Child Exploitation and Contextual Safeguarding Strategy and action plan 2025-2028

Introduction

Child exploitation remains a significant concern across Devon, affecting the safety, wellbeing, and futures of some children and young people.

In response to this ongoing challenge, the Devon Child Exploitation Strategy has been developed to provide a coordinated, evidence-informed framework for tackling all forms of child exploitation, including criminal, sexual, and online exploitation. This strategy reflects our collective commitment to safeguarding children and young people, ensuring that they are protected from harm and supported to thrive.

The strategy is underpinned by a comprehensive Child Exploitation Needs Assessment completed in early 2025. This assessment brought together data, insights, and experiences from across the partnership, including health, education, social care, police, and the voluntary sector. Most importantly, it surveyed the views of over 500 children and young people in Devon to seek their views. It highlighted key trends, emerging risks, and areas for improvement, enabling us to tailor our response to the specific needs of children and families in Devon. The findings have shaped our priorities and informed the development of targeted interventions that are both preventative and responsive.

The strategy uses the nationally recognised 4Ps approach: Prevent, Protect, Pursue, and Prepare. This model provides a clear and structured method for tackling exploitation. Prevent focuses on reducing the risk of exploitation through education, awareness, and early intervention. Protect ensures that children and young people who are at risk or have experienced exploitation receive timely and effective support. Pursue is about disrupting and prosecuting perpetrators, while Prepare strengthens our systems and workforce to respond effectively and sustainably.

This strategy requires action from all partners, professionals, and communities across Devon. It recognises that child exploitation is a complex and evolving issue that requires a whole-system, multi-agency response. By working together, sharing intelligence, and listening to the voices of children and families, we can build a safer Devon where exploitation is identified early and tackled robustly.

This strategy will be reviewed every 12 months or more frequently if there are significant changes.

What is exploitation?

Exploitation can take many different forms and it can be complex and hidden. Children and Young people often do not realise they are being exploited and can be subject to more than one type at any one time.

Types of Child Exploitation

1. Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE)

• Definition: A form of child sexual abuse where an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, manipulate, or deceive a child into sexual activity.
• Motivations: Often in exchange for something the child needs or wants, or for the perpetrator’s financial gain or status.
• Key Features:
  • May appear consensual but is exploitative.
  • Can occur online or in person.
  • May involve grooming, gifts, or threats.
  • Often includes older individuals in relationships with children.

2. Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE)

• Definition: Occurs when an individual or group coerces, controls, manipulates, or deceives a child into criminal activity.
• Motivations: For the perpetrator’s financial or other gain, often using violence or threats.
• Key Features:
  • May appear consensual.
  • Can involve drug trafficking, theft, knife crime, or fraud.
  • Often includes grooming and debt bondage.
  • Commonly linked to county lines activity.

3. County Lines Exploitation

• Definition: A specific form of CCE where gangs use children to transport and sell drugs across regions using dedicated mobile phone lines.
• Key Features:
  • Children may be trafficked to other areas.
  • Involves coercion, threats, and violence.
  • Children may be missing from home or school for periods.
  • Often includes the use of train stations, hotels, or trap houses.

4. Financial Exploitation / ‘Money Mules’

• Definition: Children are used to move or launder money on behalf of criminals.
• Key Features:
  • May involve bank accounts, cash transfers, or online purchases.
  • Often linked to organised crime or fraud.
  • Children may be unaware of the criminal nature of their actions.

5. Group Based Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE)

• A network is defined as two or more individuals (whether identified or not) who are known to (or associated with) one another and are known to be involved in or to facilitate the sexual exploitation of children and young people.
  Being involved in the sexual exploitation of children and young people includes introducing them to other individuals for the purpose of exploitation, trafficking a child for the purpose of sexual exploitation, taking payment for sexual activities with a child or young person or allowing their property to be used for sexual activities with a child or young person.

6. Radicalisation

• Radicalisation is a form of child exploitation where individuals or groups groom and manipulate children into adopting extremist ideologies or engage in harmful activities.
• Perpetrators exploit vulnerabilities such as isolation, low self-esteem, and a need for belonging, often using online platforms and persuasive narratives.
• Children may be coerced into criminal acts, violence, or spreading extremist content, placing them at significant risk of harm and criminalisation.
• Radicalisation shares core features with other exploitation types including grooming, power imbalance, and exploitation of trust so requires the same safeguarding approaches: early identification, timely intervention, and disruption of networks.
• Building resilience against extremist influences and reducing risk through strong multi-agency collaboration is essential.

