at risk, or already identified as criminally exploited by county lines and engaged in youth violence. For some safeguarding partnerships this was placed at pupil referral units (PRUs) and at the point of arrest where young people were also working with youth justice teams/children social care alongside the CE targeted team.

A professional highlighted some vital intelligence gathered by the lived experience consultant in the operations of county lines within their area and noted that without his role and engagement, they would not be aware of this change of tactics. The lived experience worker in one safeguarding partnership had identified through their engagement with young people that the payment and incentivising for county lines had changed, moving from daily rates of activity to a proportion of the profits. Again, this reflects the importance of the lived experience as a regular and long-term feature within responses to county lines, serious youth violence and child criminal exploitation.

“Recent intel from him is that kids getting paid 10% for county lines. So it’s not £100 a day. They get 10% of the profits and that’s intel we wouldn’t know about unless his role was there. But, you know, so it incentivises extra hours harder work. So again, when I say they’re not stupid, it’s not just there’s fifty quid, which for my lot here is massive. If you work hard, you can have 10% of the profits”

EM

The positive cycle of the lived experience within some safeguarding partnerships truly indicating their commitment to a child-centred approach in raising the aspirations of their local children and seeing the longer-term impact of this work in getting the current cohorts of young people to be the future mentors of the next generation.

“So people who have been service users myself. So those that I have been supporting and then sort of get them in a position where they’re no longer involved in that and then get getting to volunteer and then from volunteering to full time employment (in supporting YP). And once they are in employment, their next service users build and sort of support them. And hopefully it’s just a nice little circle and possibly hopefully within 3 to 5 years, I think we’ll have a massive impact and hopefully there’ll be a million more out there because all these young kids I work with, you know, they’ve all got the ability and the capabilities and aspirations to do well”

EM

9.6 Maximising partnership relationships

“You’ve got constant people that are there in attendance as well, which is great. And, you know, some of the knowledge is encyclopaedic”

SW

As evident in much literature (see Shorrock et al., 2019) around multi-agency working, relationships are key to effective collaborative working across organisations. As mentioned within Theme 1, those safeguarding partnerships that were making efforts to employ key roles on a permanent basis, had lower staff turnover and less agency staff generally had a much more positive morale and collective responsibility within the safeguarding partnership. This was seen as particularly essential for those within director and management roles, with those safeguarding partnership where these were ‘interim’ roles being described as more ‘dysfunctional’ due to lack of collective ownership, interest and organisational memory on what had been tried and tested before. One safeguarding partnership talked about having to “cover their back” (South) and feeling continuously uncomfortable about the harm being done to young people they were working with and feeling “powerless to respond” (South). In this safeguarding partnership, a couple of participants talked about the high staff turnover and lack of any form of protection from management and directors leading them to resigning from their long-standing roles. This was mainly seen from those working in children’s social care with concerns raised as to “How can we be expected to support a dysfunctional family if your service is so chaotic” (South).

A stable workforce was mentioned by those safeguarding partnerships that were viewed on the whole as effective, discussing their ability to positively challenge decision making advocating for the child and what is best for them throughout. Positive challenge within these safeguarding partnerships was encouraged, with the leadership structure able to confidently and comprehensively discuss this as an ethos too. Others also described the need to be tenacious and confident when asking for data and information sharing. This was also seen as being applicable to wider agencies and professionals. All agencies felt that challenge was a positive factor and something that aids development and progression. And whilst there was often consensus around ideas and strategies, challenge was encouraged to constructively move forward and that their role is “meant to be challenging the system, how it operates to get the best for the young person” (SW).

“People within that panel who are very, very, very firm and very, very willing to challenge quite tough and that’s really positive”

VCS 1

This collective responsibility and support from leadership allowed professionals to talk about their ability to work more ‘flexibly’ in response to the children, young people and their families in providing a more effective child-centred response. This was often achieved by opening up other informal meetings to each other that help maintain intelligence and information sharing, particularly between police and the specialist CE team. One safeguarding partnership talked about attending this “shared ethos” with the CE targeted team manager dialling into the morning police briefings that discuss overnight cases such as missing children. With many young people known to their service she often challenges risk assessments and decision making by having a piece of the jigsaw from her service. The only issue in this model of working was that the size of the portfolios and the relationships existed on individual professionals, with some concerns around the resilience of the structure and whether the professionals holding so much responsibility was sustainable (see ‘too many hats’ in Theme 1).

Additionally, many partners discussed being much more trauma informed than they had been in the past, but how there was still a way to go in terms of becoming fully trauma informed. Most safeguarding partnerships mentioned the intention to tackle a culture change to better recognise the full ranges of child vulnerability. One safeguarding partnership also reported that they had a trauma informed executive board. The stakeholders explained how they had a better understanding of the impact of trauma, were mindful of contextual safeguarding, and were able to look at the bigger picture and better able to pick up on triggers and CE warning signs. Whilst this was especially acknowledged for professionals working within specialist services, it was acknowledged that further training was needed for wider front-line staff.

“The influence of that child centred approach, in (area), we’re really focusing on child centred policing at the moment anyway, so that’s great. (Area) also committed to the trauma informed approach, everybody, all partners taking a trauma informed approach… We’ve been very lucky, we do have a lot of senior level commitment to this, but actually, that’s no good if it doesn’t filter through, and get down onto the ground”

SE3

Interestingly, within one of the safeguarding partnerships that had joined up partnership across LAs, there was also a multi-agency approach to communications, with key messages being sent out by the Police on behalf of all of the partners. This seemed to also really help to maximise the joint partnership approach across the tripartite statutory ownership.

“We’ve got a really, really good relationship with the comms department at the police headquarters and we made a decision very early on that the police comms department would be the comms department for all of the partners. So rather than having 5 separate messages being sent out from different organisations, we asked for a single message from the police”

SE1

Question 10

10. Theme 6: County lines typology

Accepted Answer

When asked to define what county lines looked like many spoke initially about county lines in the ‘traditional’ sense of drugs networks (gangs and organised crime networks) coming into areas and using children and young people and vulnerable adults to carry out illegal activity on their behalf. A ‘geographically based business model’ for drugs that used telephone lines as a form of contact from those higher up in ‘organised crime groups’ to the runners on the ground and transport lines (predominantly rail), across counties. However, a common finding across professionals nationally was that the definition for county lines is ambiguous and has led to confusion. Many professionals agreed that the county line definition could be clearer and that a lot more work is needed to ensure both professionals and communities have a better understanding on the nature, CE vulnerabilities and the impacts of county lines.

“County lines, basically, is the movement of drugs from a city to the outlying counties and small towns where they try to take over the drug trade. It’s often people use children and vulnerable people. And competition for having that particular area, the line is the actual phone. So the line will have a name, a brand name Scouse-line, or the manc-line and that will be advertised and as selling drugs to that particular area. People will contact that line to buy the drugs, like a business, really, and it will offer out drugs, a little bit like dominoes, you get texts off dominoes, you get text all the time. So a little bit like that. Say, we are in the area, we have drugs, get in touch”

BTP1

10.1 Awareness – a definition fit for purpose?

Stakeholders believed that there was a lack of awareness around the complexity and seriousness of county lines. One participant noted how the definition of county lines gave them an image of a young person getting on a train with drugs in a backpack, but to their ‘horror’ were seeing the reality of children being ‘plugged’ with drugs. Here they highlighted the sexual abuse element of county lines, and the impact of the dangers of a child ingesting or ‘plugging’ drugs. Another explained that parents and community members may see county lines being something to do with ‘gangsters’ and far removed from something that is exploiting their children and children in their community.

“That awareness of just how bad the world out there could be. Very difficult to actually imagine the vulnerability of some of our children and young people. And I think, even for me, it probably was a little bit of a naivety, when I think of county lines and just visualise it, the young people on a bike or train with a rucksack. Now its children being ‘plugged’ with drugs or ingesting them. Do the people who are utilising these children, they are children within county lines, today appreciate that the risk that they’re putting them in”

NW

< redacted >

Partners were aware that county lines is focused class A drugs, but linking into the discussion around definitions, explained the nuances and challenges of the bigger picture. They described ‘gateway’ drugs such as cannabis (dealing and use) and interlinked crimes such as robberies and violence, as being key indicators for risk to becoming involved in county lines, and as warning signs that a young person may already be on the periphery of a county line.

“I think it’s making people aware that county line is the movement of the commodity, the branded deal line, and the vulnerability. So it’s my child being exploited by my next door neighbour to move drugs at the end of my road, if my next door neighbour is using that branded deal, like it would fit the county lines category”

NW

“I think sometimes we get a bit tied up in county lines, and I think our partners definitely get confused with it and the fact that county lines is Class A drugs. So if you’ve got a child using the rail networks, transporting cannabis, the partners will refer to that as being county lines. I think we need to do some work on that. Around what county lines is, and obviously the vulnerability within that for the children, and then the violence that goes along with it”

SE3

It was also agreed that there needs to be more awareness around the geography of county lines. Professionals acknowledged that county lines was connected to the moving of a commodity, the phone line and vulnerability, but that others believed that drugs need to cross over a county boundary to be a county lines. The nature of many areas having exporting, importing and internal county lines, and the expanding trend of county lines within boroughs and how children could be a victim of CCE from a county line within the city and at ‘the end of their road’, and that there was much less awareness around the risks and nature of this. There was also an agreement about the different roles within county lines exploitation and that a child may be holding the line, dealing drugs, collecting money, or being ‘plugged’, posing the question of what does county lines look like in relation to the child, and appreciating that they will all be impacted but the impact will affect children in different ways.

“But how does that translate to a child? What does it look like when it’s, you know, you’ve got a child that’s involved in county lines. So what are they doing? Are they holding the line? It’s that sort of in-depth understanding of what it means. It’s easy to put a sort of umbrella term on something, but actually, you’re going as to how it impacts on individuals, it can be really wide ranging, because you can’t have kids that have got hold of the lines of phone lines, sort of operating them equally, you’ve got kids who will be in trafficked, plugged with drugs or dealing. All of that is county lines, but it can affect each individual in the chain very differently”

NW

Whilst some partners described using national guidance on county lines, such as Home Office resources, to raise understanding of the nature, CE vulnerabilities and the impacts of county lines, many professionals agreed that further national training and awareness around county lines would be useful. It was agreed that there needs to be more public information around county lines and the impacts on children, families and communities. Partners highlighted a need for further national training and awareness around county lines, especially in terms of increasing awareness of the fear, threat, pressure or trauma involved. Stakeholders recommended educational resources as well as dramas (television and school-based plays) to keep it current, alive and on the agenda.

10.2 Changing/evolving model

It was clear from all of the participants that the overall model of county lines was changing, with some safeguarding partnerships having their own ‘home grown’ county lines, and county lines ‘taking place more locally than it used to’. As has also been observed by Rescue and Response (2021), respondents were clear that in one London safeguarding partnership county lines were mostly not operated by their area gang members, but where those outside of their locality area.

“What we are actually seeing is the evolution of your everyday street gangs getting more organised, cos we see collaboration between different groups and people are seeing the money - everyone wants to have that boss mentality”

London1

Questions were raised about whether the county lines definition needed broadening, reflecting on the importance of the phone line, but that the activity occurring more local (that will be linked to a county line at some point higher up the chain) does not rely on the phone, but on local children/young people and vulnerable adults as their tactic to move drugs around without using the phone line. The established typology of county lines in one London safeguarding partnership for example, is of organised drug lines being run from well -known areas of deprivation and high crime into most often, south coast towns. These lines supply, heroin, crack, and sometimes, cocaine, cannabis and possibly meta-amphetamine.

“My understanding of county lines is, it’s a kind of a geographical based business model for drug dealing, although I think, to be fair, we probably need to move away from just seeing as a drugs issue. It’s, it’s got kind of almost tentacles out into other areas of vulnerability now, because they’re also so interlinked. So the county lines will have an impact on missing children, will have an impact on other areas of exploitation, etc”

SE1

“I think we have spent far too long worrying that we’ve got gangs coming in from big cities that are exploiting poor young people in (area). The model has changed significantly. County lines for me is we’ve now got a number of children who have been exploited or who are exploiting other children and are running their own county lines in and around (area)”

SE1

“That’s a question that we’ve been looking at quite a lot. There’s obviously a kind of standard definition and that definition has changed over time. And I think for us, we are looking to, I guess, pay less attention to that concept of going across county borders. So it is about the exploitation of young people, vulnerable people by organised crime groups for the purposes of selling drugs”

SE1

They did also note that there had been a change in narrative from the government since several high-profile scandal’s involving child neglect and sexual exploitation, but was now more focused on county lines. This change in focus accurately reflected a change in the criminal market in London for example, where vulnerable young girls^{[footnote 8]} were now more likely to be involved in county lines than forced prostitution (although some of this was associated with county lines).

Another common way of explaining county lines was through the metaphor of a business. Several respondents articulated that county lines was a “business” and those controlling it, were clever “business people whose product happened to be drug” (London1). This did not mean that their description of county lines did not include exploitation, but rather that these business people were adept at “selling a dream”, that would fail to materialise. As a business model that is a billion pound industry, it is continually adapting to the market to maximise its profits. The challenge is trying to keep track of the changes in methodology and how they recruit and incentivise children and young people to get involved. Examples of intelligence from lived experience consultants (see Theme 5) illustrates ways in which partners can be live to these changes in tactics.

“Young people think it is easy money, they believe they can make £800 per week. Young people don’t think about tomorrow, they think, this is it, I’m going to die young”

London1

The evaluation included areas that were well known large exporters of county lines, safeguarding partnerships that were known importers and also areas that were seeing their county lines issue as a more local problem. Stakeholders recognised that the features of county lines can differ significantly within a safeguarding partnership area due to the varying and wide-ranging localities within it.

10.3 “It wouldn’t be county lines if there wasn’t exploitation”

All safeguarding partnerships acknowledged the broader aspects of CE within county lines. There was clear agreement that there was an “umbrella” of exploitation types that were “intrinsically linked”. In this agreement of CE as an umbrella capturing all forms of exploitation, many participants highlighted the importance of looking at all vulnerabilities as a whole, and not county lines in isolation, to safeguard children and young people more broadly and address the underlying complexities surrounding CE.

“My view of criminal exploitation has always been that, whilst it is an area of specialism, it’s technically safeguarding. So what do you need to do to safeguard a child? It doesn’t always have to be more complex than that”

SE1

“I’m a not a fan of the term county lines. I don’t tend to choose to use it. I would generally more readily talk about criminal exploitation”

SW

“All the vulnerabilities are intrinsically linked. Absolutely. You know, and it’s like that perception, isn’t it, that CSE is just girls. CCE is just boys. Absolutely not at all. You know, when we need to break that down and say that actually CSE affects boys, CCE affects girls, and a vulnerability across the spectrum is intrinsically linked none of them are isolated”

EM

“County lines should not be seen as something separate [to CCE] a lot of practitioners we work with like to compartmentalize everything and everything needs to fit into a box and it’s just not like that in the world of exploitation it is just so interchangeable, so fluid, you just have to be so curious all the time and accept that anything can go.”

London2

This was furthered by questioning what is being missed when exploitation types are thematically separated from each other at strategic and operational level. There was concern about missing things when things do not appear as per their ‘normal profile’ or are hidden, with the segregation between girls and boys within CSE and CCE (respectively) incidents being mentioned.

“When we just talk about county lines exploitation, what are we missing? Are we missing boys who are being sexually exploited or sexually abused as part of their exploitation? And are we missing girls? And if you are being criminally exploited in other ways, but not being and not being seen because they don’t fit what might be a more common profile of a young man, a young boy being exploited in this way, you know, forced begging and links into other forms of organised crime and that perhaps they have fallen off the radar somewhat and seen just as a very specific issue without thinking what other exploitation or abuse that may be linked to that may be lurking beneath the surface”

BTP

More widely, exploitation by county lines was seen to also pervade social housing through the use of cuckooing, whereby drug dealers take over a vulnerable persons property to sell drugs and exploit them. Professionals raised experiences of county lines was predominantly with vulnerable adults in a household (for example, where the house is being used for cuckooing) and were not therefore necessarily involved in that wider serious violence and other behaviours/activities that can accompany it. It was also considered, however, that there are instances where county lines activity and other exploitative activities are occurring in local authority housing, where the adult may not be considered vulnerable. From this provider’s experience, where child protection, child in need or early help cases were identified, it may be that some of that work crosses over into the field of county lines and serious violence exploitation for some young people.

“I mean, we have had cases where we have had properties where there are children living in that home that have also been an adult, the home has been taken over. And there are also children living in there. And not quite the same in terms of some of the other involvement with children. But, most of it is linked more to that serious violence and that people are experiencing, and that just that complete lack of control over the situation that that they’re in, and they can’t really struggle to get themselves out of it”

SE1

10.4 Link between county lines and serious youth violence

Stakeholders agreed that county lines and serious violence are interlinked, and because of the complex nature, feature within the broader definition of child exploitation, but noted the differences and complexities of viewing them jointly. The differences between serious violence and county lines were discussed, highlighting that not all county lines includes violence. Partners also noted how young people can become more involved in serious violence the further and more established they become within an organised crime group (OCG). The speed of escalation of risk and involvement in more serious violence was also highlighted. Stakeholders also acknowledged the lack of governmental strategy around county lines, serious violence and CE.

“Language and definitions is a really key part of the groundwork around county lines and gangs. How does it become serious violence and how is that different to just violence? Where’s the line drawn? Are we diminishing just violence by saying, well, there’s serious violence over here, and therefore, it’s just violence over there. You know, and exploring that’s really important to me about the language we use in terms of county lines and, and gangs, serious violence and what is it we actually mean by that?”

SE2

“They’ve got no qualms now, just going into an area now and just stabbing somebody for that competition and obviously that is start younger and younger. And so it’s linked to violence, linked into exploitation”

BTP

All of the participants agreed that there were elements of serious violence ingrained in county lines. Examples of this were given such as the use of debt bondage, enforcement and ‘warning stabbings’, so violence taking place as a form of threat of warning when managing trade and asserting control, or county lines gangs ‘flexing their muscles’, for example, where outside groups were operating within an area. One participant spoke about serious violence in the context of its correlation with knife crime and drug dealing and how this has increased in their area. There were, however, varying thoughts around the intricacies of whether county lines could be present without serious violence and vice versa.

“There’s an intrinsic link between serious violence and drugs. So it’s either someone who’s trying to reclaim a territory or is someone trying to enforce a debt or make an example, which then leads to the cause of violence and of course, serious violence”

EM

“There’s lots of crossover between the broader serious violence, county lines and child exploitation and so on. Our job is to identify and deal with the root causes. Where those root causes might drive them into violence, or indeed, made them vulnerable to county lines, so there’s a big crossover. But you do have to be careful because there is also a distinction”

NW

It was acknowledged, however, that it is sometimes difficult to establish whether “the violence that’s taking place is linked inextricably to the county lines, or has more to do with localised relationships and rivalries, that are long standing or just based on experiences that young people have had together” (SE1)

In reflecting on the levels of violence that appears within county lines, a participant also stated that this made it really difficult in trying to pre-empt when and where these incidents would occur due to young people refusing to make a complaint, even when serious injuries had been inflicted. In addition, these serious violent incidents occur in broad daylight in residential areas, showing the sporadic and blatant way they operate.

“So at half eleven in the morning, a male had been attacked with a machete across his head, his back in his arms, and he’s linked into drug supply and he wouldn’t make a complaint. It was massive eye opener for me. And it’s that sort of offending, the drug supply tends to bring. It’s the sort of offending where people don’t care when and who they attack. It could be broad daylight as this was in a residential town, in a residential area… It is just unreal”

EM

Whilst partners saw the benefits of viewing county lines, serious violence and CE jointly at a strategic level, they explained that it can be more complex at an operational level and generally, organisations have a tendency to separate them out. For example, police tended to have different responses strategically and operationally (and administratively) for tackling serious violence and county lines, which were often funded separately, with serious violence tactical operations funded through the police surge fund. Having a dedicated police role coordinating both serious violence and county lines was seen as a good way to bring the two together. One partner explained that ‘badging it as one’ has the potential to miss out other needs of children with a range of complex needs. There were also concerns that CE may become lost in the serious violence agenda, and stakeholders discussed not losing sight of the child within the definition and response. The serious violence definition can be quite damaging for a young person and can take away from a child being a victim if they have perpetrated some form of serious violence. This was also linked to ‘alpha victims’ who have groomed other young people, and the challenge of how this young person is viewed, treated and supported.

“Where a child is a victim perpetrator, so they might be young person who’s being groomed, and then they’ve ended up grooming other young people because of what’s happened to them. When we use the term serious violence, I think that sometimes can be harmful to suggest that a young person is implementing serious violence on another young person, because I think they should still be deemed as a victim. I feel like when the term serious violence is used in that way, it takes the victim perpetrator away, it makes them perpetrator”

NW

“It’s everything, the county line, because the whole thing is hinged on violence, and the power imbalance. So you’ve got you the exploitation of your children, through that power balance, that you just can’t even imagine what their world feels like that fear that they must be living in”

NW

10.5 Gender, age and ethnicity

“Because it’s black kids, it is not being taken seriously, lots of talking shops, how many people are there going to be dead, all killed at train stations and other places… it is about drugs it is about county lines”

London1

It is well established that county lines and serious youth violence tends to involve predominantly boys. Although the presence of girls within county lines is being mentioned more frequently within recent reports, there are questions about the accuracy of this data given that participants certainly acknowledged within the current study that females tend to get stopped less by police due to concerns about male officers searching young females: “There’s still a reluctance for two hairy male police officers to turn over a 14, 15-year-old girl” (SE1). With additional concerns regarding the profile of child exploitation reinforcing the gender stereotypes of the forms of child exploitation, with girls associated with CSE and boys CCE. Gender specific exploitation was alluded to with intelligence suggesting that girls are used to carry weapons and drugs because of the perception by their boyfriends, for instance, that they are less likely to be stopped and searched by the police. This was seen as awareness from exploiters that females seem to be less likely to be stopped and searched compared to young boys. As BTP were aware of these issues, this encouraged them to encourage within their training and Look Closer campaign to ensure that the message of “any child can be exploited”.

“We are getting information and intelligence and arrests as well that females are involved. So girls are being used. I think that may be down to change tactics in general, too many lads are getting stop checked.< redacted > ”

BTP

One stakeholder flagged unconscious gender bias as an issue, explaining that county lines is associated as ‘teenage boy’ problem which increases the chances of professionals not always seeing the child at risk.

“I do think that we have issues around unconscious bias and gender bias in relation to CCE. Especially with teenage boys. I think that people only think it’s a teenage boy problem. I think they see it as drug running drugs ploy. I don’t think necessarily it’s always seen as this child is at risk. I think people sometimes forget that they are children”

SE3

Black and dual heritage young men (and women) are significantly over-represented in this typology and within this, Caribbean backgrounds are most common.

“The issue is that you’ve got a disproportionate number of people from minority backgrounds that are ending up in the justice system, and that is all to do with inequality, social poverty etc. So the question is, we seem to be going around firefight in the symptoms, but where is the actual investment of money to go to the heart of the matter, which is around social inequality? These small pockets of, you know, really challenging communities are the ones that are generating a lot of the harm. And they they’re the ones that need that support and that investment”

SE3

London SPs stated that black children are likely to experience discrimination due to vicious cycle of disproportionate involvement in county lines. So more likely to be stopped and searched whilst travelling. More likely to have phones confiscated and checked, more likely not be granted victim status within the NRM or seen to be victims. In relation to providing an appropriate response, practitioners were aware of “racist ideas about black boys and black children and that those ideas permeate in risk assessments and understanding of their presentation” (London1), therefore training has been provided for social workers so that they are able to reflect on their practice. Overall, the aforementioned disproportionality has been picked up by recent studies of policing in relation to stop and search (HMIC 2021) and treatment by the criminal justice system and remains a critical issue within London. At the same time, the issues of race and racism were spoken about with confidence by all respondents interviewed in one of the London safeguarding partnerships and the relationship between the police and the black and other minority communities was articulated as much improved as the following quotation makes explicit:

“Five years ago, in community meetings, members of the BAME community would physically turn their back on me, now I am being fed and watered, fundamentally things have changed”

London1

Some professionals talked about the complex issues when dealing with race in relation to drug demand and then the impact on stop and search activities, and challenges. An individual framed this as the “elephant in the room” in that there is a misunderstanding about drug issues within communities and to be able to address the violence and county lines issues from this, it requires admissions from communities into admitting there are deep rooted problems. This becomes extremely problematic within London where concerns of racism were seen to overtly influence the reluctance of stop and search within some of these communities due to concerns about racism. This was reflected as being a key issue in the huge increases that have been seen over the years in terms of gangs, violence, drugs and weapon carrying, with these young people aware of stop and search reluctance.

< redacted > “Furthering this, concerns around stop and search and this becoming a concern for those officers out on the ground who are now “afraid”, with this was seen as one of the reasons for “losing the streets”

(BTP)

10.6 Legislative responses to county lines

The changing and evolving nature of how county lines in legislative responses was a key feature of discussions on county lines. This centred on the notion that drug dealing was seen as a badge of honour within prisons, however, there was a noted difference in potentially being charged and convicted of modern day slavery and how this might be perceived differently in prison by other offenders.

“When people go to prison and if you’re a drug supplier, you’re go with a bit of a badge of honour, but if you go with modern day slavery or human trafficking, it’s a different ballgame. What we’re hoping and what we are seeing right now is that the, the judges will be a lot more severe with the sentence of for human trafficking, as opposed to drug dealing”

BTP

The introduction and increasing use of the legislation for modern day slavery, it was clear that targeted teams such as Op Defiant in BTP, were keen and focussed on bringing these charges as part of the disruption of county lines, which come with it, heavier sentences too.

“So we’ve got about 15 charges for modern day slavery. That’s one element where we’re really trying to push!”

BTP

In use of modern day slavery charges was the acknowledgement of the wider impact this would have on those higher up the chain within the county line with this seen as a “different ball game” (BTP6), with charges of modern day slavery resulting in remand in custody, more severe sentences upon conviction and also allocation to a different wing within the prison (compared to drug related offences).

“Modern day slavery, again, you know, clearly where we need to be knocking at the exploiters doors, rather than dealing with children. We have played into several modern day slavery charges nationally, fairly new legislation around 65 charges nationally, my team has done 15 of those. Every one of those suspects is on remand in prison. I can’t wait till they start getting sentenced and we can start saying, look, you know, not only not only have you got five extra years, but you’re also a different category of prisoner”

BTP

It was acknowledged that this drive was often was done in spite of the blockers encountered through the system. For example, BTP recognised the challenges with community safety partnerships (CSPs) and this is often a very inconsistent approach to supporting (and understanding) modern day slavery legislation.

