5.8 Safeguarding Children and Young people from Exploitation and Serious Youth Violence: Procedures and Guidance

1. Introduction

The guidance provides information about sexual exploitation, criminal exploitation and serious youth violence, the roles and responsibilities of relevant agencies and the procedures practitioners should follow to ensure the safety and well-being of children and young people who it is suspected have been or are at risk of being exploited or involved in serious youth violence.

Multi-agency child exploitation (MACE) – child at risk of or suffering exploitation procedure

This procedure describes how children and young people at risk of or suffering exploitation are screened and subsequently supported via their family support, child in need, child protection or care plan with support from MACE representatives

Child exploitation is defined as:

Child criminal exploitation occurs where an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, control, manipulate or deceive a child or young person under the age of 18 into any criminal activity (a) in exchange for something the victim needs or wants, and/or (b) for the financial or other advantage of the perpetrator or facilitator and/or (c) through violence or the threat of violence. The victim may have been criminally exploited even if the activity appears consensual. Child Criminal Exploitation does not always involve physical contact; it can also occur through the use of technology.

Child sexual exploitation is a form of child sexual abuse. It occurs where an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, manipulate or deceive a child or young person under the age of 18 into sexual activity (a) in exchange for something the victim needs or wants, and/or (b) for the financial advantage or increased status of the perpetrator or facilitator. The victim may have been sexually exploited even if the sexual activity appears consensual. Child sexual exploitation does not always involve physical contact; it can also occur through the use of technology.

Group based/network exploitation is defined as two or more individuals (whether identified or not) who are known to (or associated with) one another and re know to be involved in or to facilitate the sexual exploitation of children and young people. Being involved in the sexual exploitation of children and young people includes introducing them to other individuals for the purpose of exploitation, trafficking a child for the purpose of sexual exploitation, taking payment for sexual activities with a child or young person or allowing their property to be used for sexual activities with a child or young person.

Serious youth violence – there are several definitions that describe ‘Serious Youth Violence’ but the one element that they all have in common is that they all focus on the age of the person involved in the incident and the gravity of the offence: The Home Office develops the notion of ‘Serious Youth Violence’ being associated with children who are involved or at the periphery of ‘county lines’ and negative peer groups and concerning children involved in ‘county lines’ and other related activities as per the definition above. For the purposes of this strategy, in Norfolk we are treating serious youth violence as any offence of most serious violence or weapon enabled crime involving a young person under the age of 18 in an extra-familial setting. This may be in relation to county lines and/or criminal exploitation or in a separate contextual setting.

2. What is MACE?

The MACE approach to working together to identify, screen and ultimately reduce the risk of exploitation draws representatives from the Police (sexual exploitation team) and Children’s Services/Youth Justice Service (YJS)/Police (criminal exploitation team).

MACE representatives offer a range of support including investigation, disruption, expertise and consultation and where appropriate, direct work with young people and their families.

MACE representatives will always contribute to screening young people to understand risks relating to exploitation.

MACE representatives are not case accountable from a CS perspective. This responsibility remains with the case responsible family support or social worker. Other MACE representatives provide ongoing support as appropriate in respect of risk management planning, intervention, enforcement and disruption.

Note: Youth violence deemed unrelated to exploitation will require an alternative policing response. Support to identify the appropriate policing response (i.e., safer schools, operational partnership teams, Criminal Investigation Department (CID), etc.) can be offered at point of screening in the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH).

Child Criminal Exploitation Police: 01603 276096
Child Sexual Exploitation Police: 01603 276096

3. Screening

Professionals working with children and young people should request a Child Exploitation (CE) screening when exploitation risk factors are identified, regardless of current social care involvement.

4. What are the indicators of child exploitation (CE)?

Absconding/missing episodes/missing from school/parent or carer failing to report child missing:

Coercion or control by others (individuals/gangs, etc., unhealthy relationships).

Missing and found in another area:

Other vulnerabilities (Children Looked After (CLA), victim of abuse, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)). This is not an exhaustive list.

Associating with others who are at risk of exploitation or present a risk:

Frequenting risky environments – consider contextual safeguarding.

Use of drugs and alcohol or possession of drugs:

Lack of engagement with education and/or employment.

Risky use of social media including arranging to meet or meeting in person people following online contact:

Other risky online/telephone activity (sexualised conversations/sending or receiving indecent images).

Sexual activity with known or suspected perpetrators of exploitation:

Accommodation and/or family relationship issues/cuckooing.

Issues with emotional and/or physical health:

Offending/weapons/criminal activity/perpetrator serious violence.