Common Indicators of Exploitation

• Unexplained gifts, money, or possessions.
• Going missing or being found in unfamiliar areas.
• Changes in behaviour or emotional wellbeing.
• Association with older individuals or known offenders.
• Regularly missing school or disengaging from education.
• Drug or alcohol misuse.

What is contextual safeguarding?

Contextual safeguarding is an approach to understanding and responding to young people’s experiences of significant harm beyond their families. It recognises that the environments in which young people spend their time – such as schools, peer groups, neighbourhoods, and online spaces – can play a critical role in shaping their safety and wellbeing. Traditional safeguarding models often focus on risks within the home, but contextual safeguarding expands this lens to include the broader social contexts where exploitation, abuse, and harm can occur. This approach is particularly relevant in cases of child exploitation, where perpetrators often operate outside the family setting and use peer influence, social media, or community spaces to target young people.

By adopting a contextual safeguarding framework, professionals and agencies are encouraged to assess and intervene not only with individuals but also within the environments that may be contributing to risk. This might involve working with schools to address harmful peer dynamics, teach critical thinking skills, engaging with community leaders to make public spaces safer, or collaborating with tech platforms to reduce online grooming. The goal is to create safer social contexts for all young people, recognising that protecting children from exploitation requires a holistic, community-wide effort.

Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) can face additional vulnerabilities that increase their risk of exploitation. These children may experience difficulties with communication, understanding social cues, or recognising unsafe situations, which can make it harder for them to identify or report exploitation. Some may be more socially isolated or eager to form friendships, making them more susceptible to grooming by individuals who exploit their desire for connection.

We are also concerned about children in care and children who are excluded from education who are often at increased risk of harm. Additionally, our missing data across our Police force area evidence that those children that go missing regularly are incrementally at higher risk of being sexually exploited.

Working Together to Safeguard Children (2023) indicates that all children, including those who may be causing harm to others, should receive a safeguarding response first and practitioners should work with them to understand their experiences and what will reduce the likelihood of harm to themselves and others.

The 4Ps Approach to Tackling Child Exploitation

1. Prepare

• Strengthen partnerships, systems, and workforce capabilities.
• Ensure staff are trained, confident, and equipped to identify and respond to exploitation.
• Use data and learning to improve practice and inform strategic planning.

2. Prevent

• Identify and reduce risks before harm occurs.
• Raise awareness among children, families, and communities.
• Promote resilience and protective factors through education, social inclusion and early intervention.

3. Protect

• Provide timely, trauma-informed support to children at risk or affected by exploitation.
• Ensure safeguarding responses are child-centred and inclusive.
• Work with families and carers to create safe environments.

4. Pursue

• Disrupt and prosecute perpetrators of exploitation via the MACE and other structures.
• Use intelligence-led policing and multi-agency collaboration.
• Focus on both criminal justice outcomes and reducing harm.

Our Child Exploitation Group Strategic Priorities

One of the key priorities for the Devon Children’s Safeguarding Partnership agreed in June 2025 is “Improving response to need through developing multi-agency contextual safeguarding approaches, including risk outside the home.”

The Strategic Priorities of the Child Exploitation group for 2025 have been informed by our Child Exploitation Needs Assessment and are aligned to the 4Ps approach and are:

Prepare

• Enable the workforce to recognise risks that happen outside the home including online and know how to respond quickly using the right pathways.
• Create opportunities to share learning and expertise across the partnership utilising the voices and views of children and young people and parents/carers so we can learn from them what works in keeping children safe from exploitation.
• To make sure that everyone else – families, professionals, and the community – understands what child exploitation is and how to spot it and do something about it in a timely way.
• Use data to continue to develop our understanding of the nature and scale of exploitation in Devon and the impact of the partnership response to the children who are being exploited. Use this understanding to better inform our responses to tackle it.
• Use of horizon scanning to identify national, regional and local emerging exploitation trends, policy, practice and learning that is shared across the partnership
• Use cross partnership data to look for patterns of disproportionality and under or over representation. Invite challenge from across the partnership to create greater equality.
• Train staff to recognise risks that happen outside the home, including online, and know how to respond quickly using the right pathways.

