An online resource aims to support cross-sector leaders achieve system change in tackling child exploitation. The open access website has been developed by the Tackling Child Exploitation (TCE) Support Programme and aims to provide a cross-cutting understanding of exploitation that encourages strategic change from multiple vantage points.
Child exploitation does not fall neatly into categories or types of abuse, nor does exploitation correspond exclusively to particular professional backgrounds, or to one agency above another. The new resources featured on the dedicated TCE Support Programme website are structured around key topics to provide a cross-cutting understanding of exploitation. It includes:
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Evidence – primary and participatory research, data and practitioner perspectives to highlight what is known (and not currently known) about the nature, impact and effective responses to exploitation.
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Local responses – policy briefings, partnership facilitation tools, data and more designed to support areas to develop their own bespoke response to child exploitation.
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Joining the dots – strategic resources to constructively challenge and prompt new and innovative thinking.
The site also provides reports and learning from the programme’s Bespoke Support Projects to promote and enable cross-sector learning.
As the evidence continues to grow in this emerging field, the featured resources will continue to grow and evolve in order to reflect collective insights and understanding, as well as being shared more widely to contribute to new sources of evidence.
View the tackling child exploitation resources (open access).
About the programme
The TCE Support Programme aims to support local areas to develop an effective strategic response to child exploitation and threats from outside the family home (known as extra-familial harm). This covers child sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation, including county lines drug trafficking.
Aimed at local area partnerships with safeguarding responsibilities, the programme is designed to provide extra support so that local areas can review and develop their strategic approach to safeguarding children and young people.
The programme was commissioned by the Department for Education, led by Research in Practice, together with The Children’s Society and University of Bedfordshire.
Tackling child exploitation and extra-familial harm – new Practice Principles to support professionals
The Tackling Child Exploitation Support Programme Practice Principles aim to shape and inform the work of multi-agency professionals responding to child exploitation and extra-familial harm.
A public health approach to violence reduction: Strategic Briefing (2021)
This Strategic Briefing distils the core features of public health approaches and explains their potential for reducing violence, outlines how system leaders can ensure they play their part in creating and implementing public health approaches to violence reduction, and explores some of the potential problems and possible solutions associated with public health approaches.
Blurred boundaries: child exploitation, safeguarding and the criminal justice system
This Tackling Child Exploitation Support Programme article focuses on the challenges of responding to child exploitation, from interviews with experts in threat, risk and harm, youth justice and forensic social work.