< redacted >

Question 11

11. Theme 7: Risk factors and unmet need

Accepted Answer

Stakeholders participating in the research considered the risk factors for children and young people at increased risk of CE, and they agreed that there are groups of children that are disproportionally affected by CCE. It was identified by all of the participants that there were a number of risk factors that may be present in those young people involved in exploitation by county lines and that these undoubtedly meant that they were disproportionately affected because of these vulnerabilities. Partners provided many examples of the young people that they had supported and gave examples of their vulnerabilities, describing the sophisticated OCG models which target and used those vulnerabilities to their advantage.

All respondents were sympathetic to those found in county lines activities as they were conversant with their difficult backgrounds and the lived trauma’s they experienced which were often compounded by subsequent traumatic experiences once involved in county lines. Participants also describe the role of push pull factors involved in CCE and how this was associated with increased risk. Examples were also provided for the ‘frightening’ rapid speed of escalation of risk and involvement in county lines, with many children not immediately aware how dangerous the situation is, or even consider themselves to be a victim, and that it is a ‘sophisticated process’ which can happen to any child.

“I think exploitation can escalate so quickly from not being there to the young person being completely in. So it’s got to be identified quickly. You can’t kind of think, oh, you know, I wonder about that. But let’s just see what happens. If she may well then be, well, too late. It’s never too late, but you might really reduce the chances of getting a positive outcome”

SE1

Key risk factors were seen as multiple adverse experiences that ultimately led to increased vulnerability to being exploited, groomed, coerced and controlled, and were very much linked with the critical and reachable moments discussed within the next theme. Examples of risk factors, which are described in more detail throughout this theme, included: adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), age, being a looked after child, being from a black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) group, socioeconomic deprivation, involvement in lower-level crime/anti-social behaviour, changes in certain behaviours such as missing from home and/or missing from school episodes, school exclusion, and detachment from organisations supporting young people.

“The risk factors are poverty, gender, although we do wonder if females are just not being seen as easily. BAME children are certainly seen to be more at risk. There’s things like living in houses with domestic abuse, parental neglect, being in care, parental substance misuse, you know, things like special needs, ASD, ADHD, school exclusion”

SE1

Whilst these risk factors were identified, it was also acknowledged that they do not necessarily need to be evident for exploitation to take place as ‘any child can be at risk’. It was suggested that there needed to be a move away from focusing upon risk factors, with a shift needed towards identifying/looking at unmet needs and how these can lead to risk factors. One area spoke of the importance of seeing the young people as individuals and them being able to identify their own unmet needs as well as the service identified risks. Nationally based organisations also talked about this some risk factors appearing differently according to the geographical location, and also misconceptions that county lines may not happen in certain areas, for example more rural areas, when in fact the rural location, vast amounts of land and open space can in itself be a contributing risk factor.

< redacted >

“The nature of (area) means you can be really invisible. So, there are really rural areas where you could, even drive through them, and you think actually you could get up to all sorts here and no one would see it”

VCS 2

11.1 ACEs

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and early traumas and abuse were highlighted as a significant risk factor for increasing vulnerabilities to CE. This also included growing up in a home with a parent with poor mental health, a parent misusing or dependent on alcohol or drugs, or witnessing domestic abuse within the home. Abusive relationships were also flagged for young people in abusive relationships with other young people, or young people in inappropriate abusive relationships with an adult.

“If you live in a family that experiences poverty, domestic abuse, parental substance issues, parental mental health, all those risk factors will make the young person more likely to be targeted and successfully exploited”

SE2

“So we’ll talk about all of these different stuff, we recognise that if they have got 4 or more ACEs, then there’s going to be a pull factor, you’re more likely to come into the criminal justice system. But what is happening about working with those families with those recognised ACEs?”

SE3

11.2 Poverty

Poverty was raised as a significant risk factor for young people being vulnerable to exploitation. Stakeholders explained how many of their areas had low socioeconomic status and high deprivation and that this has a huge impact on risk factors for young people.

“In terms of looking at the kind of potential properties that have been cuckooed or some of our young people that are actively engaged in it, it does tend to be across our two most deprived wards”

EM

Unemployment, low income, debt, and the cumulative impact of austerity and funding cuts were all identified as risk factors, with many respondents highlighting how these had been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. They described the damaging effect of the pandemic on poverty within their areas and gave stark examples of how extreme deprivation was driving children into criminality. For example, children who were caught up county lines, and attendant criminal behaviour, such as “shop lifting to pay for electricity so that their families could put a hot meal on the table” or to “provide a deposit so that they and their mother had somewhere to live” (London1).

“They’re just a victim of circumstances. You know, the problem being surrounded by poverty, it absolutely breaks my heart, the environment of the living, you know, to have no positive role models, you know, single mothers with kids in the house coming school really like dishevelled and not eaten and stuff like that. How do you expect a young person to sort of think long term? Young people don’t think long term, young people think short term”

EM

Poverty was linked to the pull factors for county lines involvement and young people trying to financially provide for their families, examples were also given for parental involvement within the CE for financial benefit. Debt bondage was also highlighted here. Stakeholders explained that serious violence and county lines has a massive impact on young people and communities and maintains that level of poverty, with actions trying to escape keeping them there and stuck in a cycle. A need for a route out for young people to legitimately earn money was highlighted as critical.

“So I think when families are suffering from poverty, then obviously if someone has got money waving in front of you, you can buy these trainers or you can get this tracksuit for doing something minor like short walk down the road it’s difficult to turn down”

SE2

“The pull or the concern of the debt can be more forceful than what we are offering. We can be offering a lot of support, but as far as they are concerned the debt is over their head and if they don’t sort it out it can end up in themselves getting hurt or their family getting hurt”

London2

“I think when we’re dealing with issues such as serious violence and county lines, which are having a massive impact on children and our communities and keeping those communities deprived. It’s keeping them, it’s maintaining that level of poverty, isn’t it by the very thing that they’re trying to escape, keeps their generations in that level of poverty”

NW

Homelessness was also cited as both a risk factor and impact of county lines involvement for older young people. One stakeholder gave the example of young people aged 16 and 17 with debt bondage and threats on their families and home, with young people being ‘kicked out of home’. The question was raised on where do you put these young people? As a hostel or temporary accommodation could increase their vulnerabilities and put them at increased risk and potentially in danger.

11.3 Disability and mental health

Risk factors also included young people with special education needs, and/or a diagnosis of a learning disability. A number of stakeholders explained that young people who struggle to socialise and develop relationships and friendships and want to impress peers and adults may be at increased risk of grooming when perpetrators show them interest.

“Those kids that struggle to socialise, or have low self-esteem. Those kids that want to impress adults, that don’t have the supervision, guidance and support within the family homes to determine what’s right and wrong. You know, you’re more impulsive driven ADHD kids who are just hitting puberty at just the right time that we’re seeking thrills. I think there’s certainly social and economically it plays a part”

NW

Various stakeholders explained that children with ADHD may have more impulsive and thrill-seeking behaviour. Late diagnosis of disabilities was also noted as a risk factor, for example, for young people where it can take 2 years or more for a diagnosis of autism, meaning they could be late teens before the appropriate support becomes available, and noting the importance of having support available to them during this vulnerable time. Misdiagnosis was also flagged as an issue too, which can place additional responsibility on the child. The participant who flagged this, explained that trauma should always be ruled out first in clinical rationale for a diagnosis. It was noted that in one youth justice service they had over 60% of their cohort with SEND, questioning how we can expect them to “adhere to their curfew or to their interventions, any bail or whatever, because they don’t understand it” (EM).

“Because we do have more of those children that have a cognitive deficit that might have learning disabilities that never is not being recognised up till now. And then all of a sudden, they’re being exploited, because of the learning disability they’ve got mental health problems”

SW

Many of the young people who had experienced CE also had poor mental health and low self-esteem, which made them more vulnerable to exploitation. One participant specialising in mental health, noted that some young people who have been groomed may not recognise the impact on their mental health, or may not show the symptomology of a serious mental health condition so will not be provided access to essential mental health support. The long last impact on mental health due to the traumas experienced and witnessed during county lines involvement was also highlighted, stressing the importance of support being available long term and also later in life.

“I mean, all the young people who I have opened to me at the moment, all of them have got issues with the mental health”

NW

11.4 Lack of parental/family support

Neglect at home, and lack of parental capacity was also flagged as a risk factor. Examples were provided for young people with no boundaries, or parental control at home, due to neglect and/or a parent with their own complex needs (linked to ACEs). Failure to report their children missing during periods of missing episodes, and parental disengagement with school, were both noted as a red flags and warning signs.

“I think it’s about levels of parental neglect. Kids being left to their own devices”

NW

“Potentially that kind of attachment at home is potentially coming from neglectful households. that pull factor has been there in terms of what they think that they can offer them in terms of kind of affection and that kind of the want to feel, you know, needed”

EM

Stakeholders explained that lack of parental capacity to protect within the home could mean that young people were not protected from exploitation outside of the home. Stakeholders also highlighted the importance of understanding parental capacity when developing care plans for young people and being aware they may not be able to enforce rules or support their child to exit county lines. Engagement with parents to understand their needs and past trauma was seen as important here, highlighting why parenting support and partnership working is key.

“It’s really about the unmet needs of parents and carers and parents who are unable to provide adequate or good quality care and guidance to their children because they’re blocked themselves by their own experiences of trauma and abuse”

SW

“It’s like 2 ends of a rainbow. So you need to do prevention, but you also need to do reactive interventions because you need a generational cultural change. It’s not going to be fixed tomorrow. It’s not going to be fixed in five years. Because actually, we need to address the trauma within those families. That’s why contextual safeguarding is so important looking at that whole family and meeting the needs of all of the things that they’ve got going on”

SE3

11.5 Missing children

As highlighted above missing from home episodes was a critical risk factor. One area highlighted the importance of following up missing episodes from the first instance and spoke about carrying out a piece of work around return home interviews for persistent ‘go missers’ who were young people who typically refused to engage with these interviews.

“Sadly, a lot of these children are just very much at risk and don’t have people that are necessarily looking out for them, whether they’ve gone missing etc., is not always recognised by family”

SE3

Issues sometimes were raised when these young people and families were not even featured on any systems, so were not registered anywhere to then be flagged as missing. One issue is consistency with different boroughs using different ways of measuring missing episodes and classifying child exploitation. In one area, “missing episodes are recorded once a child leaves a placement and skips their curfew for four or five hours whereas in boroughs this will be classified as away from placement rather than missing” (London2) and this might be why the borough has so many missing children. Across boroughs and across the county, it was pointed out that different local authorities record different levels of risk and use different tools, such as peer mapping in widely different ways.

“Unreported missing is one of the biggest risks in the borough, if you haven’t got a very robust process around that, it’s quite rubbish as well because you are not mapping and tracking that… When you think about processes, they don’t have to be so rigid A to B to C. It shouldn’t have to be a missing episode for it to be logged. When you delve into exploitation, 9 times out of 10 they would have been going missing, it’s just not been reported because families don’t want the trouble”

London2

“The police wouldn’t register him as a missing person, because nobody had registered him as missing, even though social care couldn’t find him. The local authority were saying that they couldn’t register him as missing from education as he had never registered for education, but hang on, we have got a child here that we know he’s not in school currently being exploited. It was almost like because he had never entered the system, he couldn’t be seen as missing from the system?”

BTP

11.6 Children in care

All partners who participated in the research interviews flagged children in care as being at significant risk of CE. Almost all examples provided included children that were either a looked after child, or were open to children’s services or had been accommodated in placements at some point, including those on children in need (CIN) and care protection (CP) plans. One partner felt that there is not enough dedicated resource and effort to support children in care, and that moving around areas allows history to repeat itself.

“The biggest area around is proportionality is looked after children, I think that there’s a lot of stigma attached to them… We’re trying to steer away [from police involvement] and really try to embed those partnership relations where we are professionally challenging some of that decision making to call us to intervene. To look at trying to reduce the criminalisation of these looked after children and that unnecessary, police contact which is inhibiting their life chances”

SE3

Stakeholders also flagged concerns around children and young people from out of area being placed within rural areas of some safeguarding partnerships in secure placements where they are placed with other young people with similar vulnerabilities (similarly to alternative education facilities) which could potentially increase their vulnerabilities (see Theme 4). It was agreed that work was needed within these areas to better understand it and find the best solution. Stakeholders also flagged examples of poor information sharing from other areas when children are placed from outside of area. There was recognition that by moving children out of area “those associations don’t go away and that exploitation doesn’t just stop” (SE2).

11.7 Disengagement from education

Disengagement from education was highlighted as both a significant risk factor and sign/symptom of exploitation. Participants described how the majority of the young people who had experienced child criminal exploitation and involved in county lines and violence were NEET (not engaged in education, employment or training), disengaged from school, had multiple missing episodes from school or had been excluded from mainstream education.

“I’d say it is 90% of the time, these young people are already disengaged from professionals, and schools and employment”

SE3

“If you track back there are missed opportunities to engage, especially around schooling. How can the curriculum speak to the lived experiences with young people, where are we not having this conversation rooted in”

London2

School was described as a protective factor, and stakeholders discussed the massive impact of school exclusion on young people. One participant pointed out that, for young people in trouble at school, for poor attendance or disruptive behaviour, the focus should be around that fact that they are still engaging in some way, and schools should be ‘grabbing’ this positive opportunity. One area explained that exclusion from school is ‘just another place that has rejected them’. Stakeholders described young people being seen as “a square peg in a round hole” (EM) with nowhere to fit in and ‘written off from society” and that more was needed to recognise individual needs and abilities of children, and how education should cater for these differing needs, through more options for vocational subjects.

“Children’s behaviour is seen as challenging or problematic, resulting in school exclusion, rather than it being a communication that their needs are not being met, that the approach that is taken to educate and support them and integrate them into society and help them develop is not meeting those needs”

VCS 18

“You’ve got an educational system where some of the children that are most vulnerable. They don’t want to do history, geography, RE? They want to do something more vocational. So if you look at our offer as a society or a system, its go to school between eight and four o’clock, do these subjects that you don’t like, you will really struggle”

EM

Children and young people in alternative education facilities such as PRUs and APs (alternative provision’s) were seen as particularly vulnerable and at increased risk of CE. The transition between school and alternative education was described as critical, and young people need to be supported during this period. The importance of hearing and responding to the child’s voice within the fair access panel was reported as important in the planning of a move to another school. Stakeholders also explained that placing vulnerable young people together can also sometimes increase vulnerabilities, forming ‘toxic’ relationships with other young people with similar life stories, vulnerabilities who may also be involved with county lines.

“We see the risks involved, with children who have been excluded, the risk of them coming in involved criminality or exploitation, it goes through the roof”

SE2

“The other really vulnerable ones are the children who are excluded from school, mainstream schools to go into the PRU settings and stuff like that we really worry about them, because they’re almost written off at that point from society. I don’t think many people are aware just how big the impacts are removing a child from school”

SE3

Stakeholders saw schools as uniquely placed to recognise and refer children who are abused through exploitation. They were also seen as in a position to help children to avoid being exploited and to support abused children to recover. Participants acknowledged how schools play a vital role in identifying risk indicators such as poor attendance, disengagement, changes in behaviour, changes in friendships and a host of other behaviour and physical cues. However, this requires adequate resource. Participants also noted that the variability within education meant that awareness raising on county lines and exploitation, such as within PSHE (personal social health education) was variable. Despite exclusions being a key critical moment for young people becoming at risk of exploitation, the response to a child bringing drugs into school, is inconsistent. It was felt that the opportunities to engage with young people in the school setting can sometimes be missing. Areas spoke about there being a lack of pastoral care and associated interventions in many secondary schools, particularly academies, due to funding.

“Being a school, your key to knowing what’s going on the minute that youngster comes through the school door, when something’s not right. And it’s…I’m sure this is national, because the schools have become academies… a lot of the focus was put on academia, which absolutely, because you want the best possible choices for young people. But actually, the pastoral care, then almost became secondary to that. So in a lot of multi Academy trusts… that pastoral care was cut back and cut back and cut back”

SE1

Schools were described as well placed for being able to deliver cross education that considers both serious violence and CE (including grooming, CCE, CSE and county lines), with a number of stakeholders highlighting the knife crime focused education within schools. Stakeholders agreed that schools play an important role in safeguarding children and young people from CE through education and awareness raising, and through identifying at risk children and putting measure into increase protective factors and reduce risk. Acknowledging here that schools and teacher needs the resources and support, to increase knowledge and confidence around county lines.

“I think alongside of that more time needs to be spent creating resources to sit with it, to give teachers the confidence to deliver the resources. There’s so many different strands to safeguarding. So I think a much more coordinated joined up approach would be much better. I know the government wants to step away from dictating to schools, they do teach this lesson on this day, I get that. But I think in some cases, it could just make it much easier in streamlining what is available, how to access it”

NW

11.8 Drug use

There was a national recognition of more young people taking drugs, combined with an absence of services willing to support and intervene. Young people using drugs was also flagged as a risk factor, with many stakeholders discussing ‘gateway’ drugs such as cannabis use and dealing, which for some young people escalated quickly into county lines involvement. Stakeholders from some areas also reported the normality of drug taking for young people and a youth worker stated that if she read a file of a “young person and that isn’t taking drugs, I am shocked” (SOUTH). There was also mention of young people had ‘little else to do’, explaining how the pandemic has exasperated this.

“Drugs is massive in (town) and literally it’s normal for a 12, 13-year-old to score 7 spliffs a day. Because it’s just normal. I honestly don’t get it… So it’s really normal for kids to drink and take drugs. They’ve just got nothing else to do. Got nowhere to go and lock down hasn’t helped. So what do they do? They go congregate in a park with loads of them [and take drugs]”

EM

Some also flagged drug dealing in school as significant risk indicator for county lines involvement. This was noted as a warning sign for professionals to intervene, for example if children were stopped by police or caught in school in possession of drugs. One example demonstrating the escalation, was given for a young male who was given cannabis to smoke in a park on a couple of occasions by an adult, within a very short space of time he was debt bonded and was caught in another area drug dealing class A drugs to pay off his debt. This has resulted in conversations with local drugs support services, which will feature within their Adolescent Risk Strategy.

“I mean, you could say that the drug policy is not working. We’ve lost the war on drugs and everything else. It’s a detrimental thing to the whole society. People who sell cannabis as a soft drug it doesn’t actually do any harm. But there’s so many young people who are on it who are suffering psychosis as a result”

BTP

11.9 Low aspirations of youth

Professionals all described the lack of activities and opportunities for young people in across England. All professionals mentioned ‘low aspirations’ as a common and key factor amongst their youth. They explained that young people are bored, frustrated and have limited aspirations; this was intrinsically linked to the risk factors outlined above, including poverty.

“Young people only get involved in criminality and drug dealing and stuff like that purely because of the aspiration of the health and the lack of opportunities that they find within their community”

EM

“And if you talk to young people, they’re always saying there is nowhere else to go. They go down to the local chicken and chip shop where you can get chicken and chips for £1.99. Exploiters know this, you’ll find them in there”

VCS 6

A number of stakeholders also highlighted a gap in diversion activities available to refer young people into meaningful activities that diverted them away from CE. They noted the push/pull factors and how provision of such resourced and activities are important in offering something beyond the gang that they may have become involved in. Examples were given of isolated young people, where OCGs were providing them with the sense of belonging that they needed, and how the benefits of diversionary activities need to be more appealing.

“There’s less services available, just simple things like free youth clubs. Young people have not got a safe place in that area where they could walk in, and they can talk to someone. A door opener, someone that you can relate to. Someone they’re going to want to confide in”

SE3

“We have to offer them something different. We’ve got very little, you know, we can’t offer them money. We can’t offer them new trainers that cost 200 quid, what can we offer, and what we can offer is a positive opportunity to build a relationship with somebody and to be offered some activity that maybe gives them something to believe in, rather than what they’ve got”

SE1

Funding cuts and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic were seen as contributing factors to lessening opportunities for young people, through the impact on their education and limited availability of community projects. Due to significant cuts in youth provision, there are few safe spaces for young people to go and become involved in positive meaningful activity and that to be able to disrupt the grooming process we need to invest in jobs and possibilities and something ‘better than the alternative’.

“I just don’t feel like there’s enough in terms of and other activities that these young people were identifying really vulnerable young people. We’re trying to move them away from their friendship groups to try to move them away from them involvements, but to what? How does that appeal and when you’ve got people who are offering these children something that they’re missing. That’s how it works. That’s how they exploit them. You’ve got to be more appealing, you’ve got to offer more”

NW

Stakeholders stressed the importance for grassroots support to help young people build basic skills and opportunities for them to engage in meaningful activities and engage with and become a valued member of their community. They argued that long-term investment is needed in employment and apprenticeship opportunities to provide young people with a sight of a future. Alongside investment in community projects and youth clubs to provide young people with alternative ways to occupy their time and build positive relationships.

“It’s aspirational… I think when people get to a point where they have proper aspirations, where they realise they want to do something different”

EM

The majority of stakeholders reported the damaging role of social media and responsibility of these platforms in promoting unachievable lifestyles. Stakeholders criticised the media (music and social media) portrayal and glamorisation of rich lifestyles that give young people a skewed perception. This was linked to young people living in poverty and push pull factors of the financial benefits of county lines involvement, and it was suggested that social media plays a part in increasing vulnerabilities and helping perpetrators exploit young people.

“Looking at the messages within the music and what they’re saying and actually, the lifestyle that they are trying to sell to these young people and how kind of glamorous and fun they make it out to be. [Through work with a young person] we were able to kind of reflect back on her kind of what she had experienced and actually it’s not a fun… after that kind of you’re in situations where you could be seriously harmed, where’s the glamour and that kind of thing? Where’s the glamour and having to keep everything secret and all that fear and stress and violence that goes alongside it as well”

SE3

One area also raised the issue of how messages about county lines are portrayed, citing unrealistic political statements of ‘cut the head off the snake by tackling the criminal gangs which exploit young people (See: £148 million to cut drugs crime)’ and the damage caused by minimisation of the issue, implying that not enough is being done and that people may see the statement and think the situation is ‘easily fixed’. This was also linked to the need for wider investment needed to tackle deprivation and inequalities and the need for more positive messages within media and public statements about the importance of this investment in communities.

“One of the main drivers makes people more susceptible to criminal exploitation, regardless of whether a child or not, it’s accumulate disadvantages, its money. People want a better life. You know, people want to have money in their pocket, they want to be able to go get something to eat. They don’t want to go home and go to sleep hungry… there’s no food in the fridge. They don’t want to go to school with torn clothes and ripped trainers and smelling and not have anything to eat. So if we fix them social inequalities… I think would prevent criminal exploitation”

EM

Stakeholder also linked this to the use of social media directly in the grooming of young people and agreed that there was a gap in understanding of the role that social media plays and more work was needed to understand the use of social media in grooming and CE. One area gave examples of ‘the recruiters’ having 2 established ways of recruiting according to respondents. Firstly, in person, where they target children leaving leisure or school places: “Guys turn up with in nice clobber and in nice motors and just speak to the kids” (London1). Secondly through social media when a similar offer is made through social media, using various applications (apps) which they know are hard for the police to monitor and gather evidence from. Snapchat was mentioned by several participants. This was further evidenced through an example from another area of young people being provided with a burner phone as part of the county lines, but acknowledging they are also highly likely to also to have a smart phone, where messages can be sent and deleted (without recovery or ability to trace) via ‘WhatsApp’, posing the question of which phone is being used to exploit the child.

11.11 Clean skins

Whilst the majority of children and young people who had experienced CCE were recognised as vulnerable. Some participants noted that more recently OCGs were also targeting young people not known to services. Stakeholders noted that whilst the majority of young people are known to services and on their radar. Some cases completely took them by surprise, they were not on the ‘radar’ and there were no indicators of risk and were not previously meeting thresholds for support. Again, stakeholders expressed concerns about the escalation of risk in these cases, and some areas noted that they were focusing on this cohort of young people.

“I think we do need to recognise as well that the textbook answers don’t have to be in place for somebody to be groomed and exploited. We do see plenty of examples of young people from quite affluent families, with parents, with professional jobs, you know, teachers, nurses, whatever else being exploited. So you can’t kind of say, well, this person doesn’t fit the profile, so they’re fine. I think that’s the key thing. Any child is at risk”

SE1

“Yes, there’s this list of vulnerabilities but it could be the child that has none of them”

SW

Question 12

12. Theme 8: Critical moments

Accepted Answer

There are arguably moments which are deemed as critical for supporting a young person who is being exploited, or at risk of being exploited by county lines and often this can be where the young person comes to the attention of services at a crisis point. However, in addition to key moments, the findings uncovered that actually the key times for support can be flagged at various points on a continuum and involve subtle behaviour change.

“We talk about reachable and teachable moments and teachable meaning both ways, that we are as teachable as the young people right, but also reachable has to be, has to work both ways too, because we have to be reachable. The bit like what I was saying at the beginning, if you’re expecting a person to always be the person that does that outreach and makes their way to a service, that potentially is not going to work for them, so we have to make sure that the services that we’re offering, are reachable for young people and actually relevant for young people”

VCS 17

“Once they get into it they get hard and then they’re just as nasty as people above them. So it is a game of trying to catch them early on, interventions before they get too deep into it”

BTP

Stakeholders participating in the research considered critical moments for intervention to either prevent or reduce the risk of a child being criminally exploited or involved in serious violence, or to support a child with an exit route if they are already experiencing county lines/CCE and/or serious violence.

It was acknowledged by all participants that there are definite critical/reachable moments ‘windows of opportunity’ in identifying and responding to exploitation from county lines and serious violence. For example:

missing from home episodes (considered to be one of the most significant indicators)
custody
arrests
appearance in court
truancy from school/alternative educational provision
attendance at health services (for example, appearance at A&E)

It was felt that these may be different from young person to young person and should therefore be looked at on a case-by-case basis, but that awareness so services/organisations know how to identify these critical moments is key. All partners identified a gap in identification and support for young people at an earlier stage, with one partner acknowledging that high risk is too late for a critical point. A public health approach to tackling generational and long-standing route causes for violence and CE, incorporating contextual safeguarding, was seen as a key approach.

“This will look different for every person, but it’s about professionals having enough knowledge and awareness. That you know, instead of thinking, ‘oh, Joe Bloggs has got some friends, that’s nice. He’s never really had friends before’. Thinking what could be underneath that? What could that be coming from? It’s about thinking, you know, we’ve been worried about, Jane Bloggs who has always looked quite kind of uncared for and now she’s got nice clothes. When might, where might that be coming from? And so the critical moments are there, the point at which somebody can notice?”

SE1

12.1 Prevention and early intervention

Since the cuts to the youth service there is now a focus on targeted support and whilst a valued service, by the nature of targeted, these young people will have already met a threshold and therefore may be quite some way into an exploitation process. Stakeholders agreed that they need to be less reactive, explaining that many young people they have worked with have been because they were assessed as high risk and in need of level 4 social care intervention (significant welfare concerns, CIN, CP). This was recognised as ‘too late’ to be intervening. Early intervention was raised by all of the participants as a critical moment and as something that needs to be strengthened locally and nationally, in the form of universal services such as youth work.