Prevent

• Provide early help for families where there are risk factors.
• Address inequality and mitigating against vulnerabilities by targeting support to children we know are disproportionately affected, e.g. care-experienced, those living in poverty, stigmatised and minoritised groups.
• Try to reduce the numbers of children that are excluded from school. Where children are excluded, to ensure that they have good support around them to ensure they have fulfilling lives.
• Increase the awareness of online spaces where young people can spend lots of time including social media and gaming. Ensure people understand the associated risks of exploitation.
• To make sure that children have age-appropriate education that allows them to develop a strong understanding of healthy relationships, boundaries and (digital) safety
• Help children and young people feel valued, connected and build their ability to cope with challenges.
• To educate children on the signs of exploitation and help them to be confident about who to tell if they are worried about themselves or others.
• To make sure that young people have access to a trusted adult so that they can raise their concerns.
• To empower parents and carers to have a considered understanding of the risks of exploitation (on and offline) and the ways they can contribute towards increasing safety for their children.

Protect

• To ensure that all partners see victims of exploitation as children first and prioritise their safety and wellbeing. To be aware of adultification of young people , especially those who are in care or who are from ethnically minoritised backgrounds.
• To develop a broader adolescent strategy.
• Partners should ensure a culture that does not blame children or their families for the harm they face.
• Partners adopt a consistent, collaborative and trauma informed approach to the assessment of risk and commit to multiagency planning to ensure that children receive the right help at the right time to protect them from harm.
• Make sure all partners share important information with each other.
• Look at where harm happens – like in peer groups, schools, public places, online and in homes – assess, plan and take action to help.
• Work together to give children the right help at the right time, so problems don’t get worse.
• Support parents, carers and family networks to understand what is happening to the child, working with them to ensure they can best meet the child’s needs and what role they play in contributing towards their child through a relational safeguarding lens.
• Focus on keeping children safe and well, not just on stopping crime or anti-social behaviour.
• Work with the community – housing, local businesses, community groups, schools, young people, parents, sports and leisure services, transport provision, waste management, parks and recreation – to spot and respond to risks. Use campaigns like #LookCloser to raise awareness. Consider recruiting community guardians/peer mentors.
• NRM referrals are submitted at the earliest opportunity and there is continued awareness raising about the NRM process.
• Continue to develop an understanding of transitional safeguarding and develop a coherent approach to supporting young people affected by exploitation as they move into adulthood.

Pursue

• Perpetrators and unsafe spaces (both offline and online) are identified quickly and appropriate enforcement action or disruption is taken.
• Make sure the Devon MACE (Missing and Child Exploitation) group is facilitating a multi-agency approach to intelligence sharing, identification of persons and locations of concern and collaborative disruption via a range of partnership methods.
• Help all partners understand how to disrupt harmful situations and use every opportunity to keep children safe.
• Where children are being exploited through County Lines or organised criminality they are quickly identified and safeguarded as a victim first. Clear disruption activity is undertaken for those responsible for exploiting them.

Governance

Strategic

This contextual safeguarding strategy sits within our wider Safeguarding Children Partnership Arrangements. The strategy is overseen by our Strategic Child Exploitation Group (SCEG) which reports into the Devon Safeguarding Children Partnership Executive.

Operational

To support the implementation of this strategy there are now four operational meetings.

• The Child Exploitation Operational Group
• Devon MACE 
• Devon Daily Missing Meetings
• PEMOG group (Preventing Exploitation and Missing Operational group) – The overarching aim of PEMOG is to reduce repeat missing episodes and reduce the risk of harm from going missing.

The Terms of Reference for these groups will outline who is required to attend.

There are strong representative links between these groups and the Devon Child Sexual Abuse group, The Devon Serious Violence Partnership, Devon Drug and Alcohol Partnership and PREVENT. All operational forums take a trauma-informed approach. We have also taken into consideration from the learning from the Online Harms Profile.

Support services

Ivison Trust

Ivison Trust is for parents or carers of those children and young people who are at risk of exploitation.

Let’s Talk activities led by South Devon and Dartmoor CSP

Let’s Talk activities is a toolkit that contains information on how to have helpful and honest conversations with teenagers. It includes discussions around exploitation and signs to look out for.

