Achieving Change Together

Action
In 2012, nine men were arrested in Rochdale for being part of a child sexual exploitation (CSE) gang that targeted young girls. The arrests led to an independent report that criticised Rochdale Council's safeguarding procedures. Nine men were convicted this year of sexual offences against teenage girls and sentenced to a total of 25 years in prison.

The case highlighted the needs of a group of very vulnerable young people in Greater Manchester and led to Rochdale and Wigan councils coming together to create a specialist service - Achieving Change Together (ACT) - to support young victims of CSE and those at risk.

Across the area's 10 councils, more than 105 young people were taken into care where CSE was a risk factor, at a cost of £8.9m annually in care placements.

Nicholas Marsh, operational development lead at ACT, says that while taking children into care removed children from immediate risk, "when they returned home the risks were still there" in the form of relationships and social groups.

ACT commissioned an academic literature review of CSE that found, in many cases where CSE was a factor, children returning from time in care were in no better position than those who had stayed at home. "Often, young people returned from care to more fragile support networks," explains Marsh.

As a result, the focus of ACT's work is to support children who have been victim of CSE or are at risk from it to stay in their home setting - whether in the family home or foster care - when it is safe and appropriate.

Around 20 to 25 young people are on the programme at any one time, supported by a team of four social workers - two in each area - with Marsh acting as the "hub".

The social workers are degree-level qualified and have more than three years, experience. Marsh says he has looked for professionals who have strong resilience skills because of the emotionally challenging nature of the work.

He says the team works with each family holistically, and CSE is not isolated as the only problem.

"Our service, which will be different from any other service, is going to look at the family in its entirety. We don't just problem-profile, we look at all the family's priorities," he says.

"In the interviews with young people, they said once CSE is mentioned, it's a red light and everyone starts imposing what they want to happen. But young people are saying CSE is the least of their problems, that they've got drug and alcohol abuse, they're being bullied in school."

The team is also working across boundaries and is currently supporting a young person who moved away from the area.

"Our caseloads are really small - workers might have five young people, so they can spend hours with them at a time," says Marsh. "They don't work nine-to-five, but around whatever hours the young person needs."

The team also has a trauma therapist serving both areas, who is working with seven out of the 16 young people currently on the programme.

"If a young person is not ready for counselling, our trauma therapist will start a text relationship to slowly introduce themselves, and that will be their relationship until the young person is ready to meet them."

Another principle for the team is having one key relationship for the young people. "All young people talk about having one person who really believes in them," explains Marsh. "Just one extra person is enough to dilute that relationship.

"So when workers get involved, they encourage others to take a step back and, where possible, act as conduit for other services."

Marsh says there are no referral forms, but young people are taken on after conversations about their individual circumstances.

"We have to think about the interconnection of risks, their previous experience, what's around them now and potentially around them in future," Marsh says. "As lead of the service, this causes me anxiety as it's not how services work."

Impact
Although the service is not due to be evaluated until later in the year, Marsh is already seeing positive impacts.

"It's too soon to know what the long-term outcome is, but instantly I'm seeing young people responding to our workers because they see them so frequently - three and four times a week - which is absolutely unheard of," he says.

Marsh knows that for the service to survive, it will need to prove its impact. One way of doing that will be to highlight the much higher cost of placing a child in secure accommodation.

He hopes the project could expand to three other local authorities next year, and all 10 in Greater Manchester over the next two years.

The ultimate aim, Marsh says, is to prevent young people from becoming a victim of CSE again.

"We're trying to stop re-victimisation further down the line," he says. "If we don't get it right at this point, evidence says things deteriorate in adulthood.

"So it's an absolutely vital role to make sure young people feel supported and valued, and have an understanding of what a healthy relationship looks like.

"We're modelling that with young people; turning up on time, showing them respect and showing they're listened to. Part of it is being a constant and supportive mentor for them."