“Why are we not intervening prior? So a section 47 of the children’s act is the local authority will intervene if a child is at risk of significant harm or is likely to be at risk of significant in, you know, roughly who’s going to be at risk. So why do we have to wait for someone to have suffered significant harm?”

SE3

“When you have, like a generic service, that’s where you get that early intervention. That’s where you get your prevention…No wonder they are on county lines because no youth worker or other practitioner ever saw them coming in thinking - well who are you hanging around with, who’s that outside, waiting to pick you up. You weren’t doing those drugs the other day…red flag. Schools like ooh they not attending, ooh multi agency ohhh crisis. Prevention. And then suddenly they don’t end up in Birmingham with a bag full of drugs”

VCS3

“I think austerity and funding cut massively decremented early intervention services. And I think people are firefighting. We don’t do enough in the prevention and intervention agenda”

NW

Stakeholders agreed that prevention and early intervention were critical to building protective factors for young people to reduce their risk of CE and protect them from perpetrators. This included better awareness raising for everyone. For professionals, communities, parents and children themselves to have increased awareness to spot early warning signs and behaviour change, and tools and knowledge in place to protect. This included trauma informed and CE/serious violence training for professionals, awareness campaigns, and resources for parents, community members and children. Schools were seen as well placed to play a part in prevention at a critical early stage for children. Schools were described as the heart of the community and often the first and single point of contact for many children. Schools, working alongside school police officers were identified as key to this. Schools were identified as having the potential to create better awareness around the risks of CCE, but also because of the protective factors of being in stable education. It was also suggested that schools should be looking more closely at persistent absences at a young age as an indicator. A number of professionals argued that we have the intelligence and experience in place to know what children are at risk, and questioned why are we not intervening earlier? Safeguarding partnerships highlighted some ongoing work in attempt to strengthen early intervention and support young people at low and emerging risk.

“We have early help teams down here, but even that perhaps is too far down. You know, it’s almost like they need a pre-early help team where that notices, those just those little things that, you know, you’re just coming to people’s attention”

VCS 2

Stakeholders agreed that prevention messages need to be targeted much earlier, with many suggesting that this should start in primary school. Educating children and young people with clear and honest messages was seen as a way to empower children. This was acknowledged as giving them a voice and in giving them an element of responsibility, but participants were clear to stress that young people should not be seen to be having a choice in grooming/CE and the need to be careful here not to victim blame. They also agreed that this education and raising awareness needs to be repeated across all age groups, providing further opportunity to talk to children and young people, and further opportunity for messages not to be missed.

“I think we need to be getting in a lot earlier than what we are. I mean, we work with 10-year-olds. So, I think I think we need to be getting in earlier, I think those kids that end up going to a pupil referral unit at primary school, I think that we should be working with them. I think there needs to be more source of responsibility on education and for younger children”

NW

“I always said we should be in primary schools because, you know, when they get to year 7, it’s a little bit…you’re kind of clawing it back. We need to be giving the scaffold. These kids need scaffolding. And how do we how do we really sturdy that scaffold for that transition when they hit puberty”

VCS 12

“Because we do know the cohort is getting younger. So we really need to be not afraid but not petrify the children at that year 5 to year 6 level, particularly in different boroughs within the council. So, some areas the children are much more savvy. You know, you wouldn’t be telling them anything they don’t know, other more rural, the villages, they would be having nightmares, it’s about it’s about managing that”

EM

Support and improved engagement with parents was also identified as critical in supporting them to provide safe and nurturing homes, reduce ACEs and improve parenting capacity. It was noted that professionals need to better understand parenting challenges and equip them with the tools to keep their children safe. Building better relationships with parents and engaging them within early CE education for their children was seen as important. Awareness around online safety and inappropriate relationships, improved resources, hands on intervention beyond signposting was recommended. Engaging with families to support the children at risk and their siblings was seen as important for breaking generational cycles and reducing risk factors.

The role of the community was also seen as key in protecting families, but also in providing a safe environment for young people to get involved in diversionary meaningful activities. Stable education and community support were also seen to play an important role in supporting young people to have aspirations. Social media was identified as playing a critical role in promoting more healthy and positive messages for children and young people. Stakeholders highlighted entrenched issues and the need to build trusted networks and positive interactions and activities before young people are targeted.

12.2 Transitional moments

Transition to adulthood

Concerns were raised for young people turning 18 years of age, with stakeholders acknowledging that many vulnerable young people are not necessarily ready for adulthood. Neurotoxic impacts of trauma on cognitive development for some young people means they are not being cognitively or emotionally mature to be treated as an adult. It was clear that for most professionals, age is not the only vulnerability for many of these young people. There was a significant gap identified in provision for young people on the cusp of adulthood both locally and nationally, with stakeholders explaining that many of these young people ‘fall between the lines’. While services such as the 16 to 19 transition team aim to bridge this gap, and statutory support is available for care-experienced young people up to the age of 25, stakeholders noted that provision remains fragmented. Voluntary sector organisations like St Giles and others do work with young adults, but a significant gap persists between child and adult service provision. Concerns were also raised around young people being treated as a perpetrator once they are legally identified as an adult. Stakeholders also explained how young people open to child focused services will be provided with more opportunities to engage, with professionals being more understanding and more time spent on developing trusted relationships, compared to adult services where they may be ‘closed’ if they do not engage with support. Stakeholders also discussed the difficulties in ensuring the appropriate interventions are put in place when statutory and legal sanctions are no longer possible post 18 (discussed in more detail in theme 11).

“It’s this idea that the older you get, the more accountable you are for your behaviour, which then minimises this idea that exploitation is manipulative and coercive”

NW

“You can be 17 and 11 months and you’re a victim and you’re exploited, then you turn 18 and you are a drug dealer”

London1

“There’s transition work ongoing. There are tasks and finish groups around the transition work as well with our partners here for 18 to 25. It is difficult, because they’re no longer a child. But we know that they’re brains are not fully developed. We know that there’s a lot more that needs to be done, or can be done. They’re not a young person in the Children’s Act. So that transition is really, really hard to manage. Obviously, if they’re looked after, then yes, then they’re open service for longer, but what we can do is less, or what we can do legally is less because a lot of (social care) stuff relies on the fact that they’re under 18”

SE3

Challenges identified included ensuring interventions and actions are put into place in a timely manner before child protection plans cease, and that social workers can be confined by legal restraints and can have little time to work with young people who are identified as requiring support at 16 and 17 years of age, and how the same level of child protection was not in place. They also explained the barriers of young people not meeting thresholds of adult services and being left without ongoing support. The differences in support available and how young people are supported was also noted here, for example, the difference between CAMHS and adult mental health services. Some stakeholders described trying to use child abduction warning notices (CAWN) to protect 16- and 17-year-olds.

“The Human Rights element would say, now that young person is entering adulthood, we need to loosen the boundaries. But actually, that’s within a background of trauma, vulnerable to exploitation, that they are the very people that need wraparound. So, it’s about what extra resources could we put in to provide holistic care for that individual? Empower them, to go down the right road, and not to be thrown back into exploitation”

NW

Children who are in care being eligible for support until they are 25, as well as having services such as St Giles that work with all young people up until aged 25, were seen as essential in providing support during this critical time. Stakeholders recognised the need to have flexible wraparound support and involvement of wider services who are aware of outstanding or unmet need who can continue to stay connected to these young people as they transition into adulthood.

Transition to high school

As previously identified, schools are seen to play a crucial role as a service with access to young people on day-to-day basis. Many participants felt that year six was a critical intervention point as it is where children were transitioning from primary to secondary school and that this has the potential to impact upon vulnerabilities within the children being exploited by others. Comments were also made particularly for those children transitioning to high school in 2021 due to various disruptions that had experienced socially and educationally through COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.

“I would say definitely year 6 is my critical intervention point. I’ve got children that are transitioning from primary school to secondary school. Those children have been big fish in little pond in their primary education that aren’t going over into a secondary school where they become a very, very tiny fish in a massive pond and some of that vulnerability gets exploited. That what we’ve been trying to do is make sure that at that year 6 level, we’re putting in sufficient awareness training packages in place for them. So, when they do get into secondary, they’re going in there with both eyes open of what could be offered”

SE3

Exclusion process

“The exclusion is key. Once the young person is excluded from what they see as their school community, really, they have no investment. Not anymore. So why should they buy into anything in their local wider community as well?”

VCS

A critical area for support for young people at risk of exploitation by county lines has been highlighted as the point of school exclusion. Within the alternative provision there are tensions around reduced timetables, which may be put in place either short or long term as the young person may not be able to cope being in school for set amount of time due to previous experiences and this needs to be built up. In addition, some children are having to commute over an hour on the train to attend school. There are concerns over how meaningful activities are outside of their time within school including concerns that the young person may be more vulnerable to being exploited during that free time or during the commute. Importantly, despite the best efforts of skilled staff, alternative provision is often described as a ‘hotbed’ for exploitation.

“APAs and PRUs tends to get some of the most complex people, so by nature across [area], even if you move the children between them, you’re still enhancing the network, making it very easy for them”

SW

The transition between mainstream education and alternative education was identified as a critical point for intervention and as a current gap locally and nationally, with one stakeholder describing how young people can be ‘written off’ from society. It was agreed that it is was essential to better understand the impact of school exclusion, understand the risk factors associated and support young people during this transitional period. Stakeholders highlighted critical points for recognising the increased vulnerabilities and providing professionals and parents with the tools to recognise changes in behaviour for young people and observe changes in their friendships and potential development of inappropriate relationships. Similarly, to early intervention, increased protective factors, including parental support, diversionary activities and community engagement were all seen as important in protecting young people during the time. Stakeholders discussed the investment in dedicated exploitation prevention workers within a PRU using Violence Reduction Unit funding (described in Theme 2).

“I think there needs to be a lot more stringent quality assurance to some of these providers… you’re dealing with a lot of what will be seen as difficult adolescents, who are sharing very similar life stories, similar experiences, and you’re putting them all together, which inevitably is going to be quite toxic, isn’t it?”

NW

“But surely there must be a professionals meeting before a head makes a decision to exclude a child. Because, again, it’s obvious that there could be a whole host of stuff going on. And although it’s difficult, actually, then being in school contact might be the best for that child”

SE3

There is an acknowledgement that exclusions need to be reduced and there are efforts to address this across most safeguarding partnerships (at varying levels) along with zero tolerance on drug policies that are still in place across many schools. While drugs and alcohol charities have offered to work with schools on drugs policies there is huge variety in school uptake in this.

“Zero policy for drugs, but I always think if a thirteen-year-old goes in with drugs they have not suddenly decided to become an entrepreneur overnight. Someone’s asked them to go in with that”

SW

12.3 Crisis presentation

Providing intervention at point of crisis was recognised as vital in engaging young people with support, minimising damage and breaking the link with county lines and serious violence. Critical points were identified as police arrest and custody, missing from home episodes, or hospital visits due to violent injuries. Stakeholders agreed that professionals need to maximise these moments and make every contact count. However, overall, there was a pessimism over the effectiveness of statuary services with this cohort “as they lack the credibility and ongoing consistent presence” of non-statuary youth provision. Organisations such as St Giles were reported to be key to engaging with young people at crisis point when their guard is down and they may be more willing to speak out. The lived experience of workers was seen as important in helping young people disclose. One stakeholder also highlighted the opportunity for an intervention when a child or young person presents to A&E, the VRU funded Navigator Programme is described in Theme 2. Building on early intervention, wider support for parents, and opportunities for community and diversionary activities were highlighted as an essential part of the pathway out of risk and into safety.

“Some of these problems have been 13, 14, 15 years in the making and so we come in after quite a significant incident, a trigger incident. A key to a lot of this work is relational social work, building a relationship with these young people, and sometimes I think it’s difficult to do. You need to strike the balance between providing immediate safety, which is the case most of the time, and building a relationship. You are asking young people to take advice from strangers and that goes against everything we ask young people to do”

London2

Arrest

Many professionals highlighted custody as a critical point for engaging with young people. They acknowledged the important push for keeping children and young people out of custody, citing guidance and policy and agreeing that custody was not a suitable place for children and young people. However, this also conflicts with the notion that arresting a young person and taking them into custody does potentially provide an opportunity to engage with that young person at crisis point and possibly at a crossroads/turning point. An arrest also makes it possible to seize the phone for county lines and CE investigation. The stakeholder also gave an example of a young person being more willing to disclose at crisis point when they are taken into custody and scared. They reported that the opportunity may be missed if the young person is released when stopped and return to their home where they may be more comfortable or where the perpetrator has been able to make contact with them. These situations were described as a golden opportunity, especially as this could be first point of contact to intervene.

One participant with concerns around custody barriers, believed there was a ‘gulf’ between government information, changes to PACE (Police and Criminal Evidence Act (1984)) and operational guidance on the front line, which does ‘not meet at the top’. They cited the challenges faced by operational officers as to what constitutes a crime/concern serious enough for an arrest, and also for custody officers who face professional conduct investigation if an adverse incident occurs whilst in custody. This highlights the difficult decisions to be made when custody is not an appropriate place for a vulnerable child, yet provides an opportunity to engage with that child. Further clarification on guidance was recommended, whilst acknowledging that this was a bigger and wider issue that needed more consideration.

“Sometimes a criminal justice route is absolutely the right way to go. Going to court or being prosecuted is the best thing that can happen, because they have things around them that they never had before. A lot of the young people that we see, they really enjoy some of the work that they do with youth offending because there’s finally someone paying them positive attention and engaging in new things, new ways of working. Like talent matching, on the road to getting jobs and things like that. So, it’s a kind of a double-edged sword, isn’t it? Yes, they will have a criminal record. But where would it have ended up if they didn’t have that? Because sometimes that is the stop that they needed to stop doing what they’re doing”

NW

“Sat in a cell and you’re really thinking, the idea of going to prison looks really realistic by now. That is the best time to actually try to talk to somebody. Yeah, that is one of the best times to you reach in police stations, in custody, in court”

VCS 23

Linked to this, fast track actions at the critical point of arrest and custody for the young person was mentioned. This links back to the issues raised in Theme 3 from BTP (furthered within discussions around the NRM in Theme 10) around ensuring that at that critical moment of arrest, the decision making that then follows is done as thoroughly as possible with onus on a fast action multi-agency meeting and phone check. That this critical moment and the professional response to this can have a real impact on the pathway of that young person: further into exploitation and criminality or diverted and safeguarded.

“If you get fast track actions on a nasty rape or murder or crime in action type thing, you’d very quickly take 30 seconds, 2 minutes, step back. Look at what you’ve got. What’s your plan, what’s your working strategies, how you going to resolve it. So the idea we’ve kind of replicated to encourage where possible, it is hard, because sometimes it’s out of hours and availability of social workers, but if we can’t get social workers, we’ll get the next best thing and get the police team where the kid lives because when a kid is missing, somebody somewhere cares about that kid from a YOT or social workers from a police point of view, if there a missing person, There was a team of people trying to find this kid, but there is somebody somewhere that cares about this”

BTP

A specific diversion scheme discussed by one safeguarding partnership youth justice manager talked about ensuring that young people were diverted out of criminal justice outcomes at point of arrest and given alternative and supportive interventions within their locality. Although this was seen as “thickened the soup” in terms of the youth justice service mainly dealing with a higher risk, reoffending cohort, with most young people being effectively diverted (and supported) from the criminal justice system. He also stated that this also stopped the “sausage factory” of criminal justice processes that just labelled and unnecessarily criminalised children and young people.

A&E from serious violent assault

The critical moment of providing an opportunity for an intervention and ‘reachable teachable’ moment in A&E was highlighted by a number of participants. Across the 4 safeguarding partnerships, professionals were seen to be working hard to embed a trauma informed approach at the point of admission to A&E. However, it was acknowledged that front line staff (including teachers, social workers, A&E staff, operational police officers and others) can struggle with time constraints, resource capacity, skills and confidence in identifying at risk children and young people and having the dedicated time to see the bigger picture, and effectively engage and build a relationship with the young person. A number of health representatives stressed the importance having a dedicated member of staff who can spend time with young people and build that relationship. Repeat attenders at A&E were noted as a key indicator of at-risk young people.

12.4 Flexibility in response to critical moments

The stakeholders explained how their own organisation and others were more trauma informed, had a better understanding of the impact of trauma, were mindful of contextual safeguarding, and were able to look at the bigger picture and better able to pick up on triggers and CE warning signs. The CE flag^{[footnote 9]} was seen as way to help promote this and get frontline workers (such as operational police officers, social workers and health workers) to look beyond the task at hand. Some stakeholders did acknowledge however that whilst partners were proactively promoting a drive for a trauma informed approach, they did question how embedded this was and were not sure how trauma informed everyone was. One stakeholder believed that their partnership is working in a more trauma informed way, but raised the question of what makes you a trauma informed organisation? Raising concerns around quality control and mixed perceptions of what it truly means to be trauma informed.

“A lot of people talking about being trauma informed loads. There are some single organisations that will claim to be trauma informed. Now, I understand what the term means. But I don’t know how an organisation can claim to be trauma informed. Delivering some ACE awareness training, and so on, doesn’t, in my opinion, make you a trauma informed organisation? Can we be trauma informed partnership if not everyone in the partnership is? So don’t I actually think being trauma informed needs a much bigger plan and owner buy in from the broader partnership to claim to be trauma informed?”

NW

When looking at the flexibility of agencies to respond to critical moments, it was felt that ‘the desire and the want and the understanding to respond’ was there. It was, however, recognised that this did not necessarily always translate into practice. Conversations focused around a number of areas including the awareness of a need to focus on early intervention, but capacity and resource were identified an issue. This was due to their inabilities to manage the demands from the “entrenched high end stuff” (SE1). Another partner highlighted a gap in support for young people once their risk reduces and the damaging impact of a professional developing a trusted relationship with a young person, for it to be removed and disappear at the end of statutory support, when they no longer meet a high-risk threshold. This was noted as particularly harmful for young people who do not have any other trusted relationships in their lives. Examples were also provided here for not removing services for young people who do not engage or attend appointments, acknowledging that a more child centred approach is needed to better understand and take the time to understand why the young person is not engaging. Professional awareness of impacts of county exploitation and serious violence involvement was seen as key here, as was ensuring these young people have adequate access to mental health support in adulthood and later in life.

“Because their risk slightly reduces which you want, because that’s what you’re trying to achieve. The case is closed, and they no longer have that trusted individual in their life. And that may have been the only trusted individual they’ve ever had in their lives”

SE3

Another stakeholder argued that there needs to be a service in place that runs alongside statutory organisations, that is not restricted to timescales and will ‘hold the hand’ of the whole family for as long as needed, linking them into wider support to enable them to cope with other traumas and crisis. This was certainly in place for those safeguarding partnerships that had commissioned specific targeted CE teams (see Theme 5), but was not seen as a core function within the safeguarding partnership exploitation structure.

12.5 Stop waiting for crisis: Reachable moment can happen anywhere at anytime

There was also an acknowledgement that these reachable moments do not have to big critical moments, but actually the simplicity of engaging with young people at the moments of contact are important, as per the ‘Making every contact count’. The example after a training session with rail staff (BTP) indicated these moments can be small, but still very important to young people in letting them know someone cares. The response in these moments considered vitally important in stopping and seeing the child:

“The fact that she sat on the floor, took the time to speak to her, and let her talk, is a reachable moment, isn’t it, for that child? So it doesn’t have to be, you know, bells and whistle reachable moment, or a massive breakthrough, you know. But that it would actually be very important for that child. But it would have made a massive difference that somebody cared in that moment and that, you know, if she had done the thing of just fined her and walked away, what message would it have given to that kid?”

BTP

Similarly, these smaller moments were reflected in a recount of a young person describing their experiences of being arrested and of the police when engaging with Rescue and Response wrap around care, with the gesture of providing “clean socks” being mentioned by the young person. Again, this indicates some of the child-centred approaches that have wider, far-reaching impact to these exploited children.

“Rescue and Response do wraparound care services. But they do reach the children, kids don’t engage with cops in the same way. And there is one that will stay with me, there was a child that they essentially reached out to, and he was engaging and they asked him about his experiences, I guess, and he said, “Look, they were always very nice to me, they always gave me clean socks”. You know, you don’t police your way out of that. So, you know, if that’s what you’re up against”

BTP

Critical moments can also focus on identifying the very early stage in the process of exploitation, which involves recognising subtle differences in behaviour and recognising the behaviour in itself as communication. This can suggest an unmet need, an identified risk factor of exploitation, which may indicate that a young person is being exploited, or is vulnerable and at risk of being exploited, and is therefore a key moment for intervention. The general feeling was that prevention and early intervention are paramount in responding to early changes in behaviour, but also acknowledging that this is still not early enough in that reachable moment.

“We have early help teams down here, which but that. Even that perhaps is too far down. You know, it’s almost like they need a pre-early help team where that notices, those just those little things that, you know, you’re just coming to people’s attention”

VCS 2

12.6 Challenges in responding to critical moments

It was identified that there may be challenges in being able to respond to these reachable/critical moments because young people at risk of exploitation do not necessarily hit the child protection threshold. Safeguarding processes in social care were seen to be aimed at ‘familial risk’ rather than ‘extra familial risk and consent models’ resulting in thresholds for child protection potentially not being met. Where a case was then deemed to be at early help level or child in need and the young person does not want to engage or parents do not want to consent, the case would therefore close. There was a frustration around this and a number of participants spoke about the importance of trying to keep young people and families engaged but questioned how to do this. It was felt that in terms of multi-agency working they were able to respond well, but it was identified that young people and their families may not recognise the risk and need for intervention/help and that whilst they could be supported to understand the risk and the implications of what they are doing, the choice to engage with help was ultimately theirs and ‘had to be on their terms’. It was felt that there may be some further exploration needed around thresholds of safeguarding responses (specifically where consent may not be given) and how agencies can have an ‘impact upon the environment without having to do a large piece of work’.

“He was 10 when he was referred to the (CE) Team, 11 when we were talking about him. And the family never really engaged with services then needed multiple referrals to early help assessment and what have you over the years for various issues, they never really engaged, but it didn’t meet the social care threshold for child protection. And so, everyone’s really worried about this kid, like really worried. And because the family chooses not to engage, we just, we’re still going through this permanent cycle of you managed to get it back to the level of being assessed, they don’t want to engage so it closes. You worry so you then need to find extra evidence to show it’s escalated to get it to be assessed again. But it still doesn’t make the section 47 threshold so it closes. And what do you do about those cases? Because I mean, yes, I understand there’s a consent issue, but there’s an eleven-year-old boy who is showing some really worrying behaviours, so you know, it’s written into legislation that the consent need and the thresholds and everything, so I don’t know if there’s an answer. But as a practitioner, that’s really frustrating”

SE1

Stakeholders also reported that some professionals may perceive a young person remaining engaged or re-engaged with OCGs as a choice and more workforce awareness was needed to tackle these perceptions. Ensuring responsibility as not placed on them and they were supported as a victim. Whilst it was acknowledged that certain organisations such as the police were more likely to criminalise young people because of the nature of their organisational role, it was agreed that children and young people involved in county lines need to be treated as a victim. Whilst areas were working towards a trauma informed approach there were still challenges, such as examples of risk assessment forms using victim blaming language such as ‘child putting themselves at risk’ and ‘made bad choices’.

Furthermore, stakeholders described the challenges when dealing with young people who are involved in the grooming and CE on another child. They acknowledged that professionals need more understanding about the pressures and little choice that these young people might face. Many stakeholders acknowledged young people involved in serious violence who were not known to services, and where their involvement in violence escalated quickly. Alongside this it was acknowledged that there is a ‘danger’ if critical moments are not identified and met in an appropriate way that young people can be pushed even further into the lifestyle and crime associated with exploitation.

“Suddenly getting to a point where there’s almost a point of no return, because there’s no links back, they’re not at school and they’re not relating to their parents. And, you know, if you don’t get it early enough, you can see some very tragic outcomes”

SE1

Question 13

13. Theme 9: Contextual safeguarding and interventions

Accepted Answer

In responding to county lines exploitation and serious youth violence risk, there was a welcome response to the movement towards contextual safeguarding approaches and this highlighted the need for collective community responsibility and a national ownership of child exploitation. A crucial element within the contextual safeguarding response for county lines exploitation and serious youth violence, is the focus on perpetrator disruption. The disruption of perpetrators illustrates the contextual element of safeguarding by ensuring that sources of harm and risk for young people are addressed and acted upon, through the use of arrest and prosecution, but also in the use of civil orders.

To highlight the risks of child exploitation, there were examples of awareness raising and training within the partner organisations and within the community itself, as well as with families and young people through projects facilitated by statutory agencies and the VCS. There were examples of direct support through interventions for children and young people and whilst there were encouraging pockets of practice identified, safeguarding and interventions varied greatly from one area to another and there was an acknowledged gap in providing support to parents.

All areas including the VCS noted the importance of a contextual safeguarding approach (see What is Contextual Safeguarding?) and many participants noted that multi-agency meetings at MACE level, as well as those at an operational level, have shifted their focus towards spaces and places, with housing a key part of this process. It was stated that the traditional systems in social care for child protection and child in need, generally have processes and procedures which are aligned to responding to harm within the family home and can negate the fact that sources from harm regarding exploitation are generally from outside the family. These are often beyond the remit of parents in attempting to keep their child safe. Therefore, a contextual approach has been felt to be essential when working to protect children and young people.

“I don’t think a child protection plan is helpful especially when a parent’s capacity is undermined because of external factors, we are saying we expect you the parent to do more without really offering more as a professional network”

London2

Partnerships explained that previously, a lot of young people did not fit the social care safeguarding criteria because the contextual CCE factors and in response. As indicated in Theme 5, some areas have developed specialised CE teams who are able to now focus intensive work around the family with wraparound support to build resilience within and outside of the home.

“We were seeing is a lot of young people do not fit the current safeguarding kind of model. Because a lot of the stuff around CCE is contextual. And so we were just seeing that, you know, assessments were being completed and closed. We saw a lot of stuff was crisis management about secure placements, so we needed to work differently. So now we are much bigger team. Much bigger team and we have such dedicated social workers within the team will pick those cases up from the front door, whether it’s for CCE or CSE”

NW

Whilst partners attending panels and various multi-agency meetings understand of the merits of working contextually, there was also an acknowledgment they are limitations in facilitating the transition of contextual safeguarding into existing child protection structures. Practitioners felt that there needs to be a substantial shift in actual processes and systems to enable wider adaptations of contextual safeguarding to be adopted meaningfully.