Barnardo’s ‘Exceed’ Service

Provides direct support to young people, immediate safety advice and signposting, indirect support to parents, carers and other professionals, and outreach support to schools and other agencies to promote understanding around exploitation. Age range: 8-18 (up to 25 care experienced/additional needs) Type of exploitation: Sexual Exploitation Threshold/level of service/intervention: Level 3/4 Geographical coverage: whole peninsula.

Young Devon

Counselling in schools and in the community, for mental health, wellbeing, sexual health and other needs depending on the individual.

Specialist support for children and young people who are affected by crime. They do not need to have reported the crime to get support. Telephone support, live chat facility and advocacy for the CJS. Age Range: Contact even if under 18 years and said no – as priority victim in victims code Provider: Police and Crime Commissioner funded Type of exploitation: All victims of crime. Adult service, children young people and families service, DA/SV service Geographical coverage: Devon Threshold/level of service/intervention: universal

Links Service

Links is Devon’s new targeted Level 3 specialist service which will work to increase safety and reduce risk and harm to children, young people, and some young adults outside of the home.

Links brings together the expertise of staff within the Youth Intervention Team (crime prevention) and the REACH team (missing children and exploitation) to form an offer of intervention and support to children and young people who:

• have gone missing from home (any form of home)
• are at risk of being exploited
• are involved in increasing anti-social behaviour (ASB) and offending which may increase vulnerability to exploitation or exposure (or both) to youth violence

Links can work with children and young people from the age of 10, and young adults 18-25 who are care experienced. Links can work alongside lead professionals where there is already a plan of support in place, and can sometimes take the role of lead professional where the primary concerns are risk and harm outside the home.

How to access

Referrals to Links are made via the request for support to the ‘Front Door’.

Internal referrals for children or young people or young adults already open to a social worker or PA – agreement from team manager to request Links support, and then a discussion with a Links team manager to confirm referral meets Links criteria and type of support. A Safer Me assessment must also be completed or updated prior to requesting Links support.

YSMART

YSMART are a multi-disciplinary team, working with young people of all ages, until their 18th birthday (and occasionally beyond – depending on circumstances). 

They take referrals from young people themselves, their parents and families as well as schools, social services; youth offending teams, GPs and hospitals, youth workers, the voluntary sector, adult mental health services, adult drug treatment services and CAMHS – to name but a few.

YSMART provide support and advice for young people, parents, families and professionals and also deliver multi-agency training across the county.

YSMART also provide support for young people whose lives have been impacted by parental, carer or sibling substance use.

The initial section about the young person is required for all referrals. After this, you should complete either the section for Y-SMART referrals about a young person who is using alcohol or substances (or both) or the section about a young person’s parents, carers or siblings who are using alcohol or substances (or both). This type of referral is known as a Y-Project referral.

Family Hubs (referrals from professionals only)

Family hubs will continue to offer support to families in their local area. There will be teams within the family hubs service that will work directly with families within their local communities.

• Submit a family hubs support request

Family hubs information line 0800 538 5458
(Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm).

SPACE

Space Youth Services is Devon’s youth service. Their vision is that young people will navigate their transition into adulthood safely, with healthy relationships and the skills needed to thrive with purpose

Space Youth Services are county-wide, with eight youth centres designed to provide spaces for young people to meet, develop skills, try new things and belong. Space specialises in meeting young people where they are both physically and emotionally, they also deliver educational programmes in schools, spend lots of time in various locations in their mobile vehicles and on foot and have a virtual youth centre on Discord.

They are open at different times, when you need them – during the day, after school, college or work, in the evenings and at weekends.

Space offers individual support in times of need, from intense mentoring to light touch support. They specialise in group work and integration and will always try to find ‘forever support’ in a suitable setting where young people can gain peer support and friendship to help with their transition back from difficult times.

Their individualised support is an enquiry based system where you can tell them what the current challenges are and request some time with a youth worker. Space youth workers specialise in building trusted relationships and providing alternative ways to spend time (including meeting new people, trying new things and building confidence and reflective skills to enable a personal review of current life and situation) with tried and tested strategies and help young people find solutions.

Housing Support for 16–17 Year Olds

Housing services across Devon provide a coordinated early help response for 16–17 year olds who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Through the Joint Protocol, housing teams work in partnership with Children’s Social Care to ensure young people receive timely, needs-led support. This includes joint assessments under the Children Act 1989 and Housing Act 1996, access to emergency accommodation, mediation to support family reunification where safe and appropriate, and advocacy to help young people understand their rights and options. The aim is to prevent homelessness wherever possible and ensure that no young person faces housing instability without a clear and supported pathway to safety and stability.