Community and social isolation factors:

Evidence/intelligence to indicate County Lines involvement.

Concern for exploitation and/or human trafficking:

Unexplained income/possessions/mobile phones or lifestyle.

Victim of or suspected of sexual crime or serious violence:

Witness of sexual or serious violence.

5. Social Media

The use of media and technology is now a common feature of the social activity of most young people. Smart-phones, laptops and tablets can all be used to exchange information verbally, by text, e mail and most commonly through apps, programmes and social media.

The use of electronic media presents considerable opportunities to abusers and provides powerful tools with which to groom and control victims. Grooming is defined as developing the trust of a young person or his or her family in order to engage in illegal sexual conduct. It may include:

Causing a child to watch a sexual act, e.g. sending sexually themed adult content or images and videos featuring child sexual abuse to a young person;
Inciting a child to perform a sexual act, e.g. by threatening to show sexual images of a child to their peers or parents (e.g. self-produced material or even a pseudo-image of the child);
Suspicious online contact with a child, e.g. asking a young user sexual questions;
Asking a child to meet in person; befriending a child and gaining their trust, etc;
Other grooming: the range in behaviours that fall into this category are widely variable but reflect the range of strategies often employed by adults to prepare a child for abuse, e.g. using schools or hobby sites such as the Scouts or Girl Guides to gather information about particular children, their location and future events where the child may be present; presenting as a minor online to deceive a child, etc.

It is also known that abusers and exploiters will sometimes pose as teenagers to obtain sexually explicit images via web cams or making arrangements to meet the victim. Often these individuals live some considerable distance from the victim and initially make contact through legitimate sites used by young people.

Telephone and internet communication data can provide excellent evidence against abusers and can assist in identifying perpetrators and unknown victims and in identifying networks. It is vital that those having care of children at risk of CSE gather as much information as possible re mobile numbers, text communications and social media contacts and forward it to police SPOCs to assist the police in collating this evidence.

6. Risk level descriptors

Risk level thresholds (decision making must be made on the balance of

probability)

Non child criminal exploitation (CCE)/child sexual exploitation (CSE):

No evidence of exploitation or exposure to serious youth violence.

Standard:

At this stage there is no evidence or reasonable cause to suspect that the child is exposed to exploitation or serious youth violence.

However, there are concerns that without support the child could be exposed to exploitation or serious youth violence in the future due to the presence of identified vulnerability factors or warning signs.

The child/young person requires support to increase resilience.

Medium:

There is evidence or reasonable cause to suspect that the child is at risk of being targeted for exploitation or exposed to serious youth violence.

The risk to the child is such that they would be unlikely to achieve or maintain a reasonable level of health or development without the provision of support or that the child/young person’s health and development is likely to be significantly or further impaired, without the provision of support.

High:

There is evidence or reasonable cause to suspect that the child is currently exposed to exploitation or serious youth violence.

The risk to the child’s safety is significant and immediate provision of support is needed to safeguard the child.

7. Consent

If consent for screening is not obtained, the following should be considered in order to progress:

There would/should be reasonable grounds to suspect the child/young person (YP) is at risk of exploitation to require a screening in the first instance, and so at likely risk of harm.
‘Informed’ consent of YP themselves is questionable, given likelihood they may be being exploited and groomed.
Either seeking their consent or that of a parent likely to be challenging i.e., avoidant/absent and may cause undue delay.

8. Requesting a CE screen

Professionals should request a CE screening via the usual Children's Advice and Duty Service (CADS) telephone number (regardless of current social care involvement) 0344 800 8021.

Screening will be undertaken in CADS by Multi-Agency Child Exploitation representatives including:

Consultant social worker
Police Detective Sergeant (DS) or senior investigator
YJS
MASH health.

Screening will be undertaken within 24 hours of a request to CADS.

9. Following screening

MACE representative (Police) should update the intelligence/case review spreadsheet.

Consultant social worker (CADS) will update the child’s record on Liquidlogic Children’s System (LCS). Screens are recorded in the CSE workspace on LCS.

Risk relating to exploitation can quickly change and is often unpredictable. Some children and young people experience multiple risks that may emanate from both the home and extra familial contexts, it is therefore important to ensure a clear and current understanding of exploitation risk is maintained. Understanding a young person’s history and trajectory in

terms of exploitation risk is vital for planning and protection at an individual and strategic level.

Initial screening takes place within CADS and information is drawn from key professionals working with a child or young person including MACE police professionals, CADS consultant social worker, health and CCE team.