“In terms of contextual safeguarding and we’re having the conversations, but if we’re looking at sort of level 1 or level 2, you’re talking about it and you’ve got all the best intentions. Level 2, you’re embedded in your practice. We are at level 1. . .we are having all the right conversations, we recognise the beauty of it, but we don’t know how to embed it. So, you know, children social care don’t have the framework, they aren’t set up to sort of accept peer referrals”

VCS12

13.1 Disruption activities

A key contextual element of responding to child exploitation is disrupting the perpetrator activity, which in turn can safeguard the young person from being exploited. The police force were noted as a key organisation within the safeguarding partnership who were seen as responsible for identifying exploitation, assessing and managing risk, disruption operations, and undertaking investigations and action against perpetrators. This tended to consist of tactical plans to disrupt the highest harm criminal drug networks, reduce risk of harm to communities and use injunctions and tactics such as DDTRO’s (see Drug Dealing Telecommunications Restriction Orders Regulations (2017)) and other civil orders to disrupt county lines and prevent drug related harm. Many SPs did mention positive and collaborative work with BTP and again, the importance of housing colleagues within disruption activities.

As indicated earlier on within Theme 2, housing colleagues gave examples of best practice and stated how their intelligence and powers had enabled disruption of criminal activities and safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults. As such they acknowledged they were an essential player within multi-agency teams in responding to issues such as county lines and serious youth violence risk although this varied hugely amongst areas and can be logistically challenging given the amount of different housing providers in any given area. One housing representative spoke about their desire to work in partnership to respond to safeguarding but noted that they have previously not felt consulted by professionals, yet they feel they are now beginning to share information and work together and identify good practice.

“Now, we’ve had a frustration that social workers and Health workers and education, what have you, they’ll go into these homes and yet they don’t report to us”

EM

Examples of specific safeguarding partnership disruption activities were noted as taking preventative action on anti-social behaviour in local parks and open spaces that were frequented by gangs. ‘Designing out crime’ was also seen to play a role in making these open spaces safer as well in terms of identifying environmental design factors that may aide/deter gangs from meeting in these spaces.

“So I met the city council, the enforcement lead on ASB and such behaviour, the lighting guy and a couple of others to literally walk around the park. And they said we were putting in for some funding, what would you like to see? So we ended up one of the problem footpaths was removed all the cutting back of all the undergrowth, so there was no hiding places for knives. We moved some of the benches, we improved some lighting, and they were able to get an extra camera in. And the plan now is so fingers crossed as lockdown lifts there’s a college right next door to encourage more people and users in the park for the right reasons”

City Council SE3

Disruption activity involving civil orders was mentioned as an action from MACE panels and can include gang injunctions, child abduction warning notices (CAWNs), and non-molestation orders. Police disruption activity was seen in some instances to create ‘space’ for the young person away from county lines activity and the exploitation they were experiencing.

“We are using a lot of the proposed disruption techniques already. So we’re using gang injunctions. We’re using CAWNs, where we’ve got really serious concerns about young people…. we’re using non molestation orders. So we’re doing a lot of that work already”

SE1

There are, however, limitations to some civil orders, < redacted >. So whilst these orders are helpful and effective, there can be some limitations when working with older victims and indicates another barrier in supporting young adults who are being exploited. Best practice examples include having access to in-house vulnerability lawyers within partnerships who are embedded either within the local authority or police, who can quickly advise and help implement these civil protective and preventative orders. One which was mentioned in several partnerships was the use of closure orders which can be used for residential or commercial premises and can be full or partial and can disrupt that exploitation process.

Whilst it has been noted that these orders are usually temporary, such as closing down premises, the use of these bespoke orders can make it challenging for perpetrators to exploit victims. It was viewed that if more areas made regular use of civil orders, the environment becomes more inhospitable to perpetrators.

“Send that message out there and say- don’t think you can come into [area] and run your little organisational exploits with children because we will be on you and we will take action. And you might think that you’re too clever to avoid criminal prosecution, but there are other things that we can do to make it bloody difficult”

SOUTH

Another good practice example which discouraged perpetrators from exploitation activities was the use of the ‘Buddy tag’ initiative, where a tag can be placed on adult or young person who has been involved in offending behaviour. Participants described how this was particularly useful for some young people, as the tag gave them a curfew and helped put boundaries in place. Some parents found the use of the tag reassuring as it meant their child had to be home by a certain time and could not travel far, keeping them safe. One partner also reported that a young person that they worked with used it as a way to remove himself from a gang for the 28 days, as perpetrators were no longer ‘interested in using him’ during this time.

“Voluntary, non-statutory tags, but they were there in order to support the adult offenders through their rehabilitation, we have now got tags for juveniles to assist with diversion away from county lines activity.one lad, he was in a moment of crisis. So he agreed to put a tag on and put it a month. He was basically stayed at home, didn’t leave the county and gave him that sort of path out of county lines. So for that period, and it got him back on the straight and narrow because it worked for a period of time”

NW

13.2 Collective community responsibility

There was a recognition regarding exploitation that we need to ‘own it nationally’ and to upskill everyone to identify exploitation. Many of the partners noted that what is required in response to exploitation by county lines is to ensure that there is a collective community responsibility, which asserts that as part of everyone’s duty to safeguard children. Everyone must be aware of and be responsible for ensuring we address child exploitation. This is manifested in a contextual response and includes all relevant statutory agencies and not just those with a specific duty to safeguard, but those who are responsible for the public spaces and health and safety, as well as VCS, local community organisations and businesses and the general public. It is felt the contextual response must be embedded across organisations.

“I think there is a feeling that “it’s not our job or it’s nothing to do with us” So it’s about recognising there is a group of people out there and their job role is not really conducive to them knowing the things that we might see as professionals that is really obvious to us, that they might not pick up on and if they do they might not acknowledge that it is anything to do with them. And then it is about engaging with other areas of the council where we might cause them some more attention like from food standards or they might get additional patrols from the police and our detached youth workers”

London2

In addition, awareness raising should extend out into the community, essentially, anywhere children and young people may be, particularly in the absence of safe spaces where young people can socialise. It requires getting the community involved and identifying where within the community they feel safe and where they do not. A practitioner talked about making plans to enable young people to access safety rather advising young people to not put themselves in harm’s way.

“Fast food outlets which have been identified hubs around exploitation, not because itself is engaged or involved, but the place is a bit of a hub and there is gravitas associated with those places. So we would try and engage those businesses and those places and a bit of partnership around what we believe their responsibilities are and should be. So we deliver training to some of those places, let them know who in the local authority they can be in contact with, how to refer into the MASH and offer advice about how they operate their business, so turn off the Wi-Fi at certain times”

London2

13.3 Training and awareness raising

As part of this desire to own the responsibility of child exploitation as a nation, it was reported that training and awareness around CCE is imperative.

Training was generally described as good across most safeguarding partnerships with each safeguarding partnership delivering a number of learning events and training slides that focus on CE and safeguarding. Most were engaged in training in-house, via their targeted CE Teams, or police partners who tended to be the ones who specialised and delivered CE training regularly. Training regarding CE has been delivered contextually by some of the partnerships, jointly facilitated by the police and local authority and disseminated to a wide variety of organisations including within the community.

“Not just the people work on the ticket sales, taxi ranks are a big one. When kids come up a long distance a taxi gets booked for them and that takes you to address them, which is really interesting. Obviously, they get paid. They don’t want to be seen to be losing money. Need a bit of a different dynamic to it in that way and get to work with them - if it was your child, what would you what would you do? So we’re doing a bit more work as well”

BTP

Some professionals highlighted the importance of having local training, especially when delivering to children and young people. This partner explained that, for example, training from London does not always translate, as county lines can present differently within different areas. There was also a call for minimum standards in training nationally regarding CCE and the importance of ensuring dramas and talks, do not glamorise county lines in any way and must include pathways of support.

The challenges of delivering training virtually on a sensitive topic was highlighted, especially for those who may have children at home and not have access to private space. For this reason, alongside the pre-training reading, a ‘health warning’ was given so that attendees were aware of the content. A flexible approach to delivering the training was seen as key with discussion around the possibility of doing sessions in the evening or possibly a weekend for those unable to commit during the day.

In addition to partnerships delivering in-house training where a VCS agency has been commissioned by the local authority to respond to exploitation, there is usually an element of training involved in the commissioned service. The training can be for a variety of organisations including police, NHS, social care, schools and housing and landlord associations. There was also training for more contextual partners.

“We just actually done some training for a security company that obviously is out there on an evening, late at night, and so raising awareness for them with various businesses, we’ve done taxi drivers. So we’ve got a really good understanding of licensing snooker halls and casinos, so that if young people are going in then people are recognising actually this isn’t right”

VCS 22

There were examples which highlighted how beneficial training was and the impact that training can have on future practice. One BTP participant gave an example of someone who attended one of their training sessions that worked on the railway network and how the training input changed their response to what they would have previously called a ‘fair evader’ to a response that was more child centred and trauma informed:

“…because of the training she acted in a different way. So before she would have treated this child as a fair evader basically she’s trying to get to Bristol, something like that, found her in the luggage rack hiding. She said actually and her supervisor said, just give her a fine and leave it. Whereas actually she said actually I am going to do a bit more. So I sat on the floor, got to eye level with her, her glasses were broken, she was really dirty. She was obviously frightened and ended up talking to her and basically she had been in foster care not very long. She was going back to try and find her mum in Bristol. I issued her a penalty notice but only to get all of her details and notified BTP, and then hopefully got her back to where she needed to be and got her safe. And she was only 13. Previously before the training, she just would have issued her with a penalty notice and moved on, which is obviously a bit worrying. But does indicate the importance of training and raising awareness”

BTP

There was also a recognition that as well as training current professionals, it is important to look to the next generation of professionals and practitioners and have an input on their education and learning experience and sure that there is continuity and longevity. One safeguarding partnership were actively engaged in doing inputs to health and social care students within their colleges, seeing it as an important task in preparing “the next generation” (EM) of professionals “on awareness of things look out for and how again to engage with the young people”(EM)

It was highlighted that being aware of exploitation is important, but it is also essential that people understand what to do with this information and how and where they can report any concerns and ensuring that there are key reporting tools that allow communities to feel safe in reporting. One safeguarding partnership area highlighted an example of best practice which used an online reporting tool making the process quick and safe.

“But we have an online reporting tool. So our corporate comms, put together a paragraph for me, and also looked at Facebook and our social media pages. So all our new developments and all our landlords, were able to send them this to say, for your new tenants, make them aware that, you know, if they’re sitting their flat at night, and they see something in the carpark, they can just get on go online and do it without, right, just do it right report intelligence, this is hard, especially if it’s happening on a regular basis”

SE3

The VCS noted examples whereby they offered awareness raising within schools to children, young people, parents and carers. They spoke about being available at school open evenings, parent’s evenings and delivering universal workshops to schools, in the form of assemblies and short-term sessions to raise awareness of CCE. It was noted that when this work in schools was coordinated from a commissioned service it not only provided consistency, but also an opportunity for follow on work should any young people be identified as being at risk of exploitation.

Other examples of work in schools included the power of using drama and role-play in educating young people around CCE. Talks and workshops from people with lived experience were also thought to be useful in bringing the issue to life. Utilising drama and lived experience without using ‘shock tactics’. This was seen as important in ensuring county lines and violence was not glamorised and young people with experience of CCE were not re-traumatised. Stakeholders agreed that schools needed more support for teachers to have the time, confidence and support to recognise warning signs and intervene. It was suggested that whilst working in schools delivering awareness can be beneficial, it must be recognised that being made aware of potential risks is not necessarily enough to stop children and young people being exploited by adults, or to disrupt that exploitation process:

“If we can educate you to spot the signs again, it equips them with power and knowledge, which undermines complex networks of adults that will seek to exploit them. And we know that, again, the research would say after an assembly or after a lesson, children can tell you what they’ve learnt. And that’s a great way of evaluating education. It doesn’t mean that children are equipped with anything to counteract that power imbalance between adults and children that we haven’t changed by education. Education (alone) doesn’t change that”

VCS 2

13.4 Targeted support and diversion for families and YP

In addition to the sessions delivered within education, there were examples of targeted support for young people that are delivered from a variety of services including statutory agencies within police, health and social care, as well as the youth service and a multitude of VCS organisations. Most participants talked about the need to ensure that exploitation as a whole was considered when providing safeguarding support, as often victims are being exploited in multiple ways. However, it was argued there is a need for specialised CE support and the VCS discussed different projects that were required to provide appropriate support for different groups of victims. For example, it was noted that female victims may have specific circumstances and needs which must be considered, if the intervention is to be effective.

“I’ve witnessed a lot of support for males, but I think we need more gender specific support because, for instance, you have, we have male gangs, you’ve got female gangs you’ve got females involved in CSE, county lines themselves, but as a female, we have different concerns, different issues. And I don’t think, as I mentioned and I will say, you can’t have a one size fits all”

VCS 23

It was felt that there were challenges around time-restricted interventions and stakeholders acknowledged that it could take a lot longer than a 6-week programme, for example, to build a trusted relationship with a young person, and for them to become accepting of support. This was also highlighted in terms of any support provided, that it requires flexibility, that time and care needs to be established and services need to be consistent in that child’s life and outcomes may not be immediate. The importance of this was also stressed when working with children who do not understand or are not ready to acknowledge that they are or have been groomed. Whilst building that relationship, stakeholders discussed the different strategies they used to put a young person at ease and make them feel safe. For example, working with the young person to identify the best place to meet them for appointments, acknowledging that parking outside their home can make it clear to others (including perpetrators) that they are open to services.

When a child has been assessed as at risk for exploitation there are provisions in place for support involving one to one direct work for the young people which can take the form of targeted youth workers that are integrated into the local authority through early help and edge of care services. Also, in some safeguarding partnerships there are youth workers running specific projects within the VCS who can manage a caseload of young people. There is no time limit with some VCS projects for working with children and young people, however, resources are limited and funding is often short-term and there can be ‘waiting lists’. There were examples of detached youth workers and although many partnerships identified these roles as being crucial in responding to risk or child exploitation, there is a substantial reduction in provision due to cuts in funding.

Referrals can be made to specialist agencies for support such as CAMHS. In some areas CAMHS were seen as ‘making substantial improvements’ to their services regarding joint pathways with drugs and alcohol services and flexibility is accessing the service to ensure smoother transitions between services. There is also meaningful signposting which is followed up to confirm that the young person arrives at that destination of another agency and explores if they did not.

Other specialised support can include referrals to drugs and alcohol services who offer one to one support for those young people struggling with substance use but best practice examples of some specialist VCS organisations also offer a service to children whose parents have issues around substance misuse. They are also keen to work with professionals to provide advice and support in instances where a young person does not want a referral, but who is having issues around drugs and substances. A small, but innovative project facilitated by a drugs and alcohol service worked with both children and parents and included sessions for families to communicate and rebuild relationships including incidents were there has been parental substance use. This was seen as a positive movement an approach that was being explored across other SPs that engaged in the evaluation.

Best practice highlighted by a number of partnerships discussed early intervention projects involving the police and VCS organisations who identified young people who may be on the cusp of becoming criminally exploited and carried out direct work over a number of 6 to 8 weeks with the young person and the family, in raising awareness and emotional and mediation support. Within some police forces there were youth intervention workers offered direct one-to-one work with young people at a critical moments such as repeat missing. This support encouraged engagement in positive activities such as sports and also chatting through their issues alongside this activity. Other examples of good practice included focussing support at another critical moment, when being found with drugs and subsequently being offered specific support.

“So we need to get that diversion stuff right. [The police] are doing a scheme where you get caught with drugs, you got on a diversion programme if you want to. No charge no record, doesn’t matter how many times you have had drugs before, it’s a bit like a speed awareness thing. Could we do that? I don’t know, but that’s how you tackle the drug problem, you don’t stop it being a money spinner or eradicate criminality around it, obviously. But there are things that we can do”

BTP

Although the majority of support was offered to children and young people, some areas utilised diversion schemes for those aged over 18 years and recognised the lack of alternative support and interventions for those over 18. One SP discussed a diversion project for those aged 18 and over who were arrested for an acquisitive offence that carries three years or less as a custodial sentence. The diversion and support scheme requires the young adult to work with a lived experience consultant for 4 months completing 2 mandatory action plans, with 2 additional needs-based actions. On completion of this they would receive a conditional caution for their offence avoiding sentencing and possible prison.

It was acknowledged that there are some efforts to work with the whole family, such as early help who work with parents and offer parenting videos and courses working with the young person and alongside the family. In some partnerships it was reported that there are family therapists within the local authority who can work with the whole family, again, this was not mentioned in many safeguarding partnerships and was certainly seen as best practice. However, issues with thresholds and high demand were still seen as problems in some areas that were engaged in this.

“We offer psychologically informed interventions like video interaction, guidance and functional family therapy to rebuild and strengthen family relationships. So again. So there’s something about our service has an ethos of trying to take the whole family approach for all types of harm”

SW

However, in general, it was acknowledged that there is gap for increasing support to parents and carers whose children are victims of exploitation. Rather than feeling supported, it was felt that parents can feel blamed and ‘told off’ by the statutory services and that they are responsible for not ensuring their child is protected. Yet, parents were described as the “forgotten victims of exploitation” (VCS 24). Moreover, in addition to the source of exploitation and harm coming from outside the home and the fact that often parents are seen as a protective factor for their children, it was acknowledged by one safeguarding partnership that parents may need their own support to deal with their own trauma. Only one safeguarding partnership mentioned they had this firmly in place, with others recognising as a gap and on their plans going forward.

“it’s really about the unmet needs of parents and carers and the you know, how do parents who are unable to provide adequate or good quality care and guidance to their children because they’re blocked themselves by their own experiences of trauma and abuse, and that’s on a national level, that’s something which I think isn’t really spoken about enough”

SW

It is clear there is a lot of effort being invested into helping to support children and young people who are victims of exploitation but there is more to do to ensure consistency geographically across the country and consistency in access to appropriate support for all victims if exploitation. It was noted that amongst our efforts to support young people who have been exploited, we must also look to how we provide long-term support to young people to enable them to recover from the trauma and devastation that has resulted from being exploited by county lines and serious violence.

“I don’t think it is much done around recovery for victims around county lines. What does a good recovery pathway or trajectory look like”

VCS 2

Question 14

14. Theme 10: National Referral Mechanism (NRM)

Accepted Answer

The National Referral Mechanism (NRM) was a key area of frustration for many participants. It was clear that as part of their processes and linking in with the Single Competent Authority (SCA), the NRM is an essential part of the process to dually safeguard the young person being exploited, but also ensure the exploitation is investigated. However, there were a number of issues relating to this process, with the main one being centred on the question of “what is the purpose of the NRM?” with an urgent need to make the NRM “meaningful” (BTP):

“It’s still just a form going into the system, what then happens when we when we get that child back to wherever they’re living with what we’re talking about, you know, the short, medium and long term impacts of that child? And I think that’s where everything falls apart. Maybe so making the NRM meaningful again and making sure that that is the support in place at the right time to do so, that diversionary work”

BTP

One partner thought that the NRM had been “poorly thought out” and referred to the findings in the review undertaken by Dame Sarah Thornton, and others described the guidance as “poor”, although it was acknowledged that the guidance was improving. Time delays with the administration of the NRM were also flagged with some stating “we’ve still got some a year over” (BTP), with awareness that the “system is overburdened” with support available “really patchy” (BTP).

14.1 Understanding of NRM and processes

For those partners who were knowledgeable about the NRM process (most were aware, but only those in more specialist teams and meetings could speak confidently about it), they raised issues regarding the lack of awareness of what the NRM process is. Stakeholders agreed that there was ‘worryingly’ limited awareness and a need for more knowledge and awareness around the NRM would be useful for wider partners. It was stated that some practitioners “think we’re going to send our (NRM) referral and then resources are going to rain down for that young person. They are always really disappointed when I’m like, no, it’s not about additional resources. It’s about providing the evidence to maybe alter their course through the criminal justice route or wherever else they go in” (SE2).

The NRM process and recent guidance from the National County Lines Coordination Centre (NCLCC) states this should be a multi-agency decision. How much of a multi-agency decision this was across safeguarding partnerships was very mixed, with often the police seen as taking the lead, with some good practice either using the police alongside a member of their targeted CE team. Other processes placed this within their MACE or pre-MACE to ensure should a young person get to court, that they are recognised as a victim:

“If a child is charged, it’s sentencing options I’m thinking of, further down the line, as opposed to they would get support to the NRM on that basis because the safeguarding kicks in locally and that’s where the support will be put in place, but if and when things go to court. I want to see less perpetrators and more victims”

SW

However, the reality of trying to take a multi-agency approach to the NRM was seen to be more difficult in practice. Currently, the status quo in most safeguarding partnerships, seems to be that most child victims of county lines will be routinely encouraged to fill out the NRM and will be treated primarily as victims. With many partners raising conflicts between social care and defence solicitors pushing for NRM, when police are still looking for disclosures from the young person. Some police officers, for example, viewed the genuine nature of their victimisation with cynicism, if the victim refuses any offer of assistance or diversion activity. One police representative was firm in their view that:

“You shouldn’t be able to claim NRM that you’ve been a victim, but then not disclose any information to support it, because otherwise we can’t tackle it if we don’t know how you’ve been exploited and how we can tackle that network”

(EM)

“When you’ve got a gang member who has got a history of violence, and drug supply convictions, how is it they’re using that as a defence? “I was exploited”. So the initial question you ask is, okay, by whom and how? No comment, no comment. That should be the end of that defence, in my opinion, you can’t just say, I’m using this defence and then not give us anything to follow up on and that’s what happens”

SE2

Respondents also picked up a wider gendered norm with NRM and safeguarding proceedings which are more likely to classify girls automatically as victims of exploitation but not boys. A pertinent example of this, is NRM conclusive grounds decisions being evidence enough to discontinue a prosecution in relation to a female victim, but not a male victim.

14.2 Seeing the NRM as ‘safeguarding’ the young person

One partner highlighted the importance of not allowing a referral mechanism to allow professionals to see it as a solution and that their work is complete, leaving the potential for responsibility to shift and gaps to appear. There was emphasis for those partners knowledgeable on the NRM that it was ‘just’ a reporting mechanism. Many did agreed that the NRM was useful in identifying the young person as victim within the criminal justice system process, but acknowledged that “it doesn’t replace a standard safeguarding response” (SE1). Highlighting that if they are not already receiving this safeguarding support, the NRM should instigate this and steps should be put in place. Stakeholders acknowledged that it is this support that works towards preventing a ‘revolving door’ and repeat offences. The biggest concern furthered this point, in that the NRM often stops people considering the here and now of that child in waiting for a “conclusive grounds” return, with this linked to the time waiting for a return. This raised questions, again, about the purpose of NRMs aside for “flagging numbers for central government” (SE1).

However, some safeguarding partnerships held the view that because the multiagency relationships and support are so effective, the need for the NRM is not there, as the package of support is already happening proactively on the ground. They stated that they “don’t have to use that if that makes sense” (SW). Furthering this, BTP and some safeguarding partnerships were keen to ensure that despite the issues with the NRM, there was a position within the team that the safeguarding work gets done outside of the NRM process or outcome.

“Don’t think any one of my cops would be waiting for a positive response back from the single competent authority to understand that this child is vulnerable”

BTP

Linked to the NRM process and view of safeguarding, much confusion seemed to arise regarding the owners of the investigation side of the county lines exploitation. Many raised concerns that more work was needed in investigating and understanding perpetrators and how they operate to better protect young people and make it more difficult for perpetrators to exploit young people. This became extremely problematic when the county lines exploitation crossed police force boundaries. Issues were raised regarding the crime being raised as per the Home Office Counting rules, with some forces apparently not following this guidance, recording this as a “non-crime report”. This subsequently allows the investigation side to “slip down the cracks between an NRM submitted by a force in (area) for a (area) based kid, it falls down at the transfer into (area). But it’s not just that area that has the problem. Yeah, it’s supposed to happen and it doesn’t” (BTP).

< redacted > Furthermore, due to the issues in which Home Office force area takes responsibility that often results in the lack of investigation into the exploitation, this then causes problems in processing section 45 defence in court. The example below shows the issues with this possibly resulting in a young person being continuously exploited and not dealt with due to the conclusive grounds NRM (identifying them as a victim), but due to the lack of investigation in disrupting the exploiters, his cycle of exploitation continues.

“And then it undermines the reason around the NRM around the s45 defence. The whole point of the s45 it is an entirely justifiable. Provided that exploitation is investigated. The misuse of the 45 comes about because the defence is not investigated. < redacted >”

BTP

Another issue, picked up nationally by HMICFRSC (2020) and articulated by several respondents was an awareness that those recruiting the children coached children “it is business training” (London1) to present as victims of trafficking/modern day slavery when caught so they could avoid being sentenced. The Modern Slavery Act provides specific defences (under Section 45), which assist those who are forced into criminal acts, and the fact that serious and organised criminals were aware of this made it harder for practitioners. These sentiments are outlined below by a senior police practitioner in finding the balance of putting a message out that “they’re not going to get charged with anything as that’s going to increase the amount of children exploited on county lines” (London1). They questioned how the police are able to effectively respond in the right way, when the options are you either keep letting them off and exploiters think “fantastic” or we have to start increasing the criminalization of young people, stating “that’s not helpful either” (London1).

Question 15

15. Theme 11: Child-centred approach in theory, but not in practice

Accepted Answer

There was a clear consensus from all safeguarding partnerships that all children who are exploited are victims regardless of the form of child exploitation. However, at times there was a discrepancy in how organisational remit allowed this premise to be embedded into safeguarding practice.

“Exploitation illuminates some of the contradictions in the way we think about young people in our society as a whole”

SW

15.1 ‘It’s mucky”: offender, victim, or both?

As identified in the previous theme regarding the NRM process, the notion of a young person being viewed as both a victim and perpetrator was challenging and a source of contention with the safeguarding processes becoming much more “mucky” (EM).

All respondents were cognisant of the overlap between victim and perpetrator that is often found amongst participants in child criminal exploitation and county lines as well as grappling with the vexatious issue of agency. Overall, all agencies, including officers from the police service articulated that they would now treat children as victims first and there were examples of good practice around this area. The notion of treating children as victims first, has been reinforced by policy such as Child Centred Policing (see CYP strategy 2016 (npcc.police.uk)) and within Youth Justice Board’s new standards, to ensure those young people who offend are treated as a child first and an offender second. The shift within culture and practice admittedly takes time to adapt and some partners acknowledged the challenge for a service which traditionally has been focused on “banging people up” (London1). Whilst all respondents indicated that their organisations treated children and vulnerable adults as victims, they acknowledged that this was not always straightforward.

Due to the nature of county lines, it was seen as inevitable that some of those involved will be both perpetrators and victims, but it was considered very difficult ‘to pull apart’. It was noted that a young person can have multiple incidents within a short space of time, where they could be seen as either an offender, or a victim, but all behaviours a form of exploitation. This highlights the limitations potentially involved with focussing on the process of county lines, as opposed to seeing the wider behaviours within CCE. It was viewed that the narrower lens of county lines can detract from the coercion, control and manipulation, which occurs in the various guises of child exploitation and criminal activity.