 Housing teams contribute to contextual safeguarding by identifying environmental risks – such as exploitation linked to unsafe accommodation or peer networks – and by participating in multi-agency planning to reduce harm and promote stability. In line with our corporate parenting responsibilities – which extend beyond just 16/17 year olds – housing officers are trained to recognise key signs of abuse, neglect, modern slavery, and exploitation, and to make appropriate referrals into the safeguarding teams, including DCC Front Door. 

Police

You can use the Community Intelligence Portal to share information that will assist Devon & Cornwall Police in taking action to protect the vulnerable, prevent harm and pursue offenders.

Please consider if the portal is the appropriate way of reporting if the information you are providing is time critical. Always call 999 if there is an emergency, a crime is in progress, someone suspected of a crime is nearby, when there is danger to life or when violence is being used or threatened. If you want police to attend an address or speak to someone or report a crime on behalf of a client or yourself or your organisation, please dial 101. This link will assist you: www.devon-cornwall.police.uk/contact/af/contact-us-beta/contact-us/report-crime-incident-suspicion

Please remember that the Partner Agency Online Portal isn’t a referral form and does not replace any pre-existing referral or statutory safeguarding process like a MACE referral, an adult or child safeguarding concern. We are asking you to carry out your own organisational safeguarding process to protect your clients or report an incident or crime to Police where the circumstances say you should do so via 101 or 999. We also want you to tell us when you have information about suspected criminal activity or exploitation, but it doesn’t reach the threshold for a crime, incident or referral. Like a suspicion that Organised Crime Groups are operating in your area, information on suspicious premises, transactions, vehicles, behaviour or people. www.devon-cornwall.police.uk/pais

999	101	PAIS
If you or someone else is in immediate danger, or if the crime is happening right now. Example: There’s a shed burglary happening right now.	Where police attendance or a crime number is required, such as reporting a missing person, an incident which is going to happen imminently or to report that you, (or someone you represent) has been a victim of a crime. Example: A service user’s shed was burgled yesterday. Or, you have information about a suspect for a crime.	For sharing partnership information which isn’t a report of a crime or incident but which helps identify offenders and bring them to justice. Information that will help police protect people and property, prevent crime or prevent disorder. This shared information will help create a picture and understanding of crime, harm and threat that will enable police and partners to act. Example: A service user has told me information about who’s responsible for a spate of shed breaks. You hear that there is a new county line operating in your area.

Police processing of PAIS information

Reports made to the police are not transactional in nature. For example each individual report of suspected drug dealing will not necessarily result in an officer being dispatched. Rather, information is combined together, corroborated and assessed against policing priorities. Resources are then allocated proportionately to tackle a given risk area. It might be that a report of drug dealing is linked to an ongoing operation so is passed to the relevant team. Alternatively, the local Neighbourhood Team might be made aware, or the information used as a piece of the jigsaw to build a broader picture of drug distribution. Because the type and extent of ‘action’ taken is as broad and varied as the reports received, it is not possible to provide feedback on how much ‘action’ has been taken.

The connection between the person providing intelligence information and those acting on it is intentionally broken. Each piece of intelligence is graded using a national framework. This relates to the reliability of the source, how they know the information and whether there are any specified handling conditions/sensitivity. Intelligence reads as snippets of sanitised text, with a grading such as ‘2AP’ (Intel directly known to an untested source, no handling conditions) or 1CC (Intel known indirectly to a reliable source, handling conditions apply). As a result and by design, it is impossible for those acting on intelligence to know whether it came from social services, a police employee, a member of the public, or elsewhere. Likewise, it’s not possible to clarify whether intel has come from an individual, organisation, CCTV camera, etc.

Please work through the questions on the PAIS form, which are designed to help us get the information to the right people in our organisations to build the picture on threat, harm and risk, so that we can take action: www.devon-cornwall.police.uk/pais

More information

Please follow your organisation’s safeguarding processes if you suspect county lines, cuckooing, criminal or sexual exploitation.

