Rights of Trafficked Children Recognised

The welfare of trafficked children has taken a giant step forward, with the passing of the Modern Slavery Bill. The Bill will receive Royal Assent soon.

The research team from the University of Bedfordshire has seen its work play a key role in shaping the new legislation. Clause 48 of the Bill defines the role of independent specialist advocates who will make sure trafficked children’s rights are respected by public authorities.

In July 2014, the research team at the University was appointed by the Home Office to independently evaluate a Child Trafficking Advocate (CTA) trial run by the children’s charity Barnardo’s.

The team from Bedfordshire is evaluating Barnardo’s work to establish what difference the specialist advocate scheme makes for trafficked children, compared to the existing provision, run by local authorities.

Professor of Child Welfare, Ravi Kohli, who leads the team from the University said: “The University is at the cutting edge of research in enhancing the protection of trafficked children. We are proud to be working with the UK Government and Barnardo’s in doing all we can to make sure that these children are safe.”

The team’s interim evaluation findings are based on the first four and a half months of the trial in which 59 children were allocated to the child trafficking advocates trial. The findings focus on the process of early implementation of the trial and early lessons learned about the role of advocates. So far, there is good evidence of advocates safeguarding children’s rights and meeting their needs.

The final evaluation report will be published after the trial ends in September and will draw on a wider range of data.

New Report Says Too Many Children Still At Risk Of Child Abuse

A new report by the Office of the Children's Commissioner says that too many children in England are still "slipping through the net" and remain at risk of sexual abuse.

The report: If it's not better; it's not the end - Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups - one year on found there had been "considerable" progress in some areas of tackling child exploitation.

But "at the front line much work is still needed," said Deputy Commissioner Sue Berelowitz, who headed the inquiry.

The OCC's follow-up report has raised concerns about the level of progress in some areas, along with the continued "under-identification" of victims.

It said it was "worrying" that the inquiry's recommendation to make sex education a statutory part of the curriculum had not been adopted by the government.

The report also found "vastly different" reported rates of child sexual exploitation in different parts of England.

New Report Says It's "Shocking" That Nobody Know The Number Of Children Who Fall Victim To Crime Each Year

A report by Victim Support and the University of Bedfordshire for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Victims and Witnesses of Crime has found that some young people see crimes such as robbery, theft and assault as a normal part of growing up and do not even see themselves as victims.

Matthew Reed, Chief Executive of The Children’s Society, said: 'It’s shocking that nobody knows how many children fall victim to crime every year. Understanding the scale of the problem is an essential first step to tackling it.

'Part of the challenge, as we know through our direct work with children, is how difficult it is for young people - particularly those who have been groomed or sexually exploited - to tell someone about abuse they experienced.

'When children are brave enough to come forward, too often the professionals who should be protecting them let them down, by failing to believe them or by dismissing them as troublesome. Overall professionals must get better at identifying children who may be victims, supporting them when they disclose abuse and helping them after they have come forward. And schools need to teach children about healthy relationships and consent, so young people are better able to recognise abuse and know where to turn.'

Teenage Runaways Lack Safe Places To Go

Research suggests that only a tiny fraction of the 100,000 UK under 16s who run away yearly are given emergency shelter by councils.

Nearly two-thirds of the 210 English, Welsh and Scottish councils who responded to the Railway Children charity survey offered no under-16s accommodation in the past year. The research found just 157 children were offered this sort of support.

Council leaders acknowledged a shortage of emergency accommodation. However, only about half the local authorities kept figures on how many times such emergency accommodation was used, the study said.

The research was prompted by growing concern about runaway children. It highlighted how all refuges but one for young children had closed by this year.

"Inconsistent use of local authority emergency accommodation was leaving young people without a safe place at the time they need it most," it said.

More on this story and the full report is available from the Railway Children Charity here.

On TV Tonight: Baby P, the Untold Story

Tonight (27th October 2014) on BBC 1 at 8.30 pm there will be a documentary entitled Baby P: the Untold Story.

The 90 minute film hears from those directly involved in the investigation into the death of Baby P in 2007.

Film-maker Henry Singer's documentary detailing the timeline of events leading to the death of 17-month-old Peter Connelly at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend and her boyfriend's brother in August 2007, and considering its aftermath. The programme examines how some powerful institutions evaded the spotlight, while public attention was focused on the involvement of social workers in the infant's home area of Haringey, north London. Among the interviewees featured in the film are social workers Gillie Christou and Maria Ward, then-Children's Secretary Ed Balls MP and the husband of the last medical practitioner to see Peter before he died.

