The first of our two Regional Events in November was held at The Deep in Hull with guest speaker Sara Swann. Sara is an expert in the field of child sexual exploitation, is widely published and has spoken at many National and International conferences and events, having been involved with young people for more than 25 years and covering issues from child protection to young offenders. In 1994, with Barnardo’s, she set up the first multi-agency service in the UK for girls and young women who were at risk of, or involved in what was commonly referred to as prostitution.

The event was well attended with 40 people from various multi-agencies including social services, voluntary organisations and the police, all participating in the interactive workshop focusing on understanding issues around child exploitation and sexually active young people and highlighting legislation and policy. The objective of the day was to give participants an opportunity to understand that sexual exploitation is child abuse; define all forms of sexual exploitation; be updated on new legislation; be familiar with sexually active young people policies and to recognise abusive, coercive relationships following on from the Bichard Report; explain new government guidance June 2008; recognise vulnerability and warning signs.

The workshop included the Government Guidance published in June 2009, a supplementary guidance to Working Together and covered such things as scope and purpose; key principles; understanding child sexual exploitation; roles and responsibilities; preventing sexual exploitation; managing individual cases; identifying and prosecuting perpetrators. The guidance refers to all children – male and female below the age of 18 years and can be obtained from www.teachernet.gov.uk/publications (search reference: DCSF-00689-2009). The workshop also included arbitrary risk factors, the ‘boyfriend model’ and use of child abduction legislation.