“One minute you’ll see on any one day you’ll see them clearly as a victim. But then throughout that day, you’ll see them committing an offence. And so they’re constantly changing. But they’re doing that because of the coercion, threats or whatever grooming process has taken place to put them in that situation”

VCS10

Despite best intentions, there were clear frustrations present in the difference between theory and practice in how to respond to a young person as a victim and as a perpetrator, which were impacted upon by the differing priorities. For example, safeguarding and enforcement of services and the ability to engage young people in safeguarding interventions, as well as utilising disruption activities. It was suggested that it should not be about the young person being seen as one, or the other, evoking an assessment to decide which category a young person fits into, but that it was essentially around ‘managing a safeguarding situation’. Being able to have a contextual understanding of what was going on for the young person and understanding the realities of their situation, was considered important in order to identify why they may be adopting such behaviours and how they can best be supported.

Even before a young person may become involved in offending behaviour, there is confusion as to how accountable we see the young person for their actions and how far we seek to understand the cause of ‘challenging behaviour’. Stakeholders noted that within the school environment, at times there was concern that the immediate behaviour of young people can be often punished, such as through exclusion, without assessing and addressing the unmet need that this behaviour is communicating or the trauma that a young person may be experiencing.

“Reinforcing that that child’s to blame over and over and over, and then they might ring the parent child been in exclusion again today so the parent blaming, well no, you’re this huge organisation with all this power, however, you’re pushing this child away as opposed to sort of giving them that TLC that they need and clearly crying out for them”

VCS 12

This challenge around a viewing someone as a victim as well as offending behaviour is not a new concept, with one partner discussing the similarities for victims of domestic abuse and how we may arguably appear to have more compassionate understanding for victims of domestic abuse than we do of CCE. This again may reflect the differences specifically in how we view forms of CCE, in that professionals find it much harder to see the coercive and controlling behaviour (as legislated within domestic abuse and CSE) when the offence (often drug possession and dealing) is clearly evidenced in front of them.

“Often a domestic violence victim is also the perpetrator of an offence against, you know, potentially her children who she hasn’t protected or something’s happened. You don’t decide she’s a perpetrator and, not a victim as soon as that crime is committed, she’s both”

SE1

This difference in approach and view of accountability was also highlighted from a VCS organisation who noted that we do not put the blame on the victim of domestic abuse, we challenge the perpetrator.

“Domestic abuse for example, we don’t say - if only she had got the dinner on the table sooner, I know what we should do, we should teach her to manage her time better”

VCS 21

It was noted that the balance of accepting that a young person is a victim as well as an offender, can result in one course of action over another. BTP commented on the reluctance and challenge of engaging in dual processes (investigative for any offences as well as safeguarding processes) in trying to manage the risk was also challenging in joint decision making with partners. The idea of ‘holding your nerve’ in decision making whilst a young person was in custody certainly is a key factor. The balance between keeping a young person in a cell for any amount of time is no doubt an uncomfortable situation for all professionals, but there was a recognition that releasing a young person potentially at further risk of harm was more dangerous. Taking time to completed joint meetings with key professionals, alongside gathering intelligence was seen as a priority for BTP and to not be so caught up in the process of whether that young person was an offender. Priority should be identifying and managing any safeguarding concerns.

“But we’ve turned around and said that where you have that safeguarding concerns, keeping them in the cell overnight night is the safest place while you give the professionals the time to work out what the plan is”

BTP

The VCS as part of their commissioned work, often delivered training to other professionals and it was felt that this training is having an impact upon practice and that there is progress being made to understand the fuller picture of a young person’s situation and provide a more empathic response.

BTP noted that they were making positive steps forward and shifting their response to allow for a dual approach to the young person; with the child seen as a victim from the very start that drives all processes, including investigative, going forward.

And if you start thinking at that point, that this child in front of me is potentially a victim, despite the fact that there are elements of criminality here. Then that will inform your approach to that to that child or vulnerable adult and will inform how you and when you engage with the multi-agencies, it will inform everything. So our real focus is always think potential victim first. Always. And look for what’s there, or perhaps what is under the surface” BTP

Safeguarding partnerships also commented on this ability to complete dual investigative and safeguarding processes, in that an arrest may happen, but that does not necessarily indicate that a legal process will follow. However, regardless of the pathway the “vulnerability and safeguarding should work alongside that” (SE1). By not allowing dual processes and often the necessary pause in custody for professionals to meet with the young person and for joint multi-agency discussion to be conducted. An example by a partner saw this resulting in a young person arrested 7 times in 9 months and released each time before meeting with his social worker, due to concerns around keeping him in custody. Some safeguarding partnerships in recognising this gap had invested in diversion schemes using VCS and lived experience workers to try and bridge this gap.

“Basically every time anybody arrested him, they didn’t keep him in, they would let him go. But often to do the right thing, as police officers and give him a lift home. But he had never met with the professionals because they would always come a day or 2 days later, by that point he has gone again. By the time we caught this kid he had never seen a social worker, who had been allocated a social worker for 9 months. He’d been arrested 7 times. He had never seen social worker because every time she turned up his address to have a chat with him and to meet him, he was out running drugs”

BTP

Individual organisational pressures on this issue were seen to be short-sighted in how pauses in these uncomfortable moments, may have longer term benefits not only in safeguarding the young person in front of them, but also considering the exploiters and further victims.

It was highlighted that criminalising a young person is done as a last resort and was acknowledged that criminalising their behaviour and treating them as a perpetrator has long-term impacts. In some instances, however, where numerous statutory interventions have had no impact upon offending behaviour, and the young person is a risk to themselves and others, it was felt that there was no option and that this action in itself was seen as a form of safeguarding. One stakeholder did, however, suggest that there needed to be properly funded diversionary activities and money/funding for youth. However, when young people become the groomers of other children, this further complicates the response.

“If you are a young person who has been groomed, exploited and then moved up in the in the chain. And then you become a recruiter. So you are you then become an exploiter of younger children, which we have we’ve had, which is why we’ve issued CAWNS in some senses, because we had, we have a 16-year old, who we work with who is well known and who is open to YOS, who’s open to children’s services. But he has been recruiting younger children. So we have him as both a victim because he has been substantially exploited himself. But he’s now exploiting others. So we’ve issued CAWNS against him”

SE1

15.2 Transitional safeguarding

There was a clear view by all partnerships that the landscape changes for a young person when they reach 18 and become an adult legally. Alongside a change in service provision, participants noted a change in how we view young adults and perhaps view them as more in control of their own behaviour, when in reality nothing has changed in their situation, or levels or risk and need.

“We still don’t see our elder children as victims. We certainly see them as a shady characters”

SW

The view of accountability that we hold for our children and young people follows a clear chronological pattern. When a young person transitions from 17 years of age to 18, there is arguably a shift in our safeguarding response which is echoed in policy, legislation and service thresholds. Yet, this chronological age rarely is an indicator in assessing need and support of services, particularly for victims of exploitation. A partner accurately highlighted this “as Boris would say, it’s about data, not dates” (SE1).

“While they might be 18 chronologically, where are they developmentally? And thinking about that in that transition. All our services are based on age, age led. But we know with exploitation, particularly, it’s those children that aren’t chronologically their age, that are the most vulnerable”

SW

To mitigate these challenges, transitional safeguarding was seen as very important but an area that does not always work well across partnerships. A gap in support was identified for some services where a young person turns 18 and is no longer able to engage with children’s services and the level of statutory involvement decreases/is removed. This was evident in both social care and health and one health partner observed that young people are aware that their support will stop or reduce at 18 and that a young person can start to deteriorate. Although attempts were made to support transition it was not considered to be an easy transition, for example, where adults are identified as having vulnerabilities, but they do not meet the thresholds for intervention. Partnerships did recognise this gap with plans to develop specific adolescent teams and in some areas these teams are already in place (see Theme 5 – MACE).

In addition, it was identified that adult services may be missing in terms of representation from the multi-agency perspective. Good practice was evident in one partnership whereby their MACE went up to the age of 25 and had representation from adult children’s social care. Also, their adults safeguarding board had representatives from a local university. However, this was not the norm and access to wider support from other agencies and changes within criteria meant that support is limited after 18 years of age particularly within the statutory organisations regarding exploitation.

“And I think what frightens the charity sector is where there’s no statutory framework for adults. We get left holding the baby is not a baby anymore. So how do we work in partnership with a statutory framework with those young adults?

VCS 21

Worryingly, even before a young person becomes 18 years old it was noted that services can be reluctant to support a young person as they will be 18 soon and VCS organisations noted that they had to challenge and advocate strongly for a young person to receive support that they were entitled to.

“I think as soon as they hit that 16 mark, it’s almost as though services wait until they turn 18 and little intervention is put in place because of that, because they’re adultifying the children, in essence”

VCS 11

15.3 Unconscious bias of professionals and adultification^{[footnote 10]}

As well as young people being viewed as more responsible for what happens to them the older they get, it was stated that this process of adultification was attributed more readily to certain groups of children and young people. It was noted that depending on the nature of exploitation and how young people come to the attention of services, can influence the safeguarding response. Participants spoke about concerns that a young person could be a victim of serious violence, yet it can result in a young person being judged or even being denied that victim status.

“I suppose the concerning pattern we’ve observed is that, in fact, young victims of violence, particularly black boys who have been stabbed or assaulted without weapons coming into hospital, will be treated with suspicion by the police, will be treated as though they are in a gang”

VCS 18

This potential subconscious bias can involve making assumptions around certain groups of young people, based on certain types of behaviour or characteristics such as race and can impact upon the safeguarding response offered to young people who are victims of exploitation. For example, if a mobile phone is taken from a young person after they have become known to police, is this action for the purpose of safeguarding and to search for evidence that they have been exploited, or is it to confirm involvement in criminal behaviour? The unconscious bias, although often unintended, can result in certain young people becoming more at risk as they can be less likely to be viewed as a victim by authorities, which can make them more vulnerable to perpetrators.

“How does the system respond to that child in the first instance, which either exacerbates their vulnerability or lessens it. We see completely different responses to young black men, for example, than like a young white person. And so and then that increases the level of vulnerability, an early intervention stage so that they’re more likely to be arrested because they’re stopped and searched and then they get arrested and then they get drugs confiscated from them. And then when they get drugs confiscated from them, they know the perpetrator, they owe the perpetrator money. So then they’re forced into further exploitation to pay that debt back. So things tend to get worse for certain groups of young people over other groups of young people”

VCS 15

It was noted that this unconscious bias contributes to a process of adultification^{[footnote 11]}, whereby children, and particularly some groups of children, are not afforded the position of being treated as a child and are, therefore, not always defined as vulnerable. This results in the safeguarding response not being as effective for some children as it may be for others.

“And so especially if you’re a child from a black or minorities group, you are less likely to be afforded that child protection view because of the adultfication around vulnerability and innocence as a concept”

VCS 10

15.4 Victim blaming language

Language was a key area which was highlighted as a potential barrier in responding to young people as victims and it was noted that it often demonstrated a lack of understanding of the young person’s situation, the risks they face and the potential ineffectiveness of support services when young people are under the control of perpetrators.

“Sometimes it’s a lack of recognition of the risks that they face. You know, if you’re offering me, say, a mental health intervention and you’re telling me that I have to go to this specific place once a week, and if I don’t turn up 3 times, then that’s it, I have to start again from the beginning. Now, if I’ve got groups of people around me who are exploiting me, to my knowledge or not, who are telling me that I’m going to be harmed or are harming me, that my priority is not going to be attending that appointment, or if I’ve got to travel through an area that I know is potentially at risk or places me at risk to get to that appointment then I’m not going to do it”

VCS 17

This lack of understanding of the young person’s situation is often interpreted using unhelpful language to describe the actions of young people such as ‘non-engagers’, ‘putting themselves at risk’, ‘uninterested’, which puts the responsibility onto the young person, without looking at the bigger picture and reasons for their behaviour. This language can emphasise that young people are to blame, or are making informed choices about their behaviour without considering the control, coercion and fear at play for young people being exploited.

“So our language is what we hear is often incredibly victim blaming about young people making a choice, living a lifestyle. How do we, you know, how do we compensate they’re earning so much money? What can we do? I’m like - No, these children are not earning money. They’re not. This isn’t a side hustle on the ground. This is abuse”

VCS 21

“It’s very challenge led, we have very challenging conversations, particularly about the language and sometimes that is used between different services. That it’s a real bugbear of mine, but in a changing culture is again, a massive thing”

EM

It was suggested that part of the issue is that children and young people themselves do not consider themselves to be a victim, particularly at the initial stages of exploitation due to the way in which they have been groomed and manipulated. Therefore, they may not act like a ‘typical’ victim. When the reality is that what they are involved in is incredibly dangerous and often by the time they realise this, it is very difficult to escape. Respondents often reflected on the fear experienced by young people that then further “entrenches them” making them “hard to reach” (London1).

“Mixed race female (aged 16) whose mum had been and was in a DV (domestic violence) relationship, and she announced (on social media) she was a recruiter for these county lines people but actually she was just an extremely young person who was taken advantage of……. who was sleeping with these people, getting STD’s and plugging drugs”

London1

15.5 Learning from ‘scandals’ within CSE

There were questions raised around the safeguarding response to different types of exploitation and the overlap of these. The parallels between CCE and sexual abuse were flagged, in terms of ‘stuffing/plugging’ being a form of sexual abuse, and also noting threats of rape and sexual violence. Participants reported that perpetrators who exploit children use the same vulnerability factors for both CCE and CSE. Stakeholders agreed that professionals and the wider public now have a better understanding and awareness of the definition and impacts of CSE. They acknowledged that the CSE definition is more accepted than CCE because it has been around longer and has been more widely publicised. They cited highly publicised cases, and how lessons had been learnt of late, explaining that mistakes should not be repeated with CCE.

“I think we’ve had more understanding CSE. It’s very much. It’s been put in a public forum with like documentaries and dramas and things like that. So your general public can understand it and are horrified with what sexual exploitation is, I think county lines, the children are not seen as victims a lot of the time. And I think even some professionals still struggling with that. When we know from, you know, logics around victim blaming language, and people still talk about, and these children are still getting prosecuted, and still ended up, you know, remanded to custody”

NW

By thematically focussing strategies, meetings and resources and funding, moving from one form of exploitation to another, this ignores the similar risk factors and vulnerabilities across all and just allows us to “lurch from one wicked issue to another” (EM) and failing to learn from these experiences. This was also seen as being encouraged when certain forms of exploitation became the new ‘hot topic’ which became the focus of attention from government through to services. Although it was seen as a great move to have a focus on county lines, there was concern that this was being too directed in resources and funding and potentially missing wider forms of exploitation.

“Perhaps, as with anything when you start to really kind of label or focus on something. And that’s where the money goes. As we as we’ve seen over the past few years, there’s more and more money available for county lines exploitation, which is brilliant in as much as its really shining a light on this issue. And it means there’s a lot of resources available. But actually what is falling off the radar as a result”

BTP

Question 16

16. Theme 12: Impact of COVID-19

Accepted Answer

All 9 areas described the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of the impact on the nature and trends of county lines related CE, the increased vulnerabilities of young people, and also the impact on the partnerships’ response. Safeguarding partnership provided examples of the work undertaken to adhere to lockdown and social distancing measures to maintain engagement with young people and reduce risk of CE.

16.1 Changes in drugs demand and county lines trends

It was agreed that the drugs demand had not changed as a result of the pandemic. A number of partners explained how drug prices had initially increased during the first lockdown but were now back to usual price, and the demand and market for drugs was still very much there during the pandemic. Many reported that recreational drug users were also driving the drugs economy, and stakeholders also reported an increase in emerging local independent drug markets within areas.

“It’s (County Lines) carried on, obviously, the drugs trade can’t stop, they haven’t been furloughed”

BTP

There was clear acknowledgement across all areas that COVID-19 had not stopped county lines activity. The pandemic was seen to make it easier to identify exploitation and also community tensions and incidence because people were more visible, especially during the first lockdown and the tighter restrictions. Throughout the lockdowns it was considered that it was almost ‘business as usual’ for county lines gangs, with COVID-19 not deterring them ‘from doing what they wanted to do’.

The pandemic had made it easier to spot and disrupt activities, particularly on the train networks. With lower footfall, with the additional COVID-19 powers to stop and ask people why they were travelling, this was seen as benefit in being able to spot individuals they were specifically looking for, as well seeing any unusual activity.

“They are easier to spot. High speed train. It would have a thousand people a day. In April we had 10. One in 10 is very easy to spot compared to one in a 1,000. It’s as simple as that”

BTP

“We don’t have that movement of other people coming in from major cities. We did have, but essentially as soon as we saw the first lockdown came in. We saw a massive reduction in that. And then we saw our 14, 15, 16-year-olds who then took over the running the line and they were recruiting 11, 12, 13 year olds. So our children’s ages have gone down significantly (because of COVID-19) we just haven’t had that free movement of people coming backwards and forwards on the rail network”

SE1

Professionals were agreed that the pandemic had increased the risk factors of CE. They explained during the first national lockdown in March 2020, they had seen a decline in drug related crime and referrals to children’s social care at first, but how this had increased during the second lockdown at the end of 2020 and third lockdown in early 2021. The numbers of people going missing also reduced substantially, and it was felt that those on the periphery of criminal activity were not as likely to take risks when they were more conspicuous during the pandemic. However, there were concerns that was because CE had been driven more underground, the use of online grooming was noted here.

“At the beginning of the first lock down, our young people going missing significantly dropped. We thought, okay, well, that’s really positive, isn’t it? And our intelligence around exploitation kind of dropped, and we thought, well, that’s really good, isn’t it? You know, but actually, it wasn’t, it just went underground, because kids weren’t being transported and, and trains and stuff like that. So it was much more undercover, which meant it was actually harder to get down underneath it. So just being mindful of that…I think one of the areas that has increased is that kind of online kind of communication that’s happening with young people and that kind of ever present capacity to communicate with young people online. The pressure that that places them under is immense”

SE1

“We’ve seen it sort of via social media for Instagram, Snapchat, just that whole grooming process, but with lockdown we’ve also seen that that grooming process has actually become much easier for exploiters”

SE2

16.2 Adaptive model of county lines

Some participants discussed how OCGs had adapted their business model to work around the restrictions of the pandemic and lockdown measures, and were still very much present, making money and continuing to exploit young people. Stakeholders reported the increase in ‘clean skins’ of young people not known to services. There was a question whether any of the potential changes noted during COVID-19 were actually related to changes in tactics by county lines exploiters, or whether these were characteristics of county lines that had always been there, but not as visible, and whether they were adapting business models in relation to police tactics as well as the pandemic.

“They were targeting more vulnerable young people but it’s become much wider than that it’s children that wouldn’t necessarily be flagged as at risk. It’s a business model. You know how gangs are operate, and they may have had to change things slightly, but they still operated on, they’re still kids on the streets. COVID-19 has not stopped any of that”

SE3

Due to much schooling being online, there were huge variances in how schools delivered and monitored engagement of children being home schooled, in addition to families being overwhelmed with lockdown restrictions within their homes, allowing their children to go out during the day, this resulted in a gap of these young people able to deliver and maintain their role within the county line. There was concern that these “blurred boundaries” of county lines activities and localised drug running posed greater risk of serious violence as COVID-19 restrictions ease creating violence in re-establishing these geographical boundaries.

“We’ve seen that the activity of actually moving drugs around is taking place in the daytime rather than the night so that young people aren’t reported missing. Clever. Very clever. We’ve noticed that. The kids are not missing if they are out on their bike in the day are they?”

EM

“Those boundaries initially, those geographical boundaries became a lot more blurred. So people were able to travel to areas to sell drugs or to expand their county lines operations and continue their exploitation because people weren’t out and about as much, maybe some of the escalations in violence, now we’ll be seeing from repercussions for the boundaries being blurred”

BTP

Various adaptations were mentioned such as moving drugs during the day rather than at night. This was seen as a clever way to avoid young people being reported as “missing” and potentially flagged by services. County lines was described as a ‘place-based issue’ with young people usually using public transport such as trains and buses to move about between/within areas. In response to the increased visibility of county lines on trains, it seems that exploiters changed key transport methods, with this change more prevalent within the more recent lockdown (December 2020 onwards) with movements using trains and coaches to private vehicles, taxi’s and rideshare and increased use of adults and weapons. But also, those that were still using the train network, getting off at stops earlier than their final destination, and using stations with lower footfall (less city stations). During the lockdown, however, trains were being checked by the BTP and therefore gangs were seen so to be adapting their models to take into account policing activities and going by private car or taxi and carrying less cash and drugs using a ‘Deliveroo’ style method, so if caught it would be more about possession than dealing.

“Some of the groups are almost adopted, like ‘Deliveroo’ drugs service, which is which again means they’re going to carry a certain amount of commodities if they are stopped generally straight for possession. They are reloading after getting rid of that. Somebody else usually appear on a bike or in a vehicle, reload the supplier then off they go again… so it makes actually that disrupting and enforcement very, very difficult”

EM

< redacted >

Along with the increased use of private vehicles, this also indicated that rather than solo runners using the train networks, these private vehicles tended to have increased number of members of the line in the vehicle. This was recognised as a risk of increased violence occurring. There was an obvious increase in the use of technology raised. This reflected on how the world has moved their businesses to online, with the county lines business world being no different.

16.3 Increase in vulnerabilities and violence

Respondents agreed that the impact of the pandemic had increased vulnerabilities for many families and young people, which contributed to and further increased the risk factors of CE. This included mental health, emotional, social, financial, and academic impacts, as well as relationship breakdown within families.

The notion of ‘hidden’ children and young people have been exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19. In addition to children’s potential experience of losing family members, or friends to the disease and therefore dealing with grief, which in itself a risk factor to exploitation, the restrictive measures of being asked to stay at home and no access to schools has increased isolation and even sight of children. This isolation has led to an increase in risk which we may not even know about yet. Stakeholders reported that schools were seeing trauma for children who were not on radar before the pandemic. There is also an expectation that as we come out of lockdown there will be a huge influx of referrals and demand on services. Services which are already stretched.

As well as the immediate safeguarding challenges that the pandemic has had, there is also the longer impact on the economy such as fewer jobs and opportunities, which was a risk to exploitation even without the pandemic. The impact of unemployment and increased poverty was flagged as a significant impact for young people, their families and communities, and stakeholders reported an increase in poverty areas and the social divisions which accompany poverty.

“We’ve got quite a few kids who were recovered and have just been laid off. They’re not furloughed. Been laid off. That accounts for quite a large percentage of our young people. But the opportunities to come forward are very bleak”

SW

One area reported a surge in serious violence associated with county lines, suggesting this was linked to young people not being able to pay debts back and either being victims of violence or groomed to carry out violence against others. One safeguarding partnership mentioned that there was a protective factor against exploitation by county lines and serious violence from COVID-19, as it gave young people ‘breathing space’ and ‘distance’ from their exploitation/exploiters. But this certainly was a not a common experience amongst practitioners.

“Some of OCGs are actually starting to use some of the 15year olds to go in and enforce debts and actually cause people serious harm”

EM

“They were getting quite a bit of debt hanging underneath them. And I couldn’t, we couldn’t figure out how they were ever going to pay this debt off because you still weren’t able to go into supermarkets and run around and steal things. So anecdotally, we’re being told that some of the gang members are then offering incentives where they’ll say to 12 or 13 year old, well if you go and stab that individual over there I’ll take 200 pounds off your bill… So I’ve never experienced serious street based violence the way that we’re experiencing that at the moment…”

SE1

Impact on school engagement was also highlighted in terms of disrupted education, a disrupted routine, increased isolation, and reduced protective factors, which in turn increased risk factors. It was highlighted that many of the initial concerns around a young person would come from schools and that there was currently an anxiety around this with many students not being at school and teachers and other education professionals therefore not being able to have ‘eyes on’ the young people. The absence of young people from school was also seen to be resulting in young people potentially coming into services at a later point, leading to escalation in risk being almost immediate.

“A huge impact on that was the fact that kids just didn’t have eyes on anymore. They were at home. They weren’t going to school where teachers could see if something was amiss. Or if they didn’t turn up to school, which would have been a key thing, because unfortunately, them not engaging in home education was seen as a bit normal”

SE1

“Schools are our safeguarding gatekeepers for everything. And for some of those young people who have not been in school, what that means is that when they come through and hit our system, we are seeing them at a much later point”

SE1

Whilst many of the young people that professionals worked with (who were still engaging with education) would be eligible to attend as a vulnerable child (alongside the children of key workers), they noted how some were aware of this and did not want to attend school due to feeling stigmatised. The protective factors and safe space of school were highlighted as especially important. Participants expressed concern that vulnerable children have not been seen during lockdown, and the importance of promoting work so ‘not out of sight out of mind’.

One safeguarding partnership specifically recognised that exclusions are rising and particularly after COVID-19, the crucial importance of children remaining in school and puts a personal responsibility on schools to consider their safety. In response to rising exclusions and increased number of children being educated at home, this particular safeguarding partnership developed a multi-agency inclusion panel led by education and involving statutory and voluntary agencies to try and put support in place before children are excluded.

All participants expressed their concerns about the hidden harms during the pandemic, and uncertainty on the nature and scale of these harms, explaining that they expected to see a rise in referrals and young people in need of support as England starts to come out of lockdown. They expect to see a dramatic increase in referrals to social care. Services also expected increase in referrals related to domestic abuse and discussed this in terms of impacts of abuse within and external to the family home. Stakeholders also highlighted that a lot of work would be needed to ‘play catch up’ as part of the recovery moving forward. They believed that mental health services would play an important role in this, and that also a lot of work would need to be rebuilt in communities.

“The other the other big challenge at the moment is, is a lot of stuff behind closed doors, because we haven’t got as many people that are seeing stuff and reporting. So again, is there a big hidden load of risk out there that as soon as the pandemic finishes, we’re suddenly going to find, I don’t know, we’re trying to be as productive as we can. So we’re doing home visits, disruption visits, but it’s not perfect at the minute”

SE3

16.4 Barriers to delivery and adaptations to practitioner responses’

As lockdowns extended throughout 2020 and 2021, participants explained how this was difficult for staff to manage as young people were struggling with the restrictions; many young people had become bored and frustrated and were losing motivation.

Partners gave examples of paused and adapted services, and the impact of this for families and communities of not being able to engage the young people in more meaningful activities, with many services closed, or not accepting new referrals. The detrimental impact on the community was flagged, highlighting how a number of community programmes were unable to be delivered during the pandemic, however, the decline in community provision was also linked to reductions in funding.

“I think that’s something that it’s all the community services and stuff is that that I’ve really struggled, things like youth clubs, and they’ve obviously not been open. So I think we’ve had a huge loss, because obviously the work you do, and you’ve been able to continue face to face, but a lot of the source of the like the you know, like the activities and stuff to fill people’s time. That’s all gone”

NW

Stakeholders explained how the restrictions meant they could not support the young people in the ways they usually would. For example, a number of participants working directly with young people described the benefit of being able to take them for something to eat, or transport and introduce them to new them to activities. Explaining that many of these establishments were closed, and due to social distancing they were unable to travel in the same car (or if they did, this would be with the young person in the back of the car and wearing masks which created additional barriers).