Devon & Cornwall Police website general information on county lines and other threats like domestic abuse, modern slavery: www.dc.police.uk/countylines

Contact information: www.dc.police.uk/contact

Reporting anonymously via Crimestoppers: crimestoppers-uk.org

Crimestoppers county lines info: crimestoppers-uk.org/keeping-safe/community-family/county-lines

The Crimestoppers site for young people to find information and report anonymously: www.fearless.org/en

Share Community Partnership Intelligence | Devon & Cornwall Police

Reporting a safeguarding concern that links for risk outside the home

Adolescent Safety Framework (Safer Me)

The Adolescent Safety Framework (ASF) is a pioneering approach to managing contextual risk which will support children, young people, families and professionals from across the partnerships. These risks are often found outside of the family environment and place young people at risk or compromise their safety. This includes risks caused by peer groups, exploitation, locations and persons of concern outside the family.

It is a strengths-based model, harnessing the already trusted relationships that practitioners have with the young person and enables us all to follow a process and pathway to mitigate the risks for all concerned.

The Adolescent Safety Framework (ASF) has received positive endorsement from multi-agency partnership groups, Research in Practice (RiP) and the Contextual Safeguarding Network. It has the full approval from the Devon Safeguarding Children Partnership (Devon SCP) Executive, Safer Devon Partnership and Community Safety Partnerships. A range of agencies and partners have endorsed the model including Devon County Council Children’s Services, Devon and Cornwall Police, Early Help, Education, Health, Voluntary Agencies and the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH).

Read our quick guide to the Adolescent Safety Framework here.

Key changes to practice will include:

1. A single and holistic approach to assessment of individual children, peer groups, neighbourhoods, locations or persons of concern that guides the assessor to the correct pathway/action through the identification of vulnerabilities, behaviours, environment, relevant concerns and indicators as well as protective factors.
2. The meeting formats use existing statutory thresholds to ensure safe planning at an individual level but provide an alternative approach within TAF and CIN meetings, and CP conferences.
3. This model of working at the individual level through Safer Me (TAF / CIN) and Safer Me Plus (CP meetings). It is designed to give a focus around the risks OUTSIDE of the family and maximise the participation of the young person to understand how the situation can be made safer with all agencies working together
4. A single coordination hub through the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH), which will ensure timely individual safeguarding, threshold stability, analysis and support for professionals and ensures connectivity between key forums (including the MACE).
5. A model of working at a wider level to improve the safety of the contextual circumstances around the child(ren). This is achieved through the Peer Group, Neighbourhood (Location) and School Context Conferences, which will be facilitated by independent Safeguarding Chairs, Community Safety Partnership Chairs, and Headteachers or Designated Safeguarding Leads respectively.

What do I do if I have concerns about an individual young person where the risks are external to the home?

Individual assessment, planning and intervention will still take place for individual children, but alongside responding to the needs within the family or home, there will be more focus on risks and influence for that young person outside of their family. The Safer Me Assessment will be a key document in terms of understanding the broader picture of contextual risk. Where the risks to the young person are predominantly external the home and parents/carers are doing everything they can to protect their child, a safer me approach to meetings and planning will be taken.

Safer Me TAF reflects an Early help approach to responding to need where the harm is identified as outside the family home.

Safer Me Child In Need reflects a Child in Need Approach to responding to need where the harm is identified as outside the family home.

Safer Me Child in Care Meetings are a response where the harm is identified as outside the family home.

Safer Me Plus reflects a Child Protection Conference approach to responding to significant harm where the harm is identified as outside the family home.

The processes and procedures that underpin these different levels of response will largely remain the same as existing frameworks. The difference will be the focus of the discussion. Assessment, planning and intervention will shift to the issues external to the home. That is not to say difficulties within the family should not be considered as there will be an interplay between the two that needs to be understood. The participation of parents/carers is key and there will be a focus on creative ways of trying to engage the young person so they remain central to decision-making and planning around their safety.

What do I do if I have concerns about a neighbourhood/school/peer group & the risks are external to the home?

If your concern is about a neighbourhood, school or peer group, you can refer the relevant context into the Children’s Services Front Door using the relevant referral form (need to insert link as to where the new referral forms will be held). This will then be triaged by a Links Team Manager and a decision will be made as to whether it needs to proceed to a context conference. The conferences are operational meetings to co-ordinate a response to enhance the safety of the school, neighbourhood or peer group from the exploitation issue. They do no replace individual safeguarding and support pathways for young people, so please ensure these are completed prior to initiating a contextual response.

In relation to Persons of concern, unless there is a clear need for a strategy meeting or complex strategy meeting, Persons of concern and disruption regarding these individuals will continue to be discussed in the MACE where necessary childsc.missingchildexploitation-mailbox@devon.gov.uk.