New Ofsted Report Says The Extent Of Child Neglect Is "Not Understood"

A new report by Ofsted claims that local authorities are not doing enoguh to protect children from neglect.

The report Child Neglect: The Scandal That Never Breaks states that figures suggest that most children know another child suffering from neglect. The Ofsted inspectors found "inconsistent approaches" to assessing neglect, and conclude that children are being left for too long in harmful situations in nearly half of the long-term cases they examined.

The report also recommends that social work training is improved to increase professional understanding of the impact of neglect on children's lives.

You can read more about this report and its findings on the BBC News website here.

Professorial Lectures On Video

The Institute of Applied Social Research (IASR) at the University of Bedfordshire has made some of its professorial lecture series available on Youtube.You can find details of further lectures on the IASR Events page at: http://www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr/iasr-events

Amongst those available to watch are:

Professor Ravi Kohli, Monday 16th April 2012

We make the journey and the journey makes us. Reflections on working with unacompanied asylum seeking children and young people.

Professor Jenny Pearce, 9th May 2012

Its all in a lable: new theories for understanding child sexual exploitation. Jenny's research focuses on the social construction of youth and studies of youth culture. In particular she focuses on young people, sexual exploitation, child protection and domestic violence. Jenny also teaches research methods that can be used to access and engage with socially excluded young people and is particularly interested in focusing on the marginalisation of categories of youth. In this, her professorial lecture, she discusses new ways of understanding the exploitation of children.

Girls at Risk of Multilation Lack Help From Teachers

Girls at risk of genital mutilation are not being helped as their teachers lack training in how to deal with this type of child abuse, warns the NSPCC.

The charity is urging schools to treat female genital mutilation as they would other forms of child abuse.

"Teachers are on the front line", said Lisa Harker, NSPCC head of strategy.

Some 20,000 girls in England and Wales are thought to be at risk of this illegal practice, according to government figures, but there are fears that this figure masks a larger problem.

In March, a study by midwives revealed more than 100 victims in Bristol alone over a single nine-month period.

The NSPCC says the practice has no medical benefits but is motivated by cultural beliefs about preparing a girl for adulthood and marriage by making her "clean, chaste and faithful". The charity describes it as being potentially life-threatening and sometimes carried out without anaesthetic.


The government says teachers have a key role in spotting children who may be at risk of or who have undergone genital cutting. In January, the schools watchdog, Ofsted, announced it would be including schools' safeguarding arrangements on female genital mutilation in inspections.

Updated Ofsted guidance says that key staff should be able to show how alert they are to "possible signs that a child has been subject to female genital mutilation or is at risk of being abused through it".

However, some 83% of teachers in England and Wales said they had not had child protection training in this area, according to a survey for the NSPCC.

The YouGov poll of over 1,000 teachers also suggested that some 68% were unaware of government guidance on schools policy on this form of abuse.

You can read more on this story on the BBC News website here.

The NSPCC's Policy summary on Female Genital Multilation is available to read here.

How the latest research into child trafficking in the UK should inform social work practice - 10/16/2012 - Community Care

Social workers should not discount children’s claims to have been trafficked even if they sound extraordinary, says Emma Kelly, a lecturer in social work at University of Salford.


How the latest research into child trafficking in the UK should inform social work practice - 10/16/2012 - Community Care

Young Offenders Failed By Care System Says New Report

Photograph by Richard Masoner/Cycledelicious

An new report by HM Inspectorate of Probation "Looked After Children: An inspection of the work of Youth Offending Teams with children and young people who are looked after and placed away from home" reveals that children in care in England and Wales who've been in trouble with the law are being failed by youth offending teams.

The Inspectorate of Probation raised concerns about children placed far from home, and some youth offending team staff who thought little about the emotional impact of being in care.

The report looked at 60 children, from about 3,000 supervised by the teams. It found about a third of children were placed more than 100 miles away from home, and nearly two-thirds were placed 50 miles away.


Basic checks were not made when placing these "vulnerable and potentially dangerous" children into homes, the report said, adding that examples had been found of sex attackers being placed with abuse victims.

Youth offending teams and and other agencies did not "always work effectively together in the best interests of the children", and poor planning and assessment meant insufficient protection for two-thirds of the children.


You can read more on this story on the BBC News website here.