“So none of our kids are sticking to COVID restrictions at all. And it’s been really difficult for the staff, they will lose, lose and their motivation, because we can’t do things with them. Sometimes taking them to McDonald’s that get them out of bed, and it’s your chance to engage with them”

NW

Stakeholders working directly with young people also explained that if there were issues at home and risks within the family, they would try to meet young people within school away from the family home, which had been hampered due to children not being in school. Examples were provided for the creative ways participants had engaged with young people, including meeting them for walks and in gardens, allowing for space away from home to talk more freely. This was linked to the importance of being able to spend time with young people to develop those trusted relationships and keep them engaged. Other examples included outdoor community activities and supporting families in other ways through the use of providing food and computer equipment in response to increased poverty and digital poverty. These approaches were described a child centred with the need the intention of keeping support consistent for young people.

“So staff are using PPE, social distancing and meeting them outside in the park, we have been able to maintain contract. So we’ve had to be really creative, because we know that you know, at this stage, many of them, they’re really vulnerable, and they’re lonely, isolated. So just offering those emotional support financial support, we’ve had to offer additional funding, IT support through whichever suits, we have been really flexible because obviously, we are in unprecedented time”

SE2

The majority of the respondents that worked with a caseload of young people, continued to work with them where possible on a face-to-face basis during the pandemic. This was possible for key workers where the young people were categorised as high risk. However, others did need to work remotely using online and telephone engagement.

The benefits for some areas included being able to utilise a number of different ways of engaging with the children, so not just relying on face-to-face contact. It was felt that this mix of engagement methods would sustain after COVID-restrictions were lifted as they had a positive impact upon the relationship between the professional and the young person.

“It’s like pulling teeth with some of the children. Now, we’ve gone on to social media platforms like WhatsApp and that kind of thing. They just seem to be a lot more happier to engage. They’re used to talking on the phone they’re a lot freer there, they’re a lot more open with you as well. So I think what we’re now learning, what’s come out as best practise, and I don’t we’ll never stop doing face to face. But I think we’ve got a really strong case to say we don’t need to do it every time we can do a bit of a mix and match…”

SE1

The majority of participants explained that young people need that face-to-face interaction and the importance this in being able to establish and build trusting relationships with them. They explained that face-to-face contact is essential when carrying out assessments as it enables them to observe body language, notice cues and identify risks that could otherwise be missed. They also noted that in many circumstances virtual work is not safe. Barriers such as access to computers, or young people with broken phones were also noted. As were the concerns about the increased risk of CE due the increased amount of time young people were spending online. Another partner explained that young people they work with are scared, but also paranoid when using online platforms, due to a fear of who can hear the conversation. They were also worried that young people may have viewed the limitations as lack of care and support.

“You have to have those face-to-face conversation, kids, they will not talk to you on the phone, they certainly don’t want to teams. And they don’t particularly want a phone call or video or WhatsApp message on that either. What they want is somebody to talk to you sit down with work with their anxiety… Because you can’t see what the child is doing. You’re not in control of the child’s emotional state. You can’t see us at the other end, and while her parents sat there in the room with the other side of the camera, watching what everything was going on. So there’s no privacy, there’s no confidentiality. We’ve had to carry on regardless and I think whereas some colleagues have really stepped down on doing face to face visits”

SE3

“I think it’s much easier for us to miss things when you’re not sort of sat in a room with that person. You can’t observe the body language or reactions and responses to the things that you’re saying, or if there are people around them. So things like where county lines are involved, even things like the fact that their phone is constantly ringing next to them that we wouldn’t notice. I think it becomes much easier to hide that vulnerability and harm when they’re not having consistent face to face contact with professionals”

SE2

Some participants describe the frustration of working alongside colleagues that were working from home, describing the barriers of not being able to have conversations across the office and share that softer intelligence, explaining that this hampered the partnership approach. A number of participants also discussed the barriers of being able to develop a team and the barriers of being able to understand the wellbeing and support needs of staff members when working remotely. Other described online meeting fatigue. Many of the stakeholders did however discuss the benefits of remote working, in terms of reduced travel and being able to gather more partners around a virtual table at multiagency meetings, which made partnership working more efficient for some.

“Professional people, we’re still human beings as well. So a lot of a lot of us have got children ourselves at home and we’ve got anxious wives mums and dads children and stuff like that. So you know, we have to risk assess everything. So although I’m still doing my job, I think COVID-19 has really hit us hard, harder than we probably think”

SE3

“We know that an awful lot of the local authorities have been working from home. You know, that that’s when you lost a lot of work in the community, I’d say that that needs to needs to be rebuilt”

SE3

Question 17

17. Theme 13: What is needed nationally to improve responses to county lines and serious youth violence?

Accepted Answer

Professionals were asked directly what changes they would like to see happen nationally to help improve multi-agency safeguarding responses to county lines exploitation and serious youth violence risk.

17.1 Statutory guidance on responses to CE

The need for statutory guidance was a key national recommendation. This related very much to Theme 10 around the dual investigative processes for trying to provide a safeguarding and also investigative approach. That this statutory guidance should speak to the practical recommendations required, and quite possibly reflect the strategy developed within BTP around evidencing decisions for young people with PWIS why a modern slavery investigation and NRM is not appropriate, with requirements of clear rationale and sign off for this. But importantly, what should be done to ensure that the investigation into the exploiters and the safeguarding of the young person in front of you is owned and actioned within the safeguarding partnership response. That this guidance should also be part of the amendments within Working Together going forward:

“We need an umbrella, there is so much crossover. Actually all we need to do is take three lines and put criminal exploitation, take out four lines and put CSE, take out 4 lines and put drugs and alcohol, same for MH, its semantics. it frustrated me. And I just wrote a report to the director and put we are really missing the point here that we need an umbrella strategy. We need to have one strategy that encompasses actual vulnerability with strands underneath it in relation to policy and practise and process with what action plan? Because actually, if you look at training model, a training model could cover all of adolescent risk, and that can be anything, it can be prevent, modern slavery, all those things. And actually they cross over”

EM

Appropriate and realistic policy and guidance was seen to be important at the national level, so that it can then be ‘cascaded to local level’. It was also suggested that there needs to be clear guidance around CCE and county lines (as there has been for CSE) to bring everything together in one place as county lines was currently covered across a number of statutory legislations. It was felt to be important that this was available so that agencies could understand national expectations around tackling exploitation and who is involved; and how this may then be translated in a ‘place-based’ way:

“So I am a firm believer that whilst you need to be able to work at a local level in a place-based way, there needs to be a kind of national expectation of what should and shouldn’t happen. And I think that’s missing around exploitation”

SE3

Furthering this was the notion of this not to be written in silo and to replicate the responsibilities of safeguarding across the criminal justice system and safeguarding system, recognising that only writing guidance for one part of the system causes issues throughout the system. Questions on this obviously raised the magnitude of this task in trying to engage all parts of the system:

“So, again, how do you engage the whole criminal justice system then as well as the safeguarding system? So what’s the goal of trying to achieve? So I think the guidance shouldn’t really sit in one place. it has to sit across both the criminal justice system and the safeguarding child protection system. And I think in an ideal world, so county lines is one thing, so not being too blinkered to just think about county lines its exploitation in its broader sense as well”

BTP

“So to provide a clear set of principles, guidance with some step through process that has to be followed, not necessarily a statutory requirement, but that it has to be done this way. A statutory guidance, I would suggest, part of Working Together may be, where you do have to, you know, maybe that starts with children. And I’m aware that’s going to have some challenge for 18- to 25-year-olds who are also victims. But got to start somewhere”

BTP

17.2 Legislation gap in exploitation: coercion and controlling of children

Regarding all types of exploitation, it was noted that there is a gap for disrupting perpetrator behaviour at that earlier stage of exploitation, during the grooming process and that the expectation is on supporting the victim to accept support rather than to stop the perpetrator and the exploitation and grooming process involving coercion and control:

“We really need to be talking about child exploitation as child exploitation and is a form of abuse of children that encompasses many overlapping elements. Talking about county lines as a model as part of that overarching exploitation, I can understand why it’s become kind of the synonymous term for criminal exploitation. But it is very much just, you know, it’s one model in a whole range of suite of ways of grooming and coercing children into awful, awful situations and experiences”

BTP

“We always talk about children being victims, even if they are perpetrators in some of their behaviours. At the end of the day, they were groomed. And if they’re doing this stuff now, it’s because quite often, they’re just being controlled to do it. And that’s what they’ve been shown, and this is what we’ve got to do. So they don’t really have much choice in, in some of these behaviours”

SE3

“How do you engage with them in a way which the legislation supports you and protects you?”

London2

17.3 County lines investigations – who is investigating the exploiters?

As highlighted at various points within the analysis, stakeholders stated that a lot is now known about the risk factors for county lines and CE in general, and multiagency working allowing for the development of intelligence and professionals are more aware of who the children at risk are. Interventions can be put into place to build protective factors and resilience and reduce risk, however, the emphasis is on the child, and less is known about perpetrators. They explained that the approach needs to place responsibility on the perpetrator. This participant explained how perpetrators are ‘2 steps ahead’ and stressed that more work is needed to understand perpetrators and how they operate to better protect young people and make it more difficult for perpetrators to exploit young people:

“It adapts … all the agencies are two steps behind”

NW

“Every single kid is vulnerable to this, if there’s perpetrator to target. And that’s why we need to focus our efforts around identifying them and understand them better and how they target kids how to groom them, how they pull them in. And how we as professionals can respond to that, from a whole systems approach, rather than to just as a stick and plaster on kids, it’s not going to solve the problem, because we’ve got an endless supply of children. And unless we target the perpetrators, they’re just going to keep getting more of them through. The risk assessments all focused on what’s going wrong in the child’s life? As opposed to you know, who’s targeted them? Where, how, and how’s that affected them?”

NW

Making it “unattractive” to exploiters

This whole system approach was deemed particularly important when considering how to disrupt county lines exploiters by making the activity more “unattractive” with regards to the use of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, how and where they are placed within prisons (alongside the view of being placed on a child offending wing), in addition to the restrictions placed on them post release. Again, questions about who and how issues such as managing the modern-day slavery restriction orders where seen as unknown, showing the need for a more whole system approach to county lines is needed:

“Think the drive around it and making it just visible everywhere make to make it difficult for those trying to perpetrate it to you know, to really that disruption, I think, is such a key thing in terms of just making it as difficult as possible for them to get into the you know, to get to those people”

SW

“Even some of the things about making it more unattractive. So if you put this new restriction orders just for example, where people are sent to prison, treating it like a child an offence against children, treating as the old schedule 1 offences, having that sort of status to it. Are those restrictions going to be managed by MAPPA process? Who’s going to manage those modern slavery restriction orders and processes? I have really have not heard an answer to that, so taking that whole system look and whole system solution, not just doing that piecemeal approach, which we tend to be very good at”.

BTP

17.4 Adolescent and young person service pathway and training gap

From various individuals across the agencies, there was mention of a need and gap in terms of adolescent development services, awareness and training, particularly for children’s social care. It was suggested that much of the training and skills seem to be on familial and younger children with problems connecting with adolescent aged children. The need for training in this area was specifically mentioned, but this was also inferred in comments such as the language used by children’s social workers with young people, their lack of understanding around the work required to make connections with these young people – that result in cases being closed after a few attempts at engagement. Although this was mentioned as a local training need, it is also something that has been reflected nationally and was asked as a national recommendation.

“But there’s no mandatory adolescent development training and that’s really key for me because the brain changes”

EM

This was furthered by recommendations on guidance needed about what should be in place within the safeguarding partnership that allows oversight and transitions between adults and children social care, with a recognition that current assessments within adult social care do not assess, identify or respond to criminal exploitation as a threshold for any support or intervention.

“I think we’ve got a lot of work to do around adult transition. And kind of supporting that young person through into adulthood. You know, it shouldn’t be they actually they hit 18 that they got no support anymore. All you want your own. You know, I’m not saying that that’s what happens locally, but I do think there is some work to do in terms of really ensuring that there’s a smooth transition for young people into adult services and how that support carries on for young people. And so, yeah, I would like that. If I had another magic wand, I’d want to make sure that every single young person that that, you know, hits 18 have that transition from children’s services to adult services, really”

EM

17.5 Investment in universal, identification of unmet needs

It was noted that many risk factors are observed at a much earlier levels and that a presentation of child, young person or family unmet need, if left unsupported, can develop into a later risk factor for exploitation. Providing timely support by investing in universal services to be able to identify these early behavioural changes and having both the skill set and resource to be able to appropriately support young people and their families was seen as key. Many professionals across safeguarding partnerships and VCS stated there is an ‘urgent need’ to stop short-term targeted funding and invest in these universal services (such as education and health visitors) to identify and support unmet needs before crisis. This echoed the child-centred approach in recognising that “children are our future” with a “hamster wheel of those offending” (EM) never being seen before they hit crisis.

“Instead of all these funds, why not do we bolster the police, bolster social care, bolster teaching, and bolster mental health? How many rehab centres are there for children aged 16 in the country? None. How many centres are there for children under the age of 16 for rehab, for mental health? None. Do you treat mental health first or alcoholism, treat them in tandem with each other? So many frustrations that we are we are led by people who work in offices with no doors and windows, who have no reality in relation to vulnerability”

EM

“We’ve got a kid like the girl who was trafficked, you have an IQ of 57. Well, when we spoke to her mom, her mom was probably the lower ability than she was. And her mom was, I think, 36 and her dad was 90. So obviously mom had been exploited herself. And, you know, I mean, there was all these factors that that wasn’t a very protective factor. But, you know, if she had been assessed when she was three or four, we would have known that”

EM

It was noted that nationally there needs to be an injection into funding for families generally, as exploitation is due to a wide range of factors including poverty. Reflecting on experiences through COVID-19, it was also seen that many vulnerable families have been further adversely affected. This was particularly noted in the ever-increasing lack of opportunities for young people, with partners stating investment in detached youth workers, community space alongside activities and skills/employment opportunities were needed.

“Does need to be more investment in youth and youth, work in venues and safe places to go do activities”

VCS 1

“Lack of meaningful employment, lack of ability to get to places to go, public transport systems going into the centres where there are lots of stuff because it’s hard to access”

SW

Linked to the need for increased universal funding, it was highlighted at a local and national level that there may be a perception of need based upon the current picture around CCE and county lines in their area, which has in the past led to funding being declined. That funding is based on crisis areas and themes too, with areas provided with additional funding support once they enter into a top rank of problem areas. It was noted that by this time aspects may have escalated to intervention rather than prevention level. Lack of funding at the outset, may also limit opportunities to carry out preventative work around county lines:

“…at one stage, we were probably having a stabbing about once every 48 hours in (area), which is very, very unusual for us.…I think at one point we were in the top 20 to crime in the country for (area), which these aren’t statistics that we were ever proud of because we were always seen as the sleepy home county where nothing really happened….every time we put in a funding bid in the early days back in 2018, 2019, when county lines was exploding…they were saying ‘well, nothing really happens in (area) so we’ve got to give the money where the biggest problem is. And that’s not you’. And we were sort of saying it, but it’s an emerging problem and if we nip it in the bud now, nipped in the bud now. But we’re number 4 in the country now for knife crime, which is not a pleasant place to be”

SE1

‘One off’ pots of funding were seen to be ‘no good’ and it was identified that local authorities and the safeguarding partnership, and associated agencies are not set up for the time it takes to write bids in terms of resource. It was felt that the government needs to think in more detail about how money is allocated and how issues are addressed in the long-term.

Lack of funding and austerity cuts were flagged, and better and longer-term funding for sustainability was raised as a big gap nationally. The impact of the pandemic on relationships with communities was recognised, with partners agreeing that work was needed to rebuild relationships with services and communities:

“Shorter term funding makes it much more difficult to fully engage and then how can you sustain it?”

NW

Stakeholders agreed that it was important that funding is joined up to invest and spend wisely, and that local community led interventions are invested in. Stakeholder, again, raised the challenges of short-term funding and ensuring that projects receive investment to continue to work with children and young people, and not risk support being withdrawn as relationships are being built.

“[Short term funding] goes completely against the public health approach, which is, you know, ingrained, trustworthy, building relationships, and not re-traumatising. Engaging with your community who is trusted and experienced, and not by whipping the carpet out every 5 minutes.”

SE3

Furthermore, regarding funding calls and expected outcomes from many of the quoted short-term projects, participants raised questions about how success is measured. A partner mentioned that it is much easier to measure incidents such as acquisitive crime, noting reduction in burglaries, “but how do you measure success in county lines? There is no and I’ve tried and tried, I’ve gone to other forces, what does good look like in terms of county lines” (SE1).

In addition, at least one of the safeguarding partnerships was identified financial crisis and potential bankruptcy. There were huge concerns about further cuts to services, when these safeguarding partnerships were already struggling to respond appropriately and effectively to the immediate safeguarding demands:

“This is exacerbated, but not caused by the pandemic, is the issue of the council’s bankruptcy. The lack of council funds is already impacting delivery and the police were concerned that the council will struggle to provide non-punitive sanctions to court orders such as diversionary courses. Secondly, there is already a substantive plan in place to reduce the numbers of social workers in the adolescent service by two-thirds. The overall sense of financial contraction and uncertainty is increasing workloads across the services and critically also meaning that key competent personnel are now leaving the borough to work elsewhere”

London1

It was repeatedly highlighted that there is a chronic lack of funding in order to effectively tackle county lines and child criminal exploitation. It was recognised that the agencies within the partnership are hugely underfunded and there was a need for further funding across all areas.

17.6 Parent/carer and young person involvement in support and interventions

Support and improved engagement with parents was also identified as critical in supporting them to provide safe and nurturing homes, reduce ACEs and improve parenting capacity. It was noted that professionals need to better understand parenting challenges and equip them with the tools to keep their children safe. Building better relationships with parents and engaging them within early CE education for their children was seen as important. Awareness around online safety and inappropriate relationships, improved resources, hands on intervention beyond signposting was recommended.

There is recognition that child exploitation and county lines involve and impacts on the whole family and that families can at time feel blamed for the actions of their children when the harm is beyond their control. There is an empathy towards parents and what they are going through and that parents ‘are part of the solution’ and the most effective way to work with parents is to do just that, work with them:

“This this work is only effective if you fully involve the parents and they were able to participate if they’re working with you”

SW

“When you work with an individual, inevitably, you always end up working with the parent or guardian”

SW

Even though many safeguarding partnerships were seen as already wearing “too many hats” with large portfolios (see Theme 1), there was an understanding of a huge gap in their services in being able to work more effectively with the family of those young people exploited by county lines or at risk of serious youth violence.

“This work is only effective if you fully involve the parents and they were able to participate if they’re working with you. And I think we did quite a few things that work towards that. But it’s probably an area where we need to focus on even more”

SW

“We’re doing an awful lot with very little resource. And I think it’s the next steps for me are about how we support parents”

SW

In addition to specific support for parents whose children are being exploited, another possibility is that parents, carers and young people themselves, are given the opportunity to be included in the feedback process and share their experiences of working with services during the exploitation process, in order to gain insights into what they feel would be helpful during this time and help inform future service delivery around criminal exploitation. Using the voice of children and young people, for example, children’s ambassadors/youth council, to develop CCE policy/actions and the importance of this:

“Otherwise you could end up having people like me writing policies which, to be fair, have no bearing on children…So all of our training that we take into schools has gone through the mill with kids”

SE1

It was deemed crucial that young people are consulted with about service delivery to ensure that the service that agencies offer is appropriate and actually fit for purpose.

17.7 Drug possession and intent to supply – criminal justice system backlog and discretion

How we are dealing with drug possession is seen as extremely varied and also problematic, with the backlog of the criminal justice seemingly overtly influencing outcomes adjusted to not further overburden. A discussion on an individual now being found with 30 to 35 wraps being accepted as possession at court with the young person stating it is personal use and have bought in bulk as it is cheaper. This judicial decision was seen by police in particular to raise confidence in young people and their exploiters to continue holding drugs in these larger quantities, knowing that this would still be considered as personal possession. It seems that there has been an adaptation of what is viewed as PWIS and personal possession, with potentially a review and further guidance needed on this:

“Because the justice system, I think itself is so backlogged, trying to find quick and easy wins in terms of disposals and outcomes for suspects to get some form of closure for the complainants of crime and to lessen the burden on the criminal justice system. When in reality, when I first started when someone was found with cannabis, I joined in 2002 and actually it was a good lock up. And if you found some heroin even just 1 wrap, now people found with 30, 35 wraps them we are classing that as possession because people saying, actually, you know, whilst we would say that it’s possession intent supply, unless they’re supporting evidence of cash, mobile phones or witnesses, seen them either offering or serving up to people on the street, it is common practise and accepted practise for people to say, yeah, I have got 30 wraps but buy in bulk because they get it cheaper. And again, and that’s been heard in court and it’s been found to be to be agreed”

EM

17.8 NRMs – driving suspect and victim status

Much discussion was centred on the need to review the NRM, which is detailed further within Theme 10.

How to deal with plugging?

Lack of awareness and guidance in how to deal with potential plugging with young people that the encounter.

< redacted >

17.9 Cultural shift in policing

The 2 key areas raised by partners in relation to policing specifically was around the cultural issues within new frontline police recruits, where there seemed to be a reluctance to actually be out and about as the main part of their role, instead they were seen as waiting for calls to come in. Reflections from officers that have done a number of years of service talked about the notion of being out and about on the streets and seeing that as a core part of their role in connecting with communities and gather intelligence was eroding over time: Foot patrol of frontline officers.

“But we need to go on foot more. That comes down to numbers and desire. Unfortunately, if you mentioned foot patrols, new officers these days they are horrified, what the hell’s walking? What do I do? Why should I go and walk, there is a nice car there? Because if you’re in a car, you don’t speak to people”

BTP

A further cultural challenge within policing, was the continuous expectation of what their role and responsibility is – with this often being misunderstood as arresting and detaining, with exploitation and safeguarding not part of this. This was often more problematic within BTP due to the nature of their borderless operations and assuming that other Home Office Forces will carry all the remit and responsibility, however, this was clearly not an issue for the specific Operation Defiant Taskforce team. Furthering this, it was felt awareness needs to be within all departments of organisations rather than just the workers who are dealing with exploitation by county lines and the risks linked to serious youth violence.

17.10 Cross safeguarding partnership working

A key challenge identified in responding to county lines is the nature of travel across all areas. Participants identified challenges concerning sharing of information and intelligence concerning perpetrators and also victims. It was felt that learning from both the national and the local picture may help the partnership to be able to anticipate what may be on the horizon in terms of developments in county lines and also help them to be more proactive in their approach:

“I feel like sometimes we’re chasing our tail, because we’re kind of always one step behind the criminals. And, and we could learn a lot, I think, probably from having a more national view on what’s going on nationally. So I think that probably is that need to kind of look a bit more widely nationally what the picture looks like now. And how the current how crime is, is developing elsewhere and looking at ways in which we can kind of work as a partnership to kind of prevent that happening in our city”

SE1

Whilst some areas are trying to establish information sharing protocol arrangements, such as MACE to MACE and between different police forces, a national consensus would be greatly appreciated by participants. However, there are challenges nationally due to the pressures in workload agencies are facing and there are questions and a lack of consensus nationally on accountability and responsibility across all levels of the safeguarding process:

“Trying to work with the mace panels our sort of equivalents along those lines, so we kind of put some plans in place, but I think it’s quite difficult to get people to kind of work together out of county they are very kind of absorbed in what activity they’ve got and don’t really want to kind of think about more information, more activity”

SW

“When young people have moved out of county, or have left the county in suspicious circumstances, is that when we go to or when the panel chair goes to other local authorities, the information sharing is really poor so when we’re working with young people in other counties, we’re sharing information one way but the information sharing is not fluid and it’s a really difficult thing to do to navigate and negotiate and other social care services that refusing to pick up children from [this area] that are now living in those areas”

VCS 3

It was highlighted that more clarity from the government regarding the different areas would be welcome, especially for sharing information as exploitation is an area where there have been rapid developments. One partner commented that “If you look at the information sharing guidance for community safety partnerships, it’s 10 years old” (SW).

Finally, barriers to housing were raised as an issue, mainly in those London safeguarding partnerships and was also raised by the VCSs that actively work across London. Participants stated that supported housing and accommodation within London is so limited, it makes their ability to keep the person they are working safe almost impossible.

17.11 Education role in prevention and response:

Participants noted that the variability within education meant that awareness raising on county lines and exploitation within PSHE lessons was variable. Despite exclusions being a key critical moment for young people becoming at risk of exploitation, the response to a child bringing drugs into school, is inconsistent. This was discussed in detail within Theme 7 (risk factors) and Theme 8 as critical moment.

17.12 Training and awareness

It was felt that national guidance and a minimal-standard training was required for best practice when working with child exploitation, including exploitation by county lines. It was felt there was much variation geographically. In addition, it was felt that there needs to be more universal and accessible awareness.

“I think more national campaign, it’s been interesting to see more of the films and things coming up for young people to make it accessible or in a medium that appeals to them, and not just professionals that might identify it in a way where they go oh actually that might be that might be happening to me or in my community. That’s not necessarily just urbanised as well”

SW

17.13 Support for professionals and practitioners

It was highlighted that working with exploitation can be particularly scary and with increased practitioners now actively working with exploitation, the psychological and wellbeing impact of working in this area needs to be acknowledged and appropriate support and supervision made available and budgeted for.

“Clinical supervision from a psychotherapist, which is about the impact of the job on them. But I think that that’s quite unusual. We pay for that out of our budgets separately because she’s an external practitioner. But I do think that that’s probably not across the board so there does need to be an understanding that that needs to be an ability for staff to really unload and to talk about the impact of that on them, because it’s really dark. It’s really dark. A lot of it”

VCS 3

Question 18

18. Key findings and recommendations

Accepted Answer

From the deep dive research across 164 safeguarding professionals, including professionals from 9 local safeguarding partnerships, 10 different voluntary sector organisations, BTP Operation Defiant County Lines Taskforce and rescue and response, 11 key findings were identified. These 11 key findings outline the core evidence, along with local and national recommendations.

“County lines illustrates beautifully in terms of the problem we’re trying to solve. It does require a whole system response, solution and perhaps some stretch of boundaries and different ways of working that are thinking about what is it we are trying to achieve in terms of improved safety”.

Question 19

19. Governance, strategies and action plans

Accepted Answer

Evidence: There was agreement across all participants that county lines was a form of child exploitation and that by thematically differentiating different forms of exploitation (including child sexual exploitation [CSE], child criminal exploitation [CCE], county lines, which also mentions links to serious violence and triggers of missing from home [MFH]), there was significant risk in missing exploitation victims that do not necessarily conform to the known profile.