Professionals need to make subsequent CE risk decisions consistently and regularly. Failure to do this means we lack the ability to report on trajectory and recorded risk levels are unreliable on the Liquidlogic record.

10. High risk – immediate significant harm

For all immediate significant risk of harm cases a strategy discussion under section 47 of the Children Act will take place as per current child protection and safeguarding processes.

Strategy discussions should be chaired by the relevant locality social work team manager. CADS CE desk will participate in the strategy discussion and should include MACE police representatives as well as other relevant professionals.

A CE Hazard should be added to the child’s record (CADS).

Where a young person screened at high risk is not currently active to a social worker, a social work assessment should be undertaken. Assessments must include clear consideration of contextual factors. See the contextual safeguarding toolkit for more information.

For active cases, the social work assessment should be updated and a consultation with the youth FAST team should take place.

For high-risk cases an (Initial) Child Protection ((I)CP) conference should be considered. Request contextual safeguarding specialist CP chair. CLA – A CLA contextual safeguarding conference should be booked. Request Specialist Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) or CP chair.

Note: Social workers should contact CP chairs/IRO ahead of conference to ensure all relevant invites are discussed and agreed.

Family group conference should be considered. Social workers should consult with Family Group Conference (FGC) coordinator.

Consideration for appropriateness of application to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) should be given for all cases where evidence/information suggests a young person is being exploited (see guidance at the end of this document).

A child planning meeting to review the exploitation risk and level must take place at least once every two weeks.

The team manager, social worker, and MACE police officer must attend the review. Any other key professional including YJS, Education, Health or Targeted Youth Support Service (TYSS) should attend where relevant and possible. Children and family should be given the opportunity to attend.

All Child Planning meetings should be recorded on the exploitation screening tool form, which can be found in the CSE workspace on LCS. Please choose review option and ensure the date and time of meeting is recorded within the summary section.

The category of risk box which can also be found in the CSE workspace must be updated following every Child Planning meeting regardless of whether the risk level has changed.

The team manager should add a management oversight following every meeting to show that a meeting has taken place and record specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely (SMART) actions including when the next meeting will take place.

11. Medium risk

Any case where a child or young person is deemed at medium risk will be considered (on a case-by-case basis) either for a strategy discussion or Child in Need meeting under section 17 of the Children Act.

A CE Hazard should be added to the child’s record (CADS).

Where a young person screened at medium risk is not currently active to a social worker, a social work assessment should be undertaken. Assessments should include clear consideration of contextual factors. See the contextual safeguarding toolkit for more information.

Child in Need meetings for children and young people deemed at medium risk should take place within 10 working days of screening. This includes children and young people who are looked after by the local authority. In this instance the meeting will be a child planning meeting.

A MACE team representative should be invited to attend this meeting.

Team managers are expected to chair the initial meeting and every other meeting for all children/young people deemed medium risk.

Family group conference should be considered. Social workers should consult with FGC coordinator.

Specialist IRO available to support IRO service in ensuring care planning takes account of exploitation/extra familial risk.

The risk and level should be reviewed at least every 6 weeks in line with timescales for review of the child’s plan (for CLA cases this will mean scheduling additional child planning meetings every 6 weeks. Care plan reviews should be brought forward where risk requires a change to the care plan).

Following each review…

An exploitation screening tool form, which can be found in the CSE workspace on LCS should also be completed. Please choose the review option and ensure the date and time of meeting is recorded within the summary section.

The category of risk box which can also be found in the CSE workspace must be updated regardless of whether the risk level has changed.

Where a child is a Child in Need (CIN), and the level has been raised to high, a strategy discussion should be recorded and a Child Protection/CLA contextual safeguarding conference booked.

12. Standard risk

Cases where a child or young person is deemed at standard risk should be allocated to the relevant family support teams. This includes step down of cases from social care.

A family support assessment should be undertaken and must include clear consideration of contextual factors.

MACE team representatives should be invited by the allocated practitioner to support safety planning via consultation and attendance at planning meetings (only where required and agreed via consultation).

LA – Specialist IRO is available to support IRO in ensuring care planning takes account of exploitation/extra familial risk.

Standard risk cases

Following each review…

An exploitation screening tool form, which can be found in the CSE workspace space on LCS should also be completed. Please choose the review option and ensure the date and time of meeting is recorded within the summary section.

The category of risk box which can also be found in the CSE workspace must also updated regardless of whether the risk level has changed.

Note: Family Support cases where there are concerns that the risk level is escalating to medium or high, the exploitation screening review form should be completed by the CADS exploitation desk in consultation with the allocated worker and manager.

