Newcastle Sexual Exploitation Hub

ACTION

Newcastle Sexual Exploitation Hub's co-located professionals include four police officers working with victims or "complainants", who keep hub colleagues abreast of intelligence and investigations. They work alongside hub manager Sam Keith, one children's and three adult social workers, a nurse and voluntary sector representatives. Further adult and children's social workers are being recruited. "We've built really good knowledge of what we each can and can't do, helping us understand how we can all best support people," says Keith, Newcastle Council's safeguarding adults manager.

The hub's work was triggered in 2013 by a young woman's disclosure, which service manager for safeguarding adults Linda Gray says sparked recognition of the need for "a more bespoke response to sexual exploitation across the city". Northumbria Police launched Operation Sanctuary in January 2014 and social workers used their safeguarding and multi-agency information-sharing procedures to support those identified as at risk. The hub expanded into its current form in 2015, with £3.5m from the Home Office's Police Innovation Fund. "Evidence-gathering wasn't first and foremost for us, it was supporting people," Gray recalls. "Police recognised quickly that was a way of keeping people on board."