The evidence from the review found that safeguarding partnerships had all created their own separate, often overlapping strategies and guidance on the various forms of child exploitation (CE), such as CSE, CCE, MFH and county lines, with reported problems in how to navigate through these effectively (see Theme 3 in full report). In addition to thematic variation, there is often a cliff-edge in service response to exploitation once a young person turns 18 years. A key theme within the findings was a gap in knowledge, awareness and skills in being able to ‘connect’ and engage with adolescent and young people age groups (see Theme 2 in full report), particularly when harm was taking place outside the family home.

“We need an umbrella, there is so much crossover. Actually, all we need to do is take three lines and put criminal exploitation, take out 4 lines and put CSE, take out 4 lines and put drugs and alcohol, same for mental health, its semantics. It frustrates me. And I just wrote a report to the director and put we are really missing the point here that we need an umbrella strategy. We need to have one strategy that encompasses actual vulnerability with strands underneath it in relation to policy and practise and process with what action plan.”

19.1 Local recommendation 1

Local areas should consider developing and publishing a safeguarding partnership owned child and young people^{[footnote 12]} exploitation (CYPE) strategy and action plan jointly created and owned by the tripartite responsibility of police, local authority (LA) and health. This should include, but is not limited to:

Within this CYPE local safeguarding partnership strategy, findings from the evaluation identified a number of key principles to be included in the strategy and action plan.

Principles to be included in local safeguarding partnership strategy and action plans (Local CYPE strategy)

CYPE partnership structure
workforce stability
adolescents and young people service
National Referral Mechanism processes within SP
CYPE screening and risk assessment
engage with VCS/lived experience
understand and identify processes at critical/crisis moments
embed reflective learning and horizon scanning across SP
practitioner and community awareness

19.2 Children and young people exploitation (Local) safeguarding partnership structure:

Consideration of the development of a core set of principles and structure (strategic to operational) in responding to CCE using best practice examples from this report (see Theme 5 in full report for more detail) included:

MACE (multi-agency child exploitation) strategic group
adolescents and young people multi-agency meeting (pre-MACE meeting); this was seen as an umbrella children’s vulnerability meeting, which then allowed any cases stepped up to MACE to be the most high-risk and complex
- an intelligence multi-agency officer/analyst that was aligned to these core groups; this helped to agree data sharing agreements and gave that role permission to access police and local authority data, which better facilitated discussions and actions at meetings
targeted multi-agency child exploitation team (providing on ground support and interventions to young people, with a lived experience VCS/Consultant as part of the team)
integrated children’s and adults front door service (anyone can refer in)
early help provision and offer of support within the localities
given the report’s findings which note the wide range of risk factors associated with exploitation, the multi-agency team may want to consider representation from the key supporting agencies working in this area:
- representation of a psychologist^{[footnote 13]}
- representation of a special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) officer
- representation of an inclusion officer (that links into schools)
- representation of housing enforcement officer
- representation of VCS/lived experience
agreed pathway for community safety partnership involvement
agreement on how the partnership engages and collaborates with those outside the partnership who are essential in the response to exploitation, such as education and the VCS
parental involvement: the need to support parents and carers was identified as an area which is often underdeveloped, particularly in areas where there was no VCS in place to support them
transparency, feedback and sharing good practice across the area – one safeguarding partnership had a quarterly newsletter (rather than waiting for the safeguarding partnership annual report), which provided updates and links to important information

19.3 Workforce stability within local safeguarding partnerships

As found in much multi-disciplinary research that brings together individuals from across agencies to work as a ‘multi-agency’, a number of key factors were present in those SPs that were viewed as more ‘effective’ with a positive morale and collective responsibility (see Theme 5 in full report for more detail). Therefore, where possible, SPs should consider recruiting key positions as permanent roles to maximise workforce stability and partnership relationship working.

19.4 Adolescents and young people service within local safeguarding partnerships

Using the best practice evidence from this evaluation (see Theme 2 and Theme 5 in full report), safeguarding partnerships should consider the development of a ‘multi-agency adolescent and young people service’ (AYPS) within each local area to join up adult and children social care (and other services) to help eradicate the ‘cliff edge’ of age transition.

A multi-agency AYPS could allow for a more effective response to ‘adolescents’ and young people (pre-MACE), with those more complex cases of exploitation stepped up to MACE.

19.5 National Referral Mechanism (NRM) processes within local safeguarding partnerships

Participants commented that receiving a positive NRM outcome is part of a process and it is too simplistic to consider this as an adequate, solo safeguarding response. In support of this, there were many examples where victim status was given to a child (due to positive NRM return), but there was no consent from the child to engage in any form of non-statutory intervention or disclose any information about their exploiters. This allowed the continued exploitation of the child and further entrenchment in criminal activity. This was deemed as waiting for another ‘Rotherham’ scandal (see Theme 10 in full report). Processes regarding the NRM mechanism should be detailed within the safeguarding partnership CYPE strategy with clear guidance on processes for decision making and responsible owners for review and actions.

the NRM process triggers a ‘dual process’ in terms of safeguarding of the child, but clear actions and ownership around the exploitation requires a multi-agency response (responsibility and decisions should sit within MACE) with police ‘owning’ the investigation of the criminal exploiters as part of the safeguarding response and youth justice/local authority (adolescent service) owning the safeguarding
clearly set out that investigation of the county lines exploitation is part of the safeguarding process and is a statutory duty of the safeguarding partnership response (particularly because of time taken for NRM return)
the NRM process within the CYPE strategy needs to provide specific guidance regarding the options of ‘safeguarding pathways’ from the NRM trigger to ensure that safeguarding support is provided and ‘who’ should be responsible for this, which may depend on consent and disclosure, such as:
- consent based engagement with supportive youth justice service), voluntary and charity sector (VCS) services
- mandatory engagement with diversionary services such as engaging with youth justice/VCS/mentoring and completion of actions plans
- consideration of tagging, or curfews as part of the diversion scheme
- charge of the child/young person (this should be part of the review of the NRM process to protect the child and ‘enforce’ engagement [as last resort]) to run in parallel with safeguarding support
local awareness raising and training needs to be prioritised on the modern slavery legislation, particularly within local criminal justice system, due to concerns and inconsistency around Crown Prosecution Services (CPS) and judge’s lack of knowledge and confidence in applying^{[footnote 14]}
there needs to be agreement of who is allowed to complete the NRM referral and guidance on where this process should sit; evidence suggests this should be discussed and agreed at MACE (seen as the consistent overarching multi-agency exploitation forum)

19.6 Child and young people exploitation (CYPE) screening and risk assessment

It was identified that safeguarding partnerships had created their own, or adapted known tools, in creating a form of child exploitation (CE) risk assessment or screening tool. Whilst some local areas felt that they had effective screening tools and assessments, it was acknowledged by some that they were not fit for purpose and tended to centre on familial, early years risk within the home, or CSE. There was an agreement that contextual safeguarding factors, strengths-based approaches and considerations of risks outside the family were often missing (see Theme 3 in full report). Therefore, safeguarding partnerships should seek to review and evaluate their screening and risk assessment tools in that they are able to record broader risk factors and contextual situations often seen within child exploitation and county lines. The evaluation identified safeguarding partnerships were adapting their assessment to include peer related risk factors, but were not always included, or considered within assessments. This should ensure appropriate language, guidance about the applicability of any tool (front door, versus later more detailed reviews) and frequency of re-assessments, given the speed of escalating risk that is often reported within county lines and serious youth violence.

19.7 Engagement with voluntary sector and lived experience within safeguarding partnerships

Safeguarding partnerships should seek to involve VCS with lived experience in both the designing of services and their exploitation processes, with wider dissemination of safeguarding partnership engage and involve VCS/Lived experience as part of their exploitation response.

best practice^{[footnote 15]} (see also Theme 5 in full report) within the safeguarding partnership identified effective strategic and operational engagement with voluntary and charity sector (VCS) and/or lived experience consultants with a wide range of benefits seen across the safeguarding partnership
one safeguarding partnership specifically employed a VCS coordinator within their multi-agency hub; the role enabled professionals to be aware of services provided within the community by VCS; given the importance of the VCS in relation to county lines, serious violence and wider CCE, SPs should ensure there is an up-to-date directory of VCS services within their local authority, alongside a pathway to refer into partner agencies

19.8 Understand and identify processes at ‘critical/crisis’ moments within SPs

The point of arrest, admittance^{[footnote 16]} to A&E due to a violent incident and frequent missing episodes were deemed by many participants as critical moments for a child or young person being further exploited by county lines, and at risk of (further) serious violence (other critical moments such as exclusion and school transition are included under Recommendation 5 below and within Theme 8 of the full report). However, the opportunity to adequately safeguard and make the most appropriate decision was complex and challenging due to the organisation pressures at these ‘crisis’ points such as PACE (see Theme 3 in full report). Many discussed this as a need to ‘hold your nerve’ and ensure that professionals were aware of the larger risks at play within county lines. The safeguarding partnership should seek to review processes for safeguarding for young people at these critical moments (for example, arrest) who are deemed as potentially at risk of county lines exploitation, or more general child exploitation. This should be included within the local safeguarding partnership CYPE strategy and mandate minimal safeguarding checks such as ‘fast action multi-agency discussions’ and basic phone checks as part of this process.

Safeguarding partnership practitioners identified the changing nature of county lines exploitation and serious youth violence risk, with these changes in typologies needing to be shared amongst those practitioners working with young people. Most professionals within safeguarding partnerships, VCSs and British Transport Police (BTP) mentioned there was a huge gap in knowledge around the recruitment of children and young people via social media and the general use of apps in advertising and pulling them into county lines activity (see Theme 3 in full report). This did overlap with conversations about the NRM investigative processes in that not enough was being done to understand and investigate the exploiters within the county line. Most professional’s comments on the notion that as society has adapted and shifted our day-to-day work and activity online, this is no different for the business model of county lines. Therefore, we are at a significant risk of falling behind in understanding, responding and attempting to get upstream in the prevention of exploitation of further young people. Therefore, safeguarding partnerships should consider ways to embed reflective learning and horizon scanning through the sharing of key evidence and reports to enable dissemination across sectors within their local area so that changes to threats can be identified and minimised.

19.10 Local practitioner and community awareness: Contextual safeguarding and ‘Child First’

A key theme throughout the interviews and evidenced throughout a significant amount of research and evidence across all sectors is that seeing the ‘Child First’ should be a priority for all organisations and roles (see Theme 11 in full report). Over the last few years there is significant awareness of trauma informed practice and the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), with many individuals within the interviews using the language and evidence from these frameworks. However, there was a view that this drive and language was being ‘lost in translation’ due to issues such as: unconscious bias, ‘adultification’ of certain ages/race, poverty, drug use and any cognitive or behavioural disabilities. Presence of some, or multiple factors results in varying treatment of young people with some cohorts more likely to be criminalised and not seen as a child and victim first.

There were examples of engaging in contextual safeguarding awareness raising within communities (through media campaigns), with some good practice examples of multi-agency disruption using housing enforcement. There were also good examples of the use of lived experience workers (VCS and independent consultants) in wrapping around support and mentoring to children and young people in a more target driven way (within PRUs and at arrest). However, there was a significant gap in early intervention and prevention identification and responses involving the community.

Whilst the majority of children and young people who had experienced exploitation via county lines were recognised as vulnerable, some participants noted that more recently exploiters were also targeting young people not known to services. Stakeholders noted that whilst the majority of young people are known to services and on their radar, some cases completely took them by surprise, as there were no indicators of risk and were not previously meeting any thresholds for support. Participants across sectors expressed concerns about the escalation of risk in these cases, and some areas noted that they were focusing on this cohort of young people.

Within the local safeguarding partnership, there needs to be an increase in contextual safeguarding awareness across professionals and within communities that applies to all children, young people and families ‘any child is at risk’:

as part of safeguarding partnership practitioner training, the evaluation highlighted the need for mandatory training on child exploitation to address issues such as practitioner and professional unconscious bias, adultification and language, which should be delivered locally
as part of community and wider awareness raising, it is recommended that each partnership (possibly though the community safety partnership or adolescents and young people multi-agency service) create a child and young people exploitation group for parents; this may want to differentiate CSE and CCE for the purposes of ensuring smaller, private groups of parents
creation of media awareness campaigns such as ‘Alfie’s story’ should be provided to all parents as part of the school information sharing and to children (at appropriate ages) to raise awareness of the realities of these experiences for young people, and de-stigmatise particularly how drugs are viewed by parents and carers
other safeguarding partnerships were raising awareness of exploitation contextually within their community, amongst taxi drivers, bus stations and local businesses within the community, with clear pathways of how to share concerns or information

19.11 National recommendation 1

Government should consider establishing a national CYPE Working Group.

In supporting the above local safeguarding partnerships development and implementation of a localised CYPE strategy and action plan, there are a number of national recommendations from the evaluation:

“Nationally, we need to all work together. If we put a barrier around our (SP) area, they (county lines exploiters) would just go elsewhere. It doesn’t solve any of the root problems we are all experiencing.”

A specific national working group should seek to review local safeguarding partnerships CYPE strategies and core principles in reviewing the potential of a national CYPE guide. This reflects professionals voice that were asking for a more consistent, joined up approach in responding to all forms of child exploitation through a national child and young people exploitation (CYPE) guide jointly owned by Department for Education, Home Office and Department for Health and Social Care should be considered (see Theme 13). This should act as a key document across safeguarding partners and be disseminated within each of the organisations (for example, local authority (LA), health and police). In addition to the above points raised above (local recommendations), this national CYPE guide could include, but not limited to:

feed into any amendments of Working Together going forward
consider wider parts of the criminal justice system given the issues highlighted in barriers across CPS and the courts (see Theme 13 in main report)

The national working group should seek to reflect on local safeguarding partnership progress regarding commonalities in their CYPE framework (strategic to operational) and core principles as part of the safeguarding partnership response to child exploitation. Similarly, an expert panel is recommended to be convened in reviewing SPs CCE/CSE/child exploitation risk assessments and screening tools with the aim of developing and piloting a national CYPE tool:

this tool needs to allow for a multi-agency completion and sharing, with clear indicators of pathways for those children and young people not reaching specific thresholds for support
development needs to consider the timing and purpose of the child exploitation tool, recognising that any front door screening of CYPE will contain less information and intelligence than later MACE child exploitation risk assessment reviews
appropriate language must be considered to avoid victim blaming and captures the evolving activity and nature of child exploitation (particularly CCE and county lines)

Furthermore, evidence suggests the need for a cross-government focus on improving, reviewing and disseminating data regarding online risks in child criminal exploitation relating specifically to county lines, particularly regarding the online recruitment of young people via social media.

Question 20

20. Legislation gap in child exploitation – ‘Coercion and control’

Accepted Answer

Evidence: As per recent recommendations from the Children’s Society (see Children’s Society, Disrupting Child Exploitation (2021)), evidence from this report has identified a gap in being able to respond appropriately to exploiters, due to the lack of legislation that exists around early signs of coercion and controlling behaviour of children and young people. Similar to what is advocated by the Children’s Society, the great advances that have been made for domestic abuse victims suffering from coercive and controlling behaviour under the Serious Crime Act (2015), should also be prioritised for children who are being exploited. This raises questions about how we can acknowledge that adults that can be subjected to this behaviour and need protection, but not children and young people? Professionals within the study were aware of the availability of the modern slavery legislation available to them, however, due to issues in application and use of this (see Key finding 3) and definitional issues around county lines (see Key finding 6). This leaves a gap for the many locally exploited children that would not be protected by this legislation. The evidence also indicates that a legislative framework can significantly contribute to enabling the child being seen as a victim, actually being treated as a victim. Currently, professionals often felt like their hands were tied.

“We really need to be talking about child exploitation as a form of abuse of children that encompasses many overlapping elements. Talking about county lines as a model, as part of that overarching exploitation, I can understand why it’s become kind of the synonymous term for criminal exploitation. But it is very much just, you know, it is one model in a whole range of suite of ways of grooming and coercing children into awful, awful situations and experiences.”

20.1 National recommendation 2

Introduction of a legal definition of child exploitation, which includes all forms of child exploitation behaviour, including coercive and controlling behaviour (as per Children’s Society, 2021).

this legislation should follow similar statutory guidance in language to that within domestic abuse (Serious Crime Act, 2015 and guidance within the New Domestic Abuse Bill) that allows full coverage of all forms of child exploitation
consideration of how the legislation should map over existing policies in terms of cohort age to ensure the ‘cliff edge’ of services and options is not further exacerbated

Question 21

21. National Referral Mechanism (NRM) process: what is safeguarding and who owns it?

Accepted Answer

Evidence: It was clear from across all sectors that county lines is a national problem that crosses geographical boundaries. The framework to respond appropriately, however, is currently constrained by segmented policy and practice relating to broader child exploitation (CE). This is due to the various forms of child CE viewed and treated differently, such as CCE and county lines exploitation, compared to CSE. This segregated policy and profiling of the various forms of child exploitation often then dictates the response to the exploited child, in terms of ‘safeguarding’ and diversion from the criminal justice system, versus criminalisation and statutory intervention. This results in an inconsistent and differential treatment of children according to the form of exploitation they are subject to. See Theme 10 and 11 in full report for more detail.

A key issue with seeing these as 2 separate responses is that it does not allow for the child to be effectively safeguarded from further exploitation. A child that is seen as a victim of CSE is more often provided with safeguarding and offered emotional and other forms of support. To be safeguarded from future harm, a victim of county lines, regardless of whether they are charged and prosecuted, must be offered additional appropriate support and a pathway to recovery. Receiving a positive NRM outcome is part of a process and it is too simplistic to consider this in itself, an adequate, solo safeguarding response. In support of this, there were many examples where victim status was given to a child (due to positive NRM return), but there was no consent from the child to engage in any form of non-statutory intervention or disclose any information about their exploiters. This allowed the continued exploitation of the child and further entrenchment in criminal activity. This was deemed as waiting for another ‘Rotherham’ scandal.

Furthermore, due to complications particularly with county lines exploitation crossing geographical boundaries, the evaluation identified a gap in ‘safeguarding’ due to the lack of investigations into the exploiters. There were difficulties from the result of the NRM as to who ‘owned’ the investigation side (for example, where a child was found versus where the child resides).

“We charged and it got dropped at court because the judge said, and CPS, go back in all this person’s offending history, who has investigated his exploitation? And I sat down with OIC (officer in charge) and we went through an awful lot of material and the answer was nobody … So for the next 2 years, this kid kept getting arrested. And every time he got arrested, quite fairly, would present the same conclusive grounds because no one’s ever investigated it. It wasn’t until we charged him that it all came out.”

21.1 National recommendation 3

National review of NRM process^{[footnote 17]} and statutory guidance:

within the review, this should seek to explore the varying impacts of NRM referrals and outcomes in terms of factors identified within the evaluation, such as ethnicity and gender
awareness is required for agencies to understand the full purpose of the NRM; some areas provided a strong multi-agency package of support (and diversion) around the victim and therefore considered ‘not needing the NRM as the support was already in place’; this does not allow for an accurate representation in the use of NRM and the section 45 defence to be utilised, if, for example, continuity of support is required (particularly out of area)
there needs to be a review of who is allowed to complete the NRM referral and guidance on where this process should sit; evidence suggests this should be agreed at MACE (seen as the consistent overarching multi-agency exploitation forum)

Question 22

22. Health colleagues as part of the local (SP) child exploitation response

Accepted Answer

Evidence: The evaluation found huge variances in the involvement of health services within safeguarding partnerships, regardless of the fact that they have a statutory duty to work together with police and local authority. The review identified a universal misunderstanding of the complexity that is ‘Health’. The complex and fragmented structure of health ultimately means that no one role exists across the safeguarding partnership area that would have access to all the potentially relevant ‘Health’ organisations, touch points and data (see Theme 2 in the full report).

“…health is a bit like peeling an onion, I didn’t realise there was so many layers to it.”

22.1 Local recommendation 2

Local safeguarding partnerships to undertake a set of reviews to (i) identify (ii) map (where) and (iii) review contributions (added value) of health colleagues within the safeguarding partnership CE response and (iv) identify collaborative solutions where there are barriers to local health representatives fulfilling their statutory duty. Findings within this evaluation indicated 5 out of 9 SPs included a CCG representative as part of their safeguarding response, with other safeguarding partnerships stating that buy in was better at tactical level, with gaps in strategic level information cascading down to frontline workers. This was alongside issues in identifying an appropriate, effective and embedded health representative that could meaningfully input into child exploitation meetings. Best practice (Theme 2 and Theme 5 within full report) highlighted the positive and essential role that health can play at strategic and operational level, across the lifespan, which needs to be implemented at local level within SPs:

evidence under ‘critical moments’ (Theme 8 in full report) identified key roles and touch points (within health services) that should be prioritised in better connecting them into information sharing and working with the safeguarding partnership; this centred on universal health services such as health visitors, school nurses, midwife, GPs, A&E and those health professionals working with neurodiversity/SEND/educational psychologists, CAMHS
local safeguarding partnerships should ensure they have sufficient knowledge of the health landscape within their local area, where the connections are and how they can contribute to safeguarding; when issues, or gaps are identified in engaging ‘health’ within the safeguarding partnership and cannot be resolved, this should be escalated to strategic level using the governance structures in place
review of system advances such as ‘Graphnet’ and how data may unlock barriers to safeguarding representation from health within SPs

22.2 National recommendation 4

Clear communication with safeguarding partnerships about what support is available (for example, DHSC facilitator) to help re-target and support those safeguarding partnerships struggling to identify, or meaningfully engage health colleagues within their child exploitation safeguarding response. It is recommended that national government disseminate examples to safeguarding partnerships (particularly at MACE level, as found within this report) of what is working well across safeguarding partnership areas, with examples of added value from these health roles and how they can best be embedded into local structures.

Question 23

23. Shifting the focus and delivery of education

Accepted Answer

Evidence: There was large agreement from across all sectors and all regions that the education system needs transforming to enhance opportunities to safeguard children. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated just how fundamental schools are to the safeguarding process and they must be supported to be represented and involved within local safeguarding partnership and multi-agency exploitation processes. Some good practice was identified within safeguarding partnerships that have maximised the shift of virtual meetings to breakdown previous engagement barriers with education. However, as many professionals discussed ‘safeguarding’ being an ‘add-on’ role to full-time teacher duties, shifts in prioritising pastoral roles within schools is well overdue. In addition, due to increasing number of Academies, recent uncovering around the scale of sexual abuse and harassment, along with the reduction of funding, and the last year of COVID-19, there was recognition that now is the time to respond and fundamentally change our education system (see Theme 2 in the full report).

“Children’s behaviour is seen as challenging or problematic, resulting in school exclusion, rather than it being a communication that their needs are not being met, that the approach that is taken to educate and support them and integrate them into society and help them develop is not meeting those needs”

VCS 18

23.1 Local recommendation 3

As part of the safeguarding partnership CYPE, it is recommended that the safeguarding partnership works towards creating a local area terms of reference regarding exclusion risks of young people and continually review with local schools:

this should provide agreement regarding a minimum expectation and evidence capture detailing the efforts that have been made to understand and support the root causes of the behaviour, which often leads to exclusion; it must demonstrate what alternatives have been considered and offered before a permanent exclusion can be approved
local SPs should work with local schools to understand and minimise the use of zero tolerance to drugs policies, linking to the above point regarding required action plans to be developed and agreed in partnership with a specialised service alongside local authority Inclusion officers, to ensure there is support and appropriate interventions (for example, mentoring) for the young person and their family
this could include an action plan in partnership with a specialised service alongside local authority Inclusion officers, to ensure there is support and appropriate interventions for the young person and their family; for example, referrals to substance misuse support, youth services, relevant VCS and lived experience mentors
local areas should consider a pastoral/safeguarding dedicated (substantive) role within each school; this role should not be an add-on role to an already full-time teacher
- this role should seek to be the expert within the school for any staff, pupil or family concerns
- they should act as a family liaison and develop relationships with parents and be the link into SPs and other relevant support organisations
nominated safeguarding leads within all schools should have clear, established pathways and relationships with the multi-agency adolescents young people service for advice and support
there is a need to review and promote local secondary school curriculum offering vocational pathways to reflect the diversity of needs and aspirations within the school population

23.2 National recommendation 5

any further revisions of the current 2017 DfE Exclusion Statutory guidance should consider specifically addressing root causes of the behaviour, documenting what efforts have been made to understand and support the causes of the behaviour, what alternatives have been considered and offered before a permanent exclusion can be approved (for example, allocation of a lived experience ‘mentor’)
any national services that are introduced, such as the helpline/support for those pupils who are/have experienced sexual abuse/harassment should also ensure it does not alienate those experiencing other forms of exploitation (criminal) and should clearly indicate any form of child exploitation has the right to be raised and safeguarded^{[footnote 18]}

Question 24

24. County lines typology and expansion of definition

Accepted Answer

Evidence: As per many of the recent reports on county lines activity and within the current findings, county lines activity is a million-pound business model that is continually evolving and adapting its business methodology to maximise its profits, with COVID-19 no exception to this. This has resulted in the activity of county lines changing and adapting to these circumstances (see Theme 6 in full report).

“I think sometimes we get a bit tied up in county lines, and I think our partners definitely get confused with it and the fact that county lines is Class A drugs. So if you’ve got a child using the rail networks, transporting cannabis, the partners will refer to that as being county lines. I think we need to do some work on that. Around what county lines is, and obviously the vulnerability within that for the children, and then the violence that goes along with it”

SE3

24.1 National recommendation 6

A revised definition of county lines that considers:

local operating of county lines to be emphasised within definitions
< redacted >
use of ‘gateway’ drugs that do not conform to the Class A definition required for county lines exploitation
online activity of the county lines has increased (likely due to COVID-19) with intelligence gaps in how children and young people are being recruited online, such as the increased use of snapchat maps in ‘deliveroo’ style of drug supply
lack of information around girls involved in county lines and also reluctance of police in stop and searching young females, alongside the disproportionate representation of black boys, as per the HMICFRS (2020) report
incentivising techniques of children and young people into county lines; anecdotal accounts from lived experience mentors and specialist police teams within the study noted previous daily rates are being replaced by percentages of profits, therefore, incentivising children and young people to work harder, involve more of their peers in drug use and potentially create wider community issues
deprived towns, rural areas are now being purposely targeted by well-known county line exporters, taking advantage of social issues such as low aspirations, poverty, and lack of youth activities and high use of drugs to import drugs into the area
< redacted >
exploiters are making children and young people aware of the NRM and s.45 defence, therefore, some are now declaring s.45 on arrest, but refuse to disclose any information or intelligence or engage with any services (also reported within HMICFRS, 2020)

There was also a consensus across partners that the plugging of drugs should be treated as a child sexual offence within legislation.