In relation to a Location of Concern, please complete the relevant MACE submission form and send to childsc.missingchildexploitation-mailbox@devon.gov.uk.

For further advice/guidance on MACE and access to referral forms, please go to Child exploitation information for professionals – Devon Safeguarding Children Partnership.

The Adolescent Safety Framework (Safer Me) includes:

 Safer Me Assessment Flowchart

This provides guidance for the correct identification of risks and proactive factors to create a whole picture of the factors involved.

Screening tool

This tool provides a guide as to the most appropriate response to the needs of a child, family or context.

Safer Me assessment

The Safer Me Assessment is a multi-disciplinary assessment that identifies and analyses the risk of exploitation, extra-familial and contextual harm to a young person. The harm is considered and assessed within a variety of different contexts and guides professionals to think about the impact and influence of peers, school environments, the wider neighbourhood/community and online spaces. Where necessary this will lead professionals to consider broader contextual responses as we as thinking about the individual needs and risks for the young person.

Read our guidance about the Safer Me assessment here.

Safer Me and Safer Me Plus pack

The pack includes guidance and resources for individual planning and intervention. These meetings are held following a Safer Me Assessment where concerns have highlighted extra-familiar threats and/or exploitation. Safer Me or Safer Me Plus meetings provide a model of planning with young people to improve their safety, within the established Early Help, Child In Need (CIN) and Child Protection processes. The meetings should ensure that areas of risk and need are addressed in a strengths based and evidence-informed manner, anchored in an understanding of adolescent development, risk taking and safeguarding.

Safer Me meetings are facilitated by either a lead professional (Early help) or Social Worker (CIN) or the young person’s nominated Trusted Adult. They provide an alternative to either Team Around the Family (TAF) or CIN meetings where risks from outside the family home are the PRIMARY risk. Safer Me meetings can also be held to consider contextual and external risks for individual Children in Care (CIC). These meetings would be held in addition to CIC Statutory Reviews and would be facilitated by a suitable professional identified within Children’s Social Care.

Safer Me Plus meetings are facilitated by an Independent Child Protection Chair and provide an alternative to a Child Protection conference where risks from outside the family home are the PRIMARY risk. These meetings will be triggered by the statutory route of strategy discussion, s47 enquiry and screening discussions.

Context Referral, Assessment and Conference Pack

A context Assessment and conference is a multi-agency assessment and meeting that aims to explore the broader situation or environment in which harm is present. It does not assess, plan or intervene for individual young people but instead seeks to assess and intervene with the context itself in order to reduce its influence or role in the harm presented to young people. The Pack includes guidance and resources on making a referral for a context, undertaking a Context Assessment and facilitating a Context Conference, which may include Peer Group Conferences, School Conferences or Neighbourhood conferences. More specific guidance for the three different context approaches are outlined below:

1. School context conference referral form
   • The Pack includes guidance and resources to undertake a School context Assessment and Meeting. These meetings are facilitated by a school, following a school context assessment, when it is deemed that this context is one in which young people are at risk of harm.2.
2. Peer group context conference referral form
   • The Pack includes guidance and resources to undertake a Peer Context Assessment and Meeting. It is facilitated by Children’s Social Care and held when it is deemed that there are concerns for a group of young people who are at risk of contextual harm
3. Neighbourhood context conference assessment pack

Information sharing

The Seven Golden Rules of Information Sharing are a set of principles designed to help professionals share information appropriately and safely, especially when safeguarding children and vulnerable individuals. Here they are:

1. The Data Protection Act is not a barrier to sharing information – it provides a framework to ensure that personal information is shared appropriately.
2. Be open and honest with the individual (and/or their family) from the outset about why, what, how, and with whom information will be shared, unless it is unsafe or inappropriate to do so.
3. Seek advice if you are in any doubt, without disclosing the identity of the person where possible.
4. Share with consent where appropriate and, where possible, respect the wishes of those who do not consent – unless there is a need to share information to safeguard a child or vulnerable adult.
5. Consider safety and well-being – base your information sharing decisions on considerations of the safety and well-being of the individual and others who may be affected.
6. Ensure the information you share is necessary, proportionate, relevant, accurate, timely, and secure.
7. Keep a record of your decision and the reasons for it – whether you share the information or not