CYP Now - Councils lead efforts to prevent young people being radicalised

Councils are central to government efforts to protect vulnerable children from being exploited by radical religious groups, and inner city authorities, such as Tower Hamlets, are at the forefront of developing new ways to do this.

The CCTV images showing three London schoolgirls travelling alone from Gatwick to Turkey one cold February night on their way to volunteer for Islamic State in Syria (Isis) brought home the extent of the safeguarding threat that extremist religious groups pose to vulnerable children and young people.

The case appeared to come out of the blue - the girls, aged 15 and 16, attended the Bethnal Green Academy in Tower Hamlets, where friends and teachers described them as "normal" and "straight A students".

But the fact they had been in contact with people in Syria through social media and hidden this from their family raised questions about the level of risk organisations such as Isis posed to UK young people.

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