Good Practice: How a unified approach is helping Blackburn agencies to fight child sexual exploitation
Friday, August 5, 2011
The work of the multi-agency Engage team has led to a 30 per cent drop in the number of children missing between 2005/06 and 2010/11
Funding The costs of staffing this multi-agency team are covered by the different partners. For example, Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council contributes roughly £200,000 a year
Purpose To prevent and tackle sexual exploitation of children and young people
Background Child sexual exploitation has long been a hidden problem nationally. The scale of this problem in Blackburn with Darwen in Lancashire was uncovered in 2006 following a police and social care operation to tackle an unusually high number of young people missing from home.
Operation Engage discovered that many girls who regularly went missing were being "groomed" by older men and being given drugs, alcohol and gifts in return for sex. The lessons from this work led to a whole new approach to preventing and tackling the sexual exploitation of children and young people in the area.
Action In 2008, local agencies established a specialist multi-agency team to deal specifically with the issue of sexual exploitation. Partners currently include Blackburn with Darwen Council, Lancashire police, NHS Blackburn with Darwen and voluntary sector organisations including young people's sexual health charity Brook and the Coalition for the Removal of Pimping (Crop).
A team of professionals, which includes police officers, nurses and support workers, is co-located in premises in Blackburn town centre. Engage manager Nick McPartlan says: "That means there is fantastic sharing of information and we have access to all the relevant databases." The team also works closely with organisations such as Barnardo's, the Children's Society and substance misuse service Lifeline.
McPartlan says that there are three main strands to the work: prevention, protection and prosecution. The key to its success has been a massive focus on the prevention side, including training hundreds of professionals to identify signs of sexual exploitation and take appropriate action. The team trains all new police officers and social workers, and others such as teachers, school staff and health workers. The training is also given to staff in cinemas, bowling alleys, shops and hotels - places where sexual exploitation might occur.
The team has developed a clear way of scoring risk factors to help people work out what steps to take if they are concerned about a young person. "About two-thirds of the cases we deal with would never have met the thresholds for social service or police intervention at first sight," says McPartlan. The fact that the team is not simply pursing prosecutions means they end up getting more.
Another important factor is that where possible the team aims to avoid going through official child protection procedures. Parents are often unaware that their child has been targeted by an adult and child protection processes can risk alienating them and make it seem like they are being blamed for something out of their control.
Outcome Engage has been incredibly successful and was recently highlighted as best practice in a national report by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.
The scheme has led to a 30 per cent drop in the number of children missing between 2005/06 and 2010/11. Around 825 children have been supported by the project to date, about 11 per cent of whom were children in care.
In the three years before the specialist team was established, there was just one successful prosecution for sexual exploitation. There is now an average of 80 prosecutions a year. Prosecution rates for sexual exploitation are 98 per cent in Blackburn with Darwen compared with a national average for rape prosecutions - which is the nearest national comparable statistic - of between three and six per cent. McPartlan puts this down to the fact that all witnesses automatically get one-to-one support while parents or carers get separate support from Crop. The team is able to build strong cases and many defendants change their pleas from not guilty to guilty on the first day in court.
PROTECTION FROM EXPLOITATION
825 Number of children who have been supported by the Engage project to date
80 Average annual number of prosecutions for sexual exploitation in Blackburn with Darwen since the creation of the Engage programme
1 Number of prosecutions for sexual exploitation in Blackburn with Darwen in the three years before the creation of the Engage programme
30% Percentage drop in the number of children missing between 2005/06 and 2010/11
11% Percentage of children supported by Engage who have been in care
98% Successful prosecution rates for sexual exploitation within Blackburn with Darwen
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