Question 25

25. Viewing serious youth violence through the lens of exploitation

Accepted Answer

Evidence: Reflecting on the findings of much previous research and reports, along with the evidence within the current evaluation, serious youth violence has been impacted by the ‘perfect storm’ of adverse factors. This included cuts to youth services, poverty, deprivation, low aspirations, youth drug taking and lack of belonging, along with the further restrictions and negative consequences on these populations through COVID-19. Professionals within this study highlighted a clear link between county lines and serious youth violence (see Theme 6 in full report) being based on:

debt bondage revenge (for the young people losing their supply, commodity)
re-establishing of physical county lines boundaries due to COVID-19 (where physical boundaries have been blurred, with lifting of restrictions resulting in battling the physical lines again)
lack of ability for young people to financially pay back debt bondage due to higher likelihood of getting caught for acquisitive crimes (such as shoplifting and burglary – shops lower footfall, more people at home), therefore, being asked to pay back debt by committing acts of violence
increased use of purposeful taxing/stealing of children and young people’s drug supply to create debt bondage to the exploiter and further entrenchment of county lines activity
exporting lines moving into deprived towns and rural areas to run county lines out of, with violence initially in setting up the line and establishing their presence
adapted movement of drugs from youths on public transport to groups of young people and adults going into areas via private car/taxi, increasing risk of violence

Findings within this evaluation unanimously linked county lines exploitation to serious youth violence (although also acknowledging one can exist without the other but is rare). However, serious youth violence did not overtly feature in discussions around child criminal exploitation, almost negating the notion that a child that commits a serious violent act is vulnerable. Therefore, there was a clear conflict in the theory of knowing that county lines and serious youth violence are linked, but only one is ‘treated’ as possible child criminal exploitation, which is no doubt influenced by legislation and NRM requirements (Schedule 4 of the Modern Slavery Act, 2015). This leads to questions about how we can better integrate and understand serious violence perpetration within child exploitation. Further issues regarding barriers in responding to disruption of potential serious youth violence risk were centred on: (i) policing culture and expectations around foot patrol and (see Theme 13 in full report) and (ii) concerns over stop and search, particularly girls and young black boys (see Theme 6 in full report).

Additionally, the project indicated that SPs that were within a Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) area (4/9 safeguarding partnerships) were not effectively joined up regarding children safeguarding. Again, highlighting a disparity between how we view serious violence (the result/consequence) and child criminal exploitation (the pathway).

“Language and definitions is a really key part of the groundwork around county lines and gangs. How does it become serious violence and how is that different to just violence? Where’s the line drawn? Are we diminishing just violence by saying, well, there’s serious violence over here, and therefore, it’s just violence over there. You know, and exploring that’s really important to me about the language we use in terms of county lines and, and gangs, serious violence and what is it we actually mean by that?”

SE2

25.1 Local recommendation 4

Further work is required (locally and nationally) to explore how to better identify, raise awareness and provide appropriate responses that treat serious youth violence through the lens of child exploitation.

This should consider how to enhance synergies and collaborative working between local serious violence reduction partnerships (including, but not limited to VRUs), county lines and child exploitation and safeguarding partnership.

Question 26

26. Children and young people’s drug response strategy

Accepted Answer

Evidence: There was significant concern across all sectors that within society we have a serious youth drugs issue, with a clear link from participants that one of the key pathways into criminal exploitation, county lines and serious youth violence was through the young person’s own personal use of drugs (see Theme 7 in full report). Relating to the ‘perfect storm’ due to various contributing factors (such as experiencing trauma, deprivation, low aspirations, lack of activities, lack of social spaces, cuts in youth services, along with education structures and late diagnosis of cognitive and/or learning disabilities, along with COVID-19 restrictions), this was creating a much-needed escapism and means of self-medicating for many young people. This was further compounded by the social media recruiting within local drug activity and county lines that glamorises the lifestyle, which can lead to young people recruiting their peer groups. Various concerns around this were raised, such as:

failures in trying to understand ‘why’ children and young people are taking drugs to identify potential exploitation and safeguarding issues
normalisation of drug taking amongst children and young people, as well as amongst some practitioners
national data that recognises the increased proportion of young people taking drugs
the reduction of youth drug services, support and interventions that exist, with most support only available once criminalised
zero drug policies within schools that immediately penalise and further disengage young people from society
toxicity and strength of drugs such as cannabis were noted as much stronger
discretion in amounts seen as possession and possession with intent to supply, with this leading to differing responses regarding criminalisation and safeguarding

All of the above was seen as providing a toxic mix of risk factors that may lead to further harm through drug use and further involvement in county lines exploitation and perpetration of other forms of criminal activity.

“If I read a file of a young person and it does not state they are using cannabis, I am shocked. That is how normal is it. It’s actually easier to buy drugs than it is alcohol.”

26.1 Local recommendation 5

Local safeguarding partnerships should seek to identify their local drug support services that exist for young people and how they link into their safeguarding partnership child exploitation meetings and also feature within the PHSE curriculum. This should include a review of:

educational inputs to schools on drugs and alcohol, whether this forms part of the PHSE curriculum within schools, with clear pathways of drug support in place for children and young people to access support when needed (for example, through a support service/mentoring)
identification of specialised support for children and young people whose parents/carers are experiencing problems with substance misuse
identification and provision of targeted support at lower levels of risk (before criminalisation) as part of adolescents and young people service and early help offers

26.2 National recommendation 7

A national children and young people’s drug response strategy should be considered, building on what is contained in the current Drug Strategy 2017, but addresses the significant gap in relation to the response to youth drug taking, requiring a clearer safeguarding response in youth drug taking. This strategy should seek to address the need for, but not limited to:

a universal response to youth drug taking that is trauma informed; this should include drugs and alcohol within the PHSE curriculum within schools, with pathways of drug support in place for children and young people to access support when needed (for example, through a support service/mentoring)
increased funding and longer-term investment to be able to provide the resource that is needed in educating, supporting and rehabilitating young people

Question 27

27. Prioritisation of community universal services

Accepted Answer

Evidence: When exploring the range of interventions in response to county lines exploitation and serious youth violence risk, there was an acknowledgement that services and responses tended to be more targeted, with universal services neglected (see Theme 7 and 8 in full report). Yet these universal services were viewed as critical in identifying unmet need that may later increase the risk of exploitation. Stakeholders talked about limited, targeted driven funding with proposed outcomes that were often short-term and unrealistic, which were also subject to ‘post-code lottery’.

When asked about reachable moments in the prevention of county lines and serious violence, most participants centred these on the universal services of:

education (primary)
health visitors (early development needs)
universal youth services, clubs and activities

It is within the universal settings where examples of unmet need can be identified. Findings revealed a key risk factor in exploitation can be undiagnosed learning disabilities, difficulties and neurodiversity issues that were being picked up later in life at point of arrest. This identified gaps in sufficient expertise, clear pathways and adequate resources to identify and support unmet need within early years. The consequences of not identifying and providing support was seen as increasing disengagement from education, thus increasing risk of exploitation. Only with early identification can the appropriate support be put in place. Professionals continually raised the huge proportions of learning and neurodiversity issues that are being picked up in late adolescence when crisis has been reached.

“It’s a bit late when they come to me (YOS), don’t give me a SALT (speech and language therapist) worker, bang them in primary schools because then what you’ll do, you’ll start identifying it when the child is 5 to 8 after their most important learning journey. The next thing is are they cognitive. And if they got the ability to understand, don’t stick it (SALT) in YOS when they’re 14, 15 and a prolific offender.”

27.1 National recommendation 8

Evidence from this report suggested a move from funding short-term, target driven approaches/interventions to focus on cross-government universal services funding. The pooling of funding will also help to drive better connected policies in response to safeguarding across these key organisations. Suggestions from the evaluation included:

a collective-cross government long-term funding uplift to these critical universal services that have been continuously reported as key places where children can be identified as being at risk and allowing for the appropriate support to be put in place before any exploitation occurs
review of the indicators, measurements and inspection criteria that exist within these universal services to shift attention and focus to the child first
prioritisation and focus on community support and services, with areas requiring community centres and ‘Sure Start’ centres to bring communities together again; particularly after the experience of COVID-19
creation of national media awareness campaigns such as ‘Alfie’s story’ extending on the awareness being driven locally

Question 28

28. Discussions and notifications when moving children out of area

Accepted Answer

Evidence: The movement of children into ‘their safeguarding partnership area’ without notification was raised by most professionals. Given this is a statutory requirement^{[footnote 19]}, there was agreement that this was not happening in practice and often they would find out about children (particularly within private care homes) after they had been placed. The lack of discussions, information sharing and risk planning for these often very vulnerable children moving into areas with no knowledge about the local context may further increase the risk to the child and young person. There was also a clear message regarding the moving of children out of area generally as a disruption tactic. The premise should be that this as an absolute last resort, however, this was more seen as “easing professional anxiety” rather than being the “right decision for that child”. See Theme 4 in full report for more information.

“…we’re seeing a bit of a trend, particularly in (area), of families being moved out of London because of risks because of county lines. And they’ve been moved into (area). Okay, and I’m sure other county authorities with very little prep, very little communication, very little understanding that actually the risk doesn’t reduce because (area) is not 100 miles from London”

SE1

28.1 Local recommendation 6

There needs to be a conscious effort within safeguarding partnerships to highlight, review and report on their mechanisms for dealing with children out of area, with a clear, published protocol that is agreed within the SP.

28.2 National recommendation 9

A national review is required to (i) understand the problem, (ii) identify the extent of how many children and young people are being placed in care homes within the host local authority without prior discussions and notification and (iii) identify potential solutions and actions to address this^{[footnote 20]}.

As part of recommendation 1 (formation of a national CYPE working group), the local review of structures and wider national review should consider development of a ‘MACE to MACE’ protocol as part of the statutory process when dealing with children and young people across borders (for example, county lines young person being found in area, or moving a young person out of area).

Question 29

29. Low aspirations of our youth

Accepted Answer

Evidence: Throughout interviews with safeguarding partners, there was a clear agreement regarding the low aspirations of youth across society, but particularly those children and young people that have been and continue to suffer with multiple adversities (see Theme 7 in full report). There is statutory guidance for local authorities to secure services and activities for young people aged 13 to 19 years, with those with learning difficulties up to age 24, in attempt to improve young people’s wellbeing. However, findings from the evaluation, even before the restrictions and cuts due to COVID-19, stated that there is an urgent need for this to be reviewed, prioritised and resourced. Most professionals’ view of the lack of youth activities, safe spaces and general community support was worrying and seen as contributing to low aspirations, boredom and providing an open door for exploiters to groom and exploit. Concerns from those safeguarding partnerships in financial crisis was creating further concern around how to continue providing appropriate levels of support and interventions to their children and young people.

“We’ve got to realise that if we’re going to challenge any of this, that our offer to young people in terms of even in terms of jobs or possibilities, it’s got to be better than the alternative. And in the moment, I don’t think it is.”

29.1 Local recommendation 7

The ‘Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities on Services and Activities to Improve Young People’s Well-being’ creates a duty regarding the provision of offering young people opportunities in safe environments to take part in a wide range of sports, arts, music and other activities. It is recommended, due to the reporting of low aspirations across areas, that safeguarding partnerships have sight of and can contribute their insight into contextual risks and the creation of safe, active spaces in their area.

29.2 National recommendation 10

National recognition of a need to re-engage, revive and reinvest in our youth through community services, activities, support and employment.

Question 30

30. References

Accepted Answer

ADCS (2019). ADCS Discussion paper. Serious Violence and Youth Crime.

BBC. (2020). Covid: Poverty and virus pushing families closer to the brink.

Children Act. (1989).

Children and Young Persons Act. (1933).

Child Abduction Act. (1984).

Children’s Commissioner. (2019). Keeping kids safe. Improving safeguarding responses to gang violence and criminal exploitation.

Child Practice Safeguarding Review. (2020). It was hard to escape. Safeguarding children at risk from criminal exploitation.

Early Intervention Foundation. (2018). Realising potential of Early Intervention.

Firmin, C., Jayne Horan, J., Holmes, D. and Gail Hopper, G. (2019). Safeguarding during adolescence– the relationship between Contextual Safeguarding, Complex Safeguarding and Transitional Safeguarding.

Ford, K., Kelly, S., Newbury, A., Meredith, Z., Evans, J. & Roderick, J. (2017). Adverse Childhood Experiences: Breaking the Generational Cycle of Crime Turning Understanding into Action: Summary Report. Public Health Wales.

Gibson, B., Schneider, J., Talamonti, D. & Forshaw, M. (2021). The impact of inequality on mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review. Special Issue, Psychological perspectives on the pandemic.

HMICFRS. (2020). Both Sides of the Coin: The police and National Crime Agency’s response to vulnerable people in ‘county lines’ drug offending.

Local Government Association. (2019). Explaining Variation in Spending - Children’s Services.

Local Government Association. (2020). Re-thinking local: Youth services.

Maxwell, N., Wallace, C., Cummings, A., Bayfield, H & Morgan, H. (2019.) A systematic map and synthesis review of child criminal exploitation.

McManus, M.A., & Boulton, L. (2020). Evaluation of multi-agency operational safeguarding arrangements in Wales (MAOSA).

Modern Slavery Act (2015).

National County Lines Coordination Centre. (2018).

NSPCC. (2021). Contacts to the NSPCC about drug and alcohol misuse among parents soar during the pandemic.

Ofsted and colleagues. (2018). Protecting children from criminal exploitation, human trafficking and modern slavery: an addendum.

PHE. (2019). Public Health England, Collaborative Approaches to Preventing Offending and Re-offending In Children (CAPRICORN).

PHE. (2021). Public Health England, County lines exploitation: applying All Our Health.

Serious Violence Strategy. (2018) Serious Violence Strategy, Home Office.

Shorrock, S., McManus, M. M., & Kirby, S. (2019). Practitioner perspectives of multi-agency safeguarding hubs (MASH). Journal of Adult Protection, 22(1), 9-20.

UK Parliament. (2020). Covid-19: impact on young people’s mental health. House of Lord Library.

University of Nottingham. (2021). Policing County lines: Impact of COVID-19. Interim research briefing.

VVU & ATCM. (2018). Violence & Vulnerability Unit (VVU) in association with the Association of Town Centre Management (ATCM), County lines - a National Summary and Emerging Best Practice.

Wood Report. Sector expert review of new multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. (2021).

Working Together to Safeguard Children. (2018). Working Together to Safeguard Children. A guide to inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

Question 31

Appendix 1: Reading list - Thematic areas of policy and guidance

Accepted Answer

The following documents were used to inform the literature review:

County lines and drugs

Serious violence

Exploitation

National Referral Mechanism statistics UK, 2020
Criminal exploitation of children and vulnerable adults: county lines (updated 2020)
Sexual and Criminal Exploitation of missing and looked after Children (2019)
Briefing report on the roundtable on children who go missing and are criminally exploited by gangs (2017)
Protecting children from criminal exploitation, human trafficking and modern slavery: an addendum (2018)
Children’s Commissioner Keeping kids safe Improving safeguarding responses to gang violence and criminal exploitation (2019)
New programme to protect children at risk of exploitation (2019)
Child exploitation disruption toolkit (2019)
Joint inspections of child exploitation (2016 updated 2020)
The Modern Slavery Act 2015 statutory defence: call for evidence - review published (2020)
Crest, County lines and Looked After Children 2020
Child Practice Safeguarding Review, It was Hard To Escape, (2020)
Children’s Society, Counting Lives (2019)
Gangs and Exploitation A youth work response to COVID-19 (2020)
Listen Up, Boys to men: the cost of ‘adultification’ in safeguarding responses to Black boys (2020) (Goff, P.A., Jackson, M., Di Leone, B., Culotta, C. and Ditomasso, N. (2014) The essence of innocence: consequences of dehumanizing black children, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 106(4): 526–545.)
London Child Exploitation Operating Protocol (2021)
Children’s Society, Disrupting Child Exploitation (2021)

Children and young people

Early intervention

Education

Serious case reviews

Question 32

Appendix 2: Safeguarding partnership participant breakdown

Accepted Answer

	Totals	SW	NW	London 1	London 2	East Mids	SE 1	SE 2	SE 3	South
Police	33	5	4	2	2	4	2	5	4	5
LA social care	23	5	2	2	1	1	2	1	4	5
Health	16	2	7	0	0	2	0	2	1	2
LA YOS	14	1	0	3	3	1	1	2	0	3
LA specialist team	12	0	3	2	1	1	3	1	1	0
Education	11	3	1	1	0	3	1	0	0	2
VCS/lived experience	7	4	0	0	0	2	0	0	1	0
Police VRU	5	0	1	2	0	0	0	1	1	0
LA housing	4	0	0	0	2	1	1	0	0	0
LA early help	3	1	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0
LA community safety	3	1	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0
LA intelligence	3	1	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total	134	23	18	14	10	16	12	12	12	17

Question 33

Appendix 3: Case study examples

Accepted Answer

< redacted >

NW safeguarding partnership case studies:

< redacted >

Study 2:

Subject B is an 18 year old adult who is described as a “clean skin” insofar as they had no previous offending history. Their family unit was disjointed and broken with a history of domestic violence and as a result they were technically homeless. Subject B was sofa surfing at various locations during the winter, although had slept in parks during this period when there was no other option available to them.

Subject B was stopped in company with 2 other adults in a vehicle in possession of a quantity of drugs consistent with supply. As a result of the investigation it was suggested that subject B was a victim of county lines activity due to vulnerabilities disclosed.

Due to the vulnerabilities identified and the suspected county lines exploitation a referral was put into (name of charity) to support subject B. A period of face to face work was conducted, identifying any avenues that could be explored to assist subject B move away from criminality. (name of charity) has supported subject B through the initial criminal investigation and through a housing application which has now led to subject B being allocated a property which they have now moved into.

Study 3:

Subject C is a 16-year old child. Subject C was arrested for being in possession of a 32 inch blade machete. They were arrested, interviewed and referred into youth justice service for consideration of being accepted onto Operation (name). Operation (name) is a deferred charging scheme whereby young offenders identified for relatively serious offences are offered the chance to work with youth justice and the police over a period of months and if they successfully engage they can be offered a community resolution rather than be sent to court for trial and a potential conviction.

Subject C was accepted onto Operation (name) and engaged throughout the programme, taking part in intervention work around knife crime, peers, criminality and county lines. They were offered counselling for their drug use and received advice around future career aspirations. Subject C expressed a wish to join the military and was supported through the application to attend the Military Preparation College < redacted >. They were successful, were offered a place at the college and have not come to the attention of police since the original offence. With a conviction for possession of an offensive weapon this offer would not have been achievable.

Study 4:

Subject D is a 23 year old who was referred to (name of local VCS) by their key worker having been deemed to be at heightened risk of exploitation due to alcohol and drug abuse. They were not adhering to probation conditions and their lifestyle was deteriorating. Subject D had suffered a chaotic upbringing, with incidents of mental health problems within the family unit, a breakdown in their relationship with their mother and siblings and they withdrew from mainstream education at 14. Subject D was surrounded by criminality within the family unit and they began selling cannabis which they did not see as “a big deal.” They became well known to the police. Due to their behaviour they moved into homeless accommodation at 16.

Subject D’s behaviour spiralled and they went on to commit further serious criminal offences resulting in a prison sentence in Scotland for county lines drugs offences at the age of 19. Upon their release from prison they returned to (area) with nothing, moved into a homeless accommodation and continued abusing drugs and alcohol.

Upon entering the (local name) programme subject D was cautious and standoffish. However over time they became a regular attendee and found the sessions to be like a therapy. They were able to develop strategies to cope with anger and emotional stress and is able to engage with statutory services such as probation. Whilst there is a still a pull to a criminal lifestyle due to being on the poverty line the programme has helped subject D identify their risk factors and they are rebuilding their relationship with their family as well as looking to identify their own accommodation and have had no further incidents with the police.

Study 5:

Subject E is a 17 year old that is from a stable family background and gets on well in the family home. However they were not able to engage in mainstream school, had various moves and then dropped out altogether. They tried alternative education provisions and (name of charity) but could not engage. Subject E struggles with impulsive behaviour and outbursts of aggression and is drawn to people that are likely to get them into trouble. They were barred from entering the local town centre. They were referred to the (name) Project by the local YOT team following numerous attempts at different provisions.

Subject E was visited by (name) Youth Justice worker, with a delay in initial engagement as Subject E would not reply to calls, messages or emails. Once visits commenced subject E was reticent and guarded, but were surprised by the worker when they asked what they wanted from the programme. A plan was agreed between the support worker and subject E and one-to-one sessions were started. Subject E spoke about their involvement in a local gang and some of the offences they had been arrested for, including an assault on a pregnant female.

Subject E has a great love of sport, especially football, and the sessions were geared around physical activity, with membership of a local gym being arranged. The work undertaken has allowed Subject E to identify their own risk factors and the risks posed by their lifestyle choices. MMA sessions have also been arranged as a way for Subject E to find a release from their emotional difficulties and to channel those feelings into something positive.

The Children’s Society (2019, 2021), West Midlands Combined Authority (2021), HMIC (2015), Department of Health and Social Care (2021), Children’s Commissioner (2021), ADCS (2021), Early Intervention Foundation (2018), Department for Education (2015), Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (2021). Please see full list of relevant reports in Appendix 1 of full report. ↩
Since completion of the current report, The Wood Review of multi-agency safeguarding arrangements, by Sir Alan Wood CBE has been published, with crucial contributions to this area, which are complementary to the findings within this report. Wood Review of multi-agency safeguarding arrangements (publishing.service.gov.uk) ↩
Safeguarding partnership demographics included those areas with: Ethnicity: 40% non-white to 2% non-white ethnicity. Deprivation: Top 10 ranked LA to 10% least deprived. Crime, unemployment, barriers to housing and services: top 10% and lowest 10% ↩
VCS organisations that consented to be named within the study included: Redthread, NSPCC, St Giles Trust, Children’s Society, We Are With You, Barnardo’s, PACE, Sea Cadets, NCS Trust. ↩
Neurodiversity is the concept that neurological differences are to be recognized and respected like any other human variation. ↩
Please note, only 1 area identified a ‘County lines Pathfinder lead’ within their SP. ↩
Section 17 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 places a duty on local authorities to secure the provision of an information, advice and assistance service. ↩
Girls involved are still a minority. However, the suggestion is that they are being increasingly used by those running the lines to avoid detection. ↩
CE Flag was mentioned by 2 SPs as being used across systems in police and social care to flag a potential child as at risk of child exploitation. See Theme 3. ↩
Adultification is the notion that innocence and vulnerability are not afforded to certain children- Listen Up (@ListenUpCo) / Twitter ↩
For further information on ‘adultification’ see: Adultification bias within child protection and safeguarding ↩
World Health Organization (WHO) defines ‘Young People’ as individuals in the age range 10 to 24 years. ↩
A clinical psychologist as a regular attendee of MACE strategic meetings had wide reaching positive benefits in one safeguarding partnership area. ↩
One safeguarding partnership area had a ‘vulnerability lawyer’ that was in place as part of their exploitation response. ↩
Best Practice refers to a consensus having been reached that a system is working well. All safeguarding partners throughout different organisations and within different roles ranging from strategic to operational, have stated that this particular model or element of practice was effective in their multi-agency safeguarding response. ↩
Participants did not differentiate first arrest/A&E admission from any further incidents, indicating they viewed any arrest and A&E incident as reachable. ↩
Please note, this recommendation is related to the review of the NRM in relation to county lines exploitation of children and young people, not the wider remit of NRM. ↩
Whether this should sit as separate service was not clear, however, it was noted that we cannot bring attention to one form of child exploitation and provide a service, whilst staying silent to other forms of exploitation. ↩
The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review statutory guidance and the associated regulations updated in 2013, outline duties on local authorities to notify other local authorities if they place a child in care within their area. It also requires children’s homes to notify their host local authority when a child is placed with them by another authority. ↩
Two SPs did mention the Philomena protocol positively and should also be considered as part of the review. ↩

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1. Introduction

2. Rapid review of literature

Government approach to serious violence, county lines and associated criminal exploitation

3. Methodology

3.1 Study sites

3.2 Recruitment

Table 1: Participant breakdown summary within the SPs

3.3 Data collection and triangulation

3.4 Ethical considerations

4. Main Analysis

5. Theme 1: Re-structuring and tripartite ownership

5.1 Tripartite ownership of safeguarding

5.2 The merging of local authorities/county councils in safeguarding partnerships

5.3 Benefits of joint safeguarding partnership

5.4 ‘Too many hats’

5.5 Fighting against organisational indicators and culture

6. Theme 2: Universal services as part of the safeguarding partnership

6.1 What is the role of ‘health’?

6.2 Children versus adult social care – gap in service and understanding adolescents

6.3 Voluntary and charity sector (VCS) and practitioner lived experience within safeguarding partnerships

6.4 Data sharing between VCS and statutory services

6.5 Housing: everybody has a home

6.6 Community safety partnership (CSP) involvement

7. Theme 3: Policy, guidance and risk assessments/screening tools

7.1 Guidance and policies: Lost in translation

7.2 Risk assessment/screening

7.3 Data, mapping and intelligence

8. Theme 4: Working across safeguarding partnerships and area boundaries

8.1 Moving children out of area

8.2 Role of British Transport Police (BTP): Operation Defiant County lines Taskforce

Cross border police working

BTP and wider safeguarding partnership working

9. Theme 5: Best practice within the safeguarding partnership structure in response to county lines and youth SV risk

9.1 MACE meeting

9.2 Pre-MACE meeting

9.3 Targeted child exploitation (CE) teams

9.4 Triage: Integrated multi-agency children front door service and pathways to localised early help

9.5 Valuing and embedding the lived experience throughout the safeguarding partnership structure

9.6 Maximising partnership relationships

10. Theme 6: County lines typology

10.1 Awareness – a definition fit for purpose?

10.2 Changing/evolving model

10.3 “It wouldn’t be county lines if there wasn’t exploitation”

10.4 Link between county lines and serious youth violence

10.5 Gender, age and ethnicity

10.6 Legislative responses to county lines

11. Theme 7: Risk factors and unmet need

11.1 ACEs

11.2 Poverty

11.3 Disability and mental health

11.4 Lack of parental/family support

11.5 Missing children

11.6 Children in care

11.7 Disengagement from education

11.8 Drug use

11.9 Low aspirations of youth

11.10 The role of social media and music

11.11 Clean skins

12. Theme 8: Critical moments

12.1 Prevention and early intervention

12.2 Transitional moments

Transition to adulthood

Transition to high school

Exclusion process

12.3 Crisis presentation

Arrest

A&E from serious violent assault

12.4 Flexibility in response to critical moments

12.5 Stop waiting for crisis: Reachable moment can happen anywhere at anytime

12.6 Challenges in responding to critical moments

13. Theme 9: Contextual safeguarding and interventions

13.1 Disruption activities

13.2 Collective community responsibility

13.3 Training and awareness raising

13.4 Targeted support and diversion for families and YP

14. Theme 10: National Referral Mechanism (NRM)

14.1 Understanding of NRM and processes

14.2 Seeing the NRM as ‘safeguarding’ the young person

15.3 Unconscious bias of professionals and adultification^{[footnote 10]}