When cases close

When a case closes to Children’s Services or the risk is reduced to none the CSE episode should be ended. Do this by updating the category of risk box in the CSE workspace and selecting end CSE episode.

13. Screening/risk level disputes

Where there is a disagreement regarding the screening level for a child, escalation should follow the NSCP escalation guidelines.

14. Information sharing

It is important to share as much information as possible in order to enable families and professionals to keep children and young people safe. In some circumstances the sharing of police intelligence or other ‘soft’ intelligence from practitioners may put at risk other children and vulnerable people or significantly hinder police operations. Police have a duty of care to protect life and limb and act upon information that presents a risk of serious harm to any member of the public, including workers.

MACE police should be represented at meetings relating to exploitation where risk is deemed medium and high. Meeting conveners should allow additional time prior to young people and family members joining meetings to enable appropriate sharing of intelligence or information about risk and or planned disruption with social care practitioners.

Police should be aware that intelligence they share may be used by social care practitioners to make decisions about case work.

Intelligence should only be acted upon in terms of the context within which it was shared i.e., provenance, corroboration and reliability.

Intelligence recorded on Liquidlogic should always be clearly marked as ‘Intelligence’ and where it cannot be shared with families and or others. this should be clearly marked as ‘Intelligence not to be shared’.

Note: There may be some cases where police have information or intelligence that suggests a child should be managed at a higher risk level. However, because of associated risks, either to police tactics, individuals or a wider police investigation, this information cannot be shared via the forums described above. In these cases, the senior police manager or Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) must consider sharing information

with the relevant Head of Service within Children’s Services. The Head of Service may be asked to sign a confidentiality agreement and will be advised of the restrictions around the information disclosed. This should include agreement that the Head of Service is able to share with their senior manager (Director/Assistant Director). The SIO should record

rationale for the decision to share information or not to share information under these circumstances.

Briefing relevant partners on police disruption activity

For any planned disruption or enforcement on known perpetrators of child exploitation, the senior police manager or SIO must consider how and when Children’s Services can be briefed. The police must consider how enforcement against perpetrators allows opportunities for engagement with children in order to support them away from possible harm.

Submitting intelligence to police

Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018 states ‘The police will hold important information about children who may be suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm, as well as those who cause such harm. They should always share this information with other organisations and agencies where this is necessary to protect children. Similarly, they can expect other organisations and agencies to share information to enable the police to carry out their duties’.

What is intelligence?

Information can come from many different sources – such as people, phone work, financial data or ANPR analysis to name just a few.

Intelligence is information that has been subject to a risk assessment and grading process.

Why do police we collect intelligence:

Protect life and property;
Preserve order;
Prevent the commission of offences;
Bring offenders to justice; and
Duty of responsibility arising from common or statute law.

In order for the police to risk assess intelligence, the provenance of the information is important:

Who else knows the information – circle of knowledge?
How do they know the information?
When did they first know the information to be true?
When did they last know the information to be true?
Intelligence relating to the safeguarding of children at risk of exploitation can be shared by professionals to the police in 3 ways:
By completion of the below form and sending it to CIB@norfolk.police.uk; or
By sharing it with a police MACE member of staff. Whoever is providing the information should be ready to answer the questions on the form below.
If the information relates to an imminent threat or immediate emergency, then calling 999 would be appropriate. This would most likely be in really exceptional circumstances only.
The submission of Intelligence relating to the safeguarding of children at risk of exploitation should be shared with Police in a timely manner and not delayed awaiting a next formal meeting.
The professional submitting intelligence should also retain their own durable and retrievable notes of the intelligence shared including time/date given and source of intelligence with consideration to information security procedures.

Children moving out of Norfolk

For children who are open to the Norfolk Constabulary MACE team but are moving out of Norfolk, the MACE worker responsible for the child should make reasonable efforts to facilitate contact between the relevant constabulary and allocated Social Worker. Every effort should be made to facilitate a virtual conference call so there is an effective handover for the child. Other constabularies may operate in a different way to Norfolk and this needs to be recognised by the partnership.

Sharing assessments with families

All social work/family support assessments must be shared with families.

Intelligence should not be included in assessments. Managers should add clear rationale as a manager oversight in case notes regarding reasons for information not included.

15. Resources

Language

Inappropriate use of language in case recordings can often misrepresent exploited children and young people.

The link will also take you to other useful resources regarding this issue, including guidance related to intelligence gathering. See link below:

16. The National Referral Mechanism (NRM) guidance and information

See the Multi-agency guidance on the NRM process for children and young people.

Links