Sexual abuse
Barnardo's sexual exploitation identification and treatment service
On 9 January 2008, London Councils Grants Committee approved £200,000 for Barnardo’s and PACE to deliver a sexual exploitation prevention service for children and young people (service 59). Following this decision, the London Safeguarding Children Board raised concerns around insufficient provision for children who disclose during the prevention work, in terms of follow-up treatment. In order to address this, Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has allocated £540,000 (£135,000 FYE) on behalf of London Safeguarding Children Board to tackle this issue.
MPS agreed that the service should be delivered as a rolling programme over four years, and be administered through the London Councils grants funding process so as to complement the Grants Committee’s funding and add synergy between the initiatives. London Councils officers assessed the three funding proposals against the published single stage criteria and decided to recommend Barnardo’s for funding.
Barnardo's began rolling out the sexual exploitation prevention programme to eight boroughs per year in July 2008, and the treatment service began a year later, in May 2009. Progress on the initiative will be reported to the London Board every six months.
Child sexual abuse seminars, 2008
Throughout 2008, the London Board held a free series of best practice seminars for practitioners, focussing on various aspects of child sexual abuse. Please follow the links below to download papers from these sessions.
Responding confidently to safeguard children who have been sexually abused - Wednesday October 15th 2008
Welcome and introduction (Tink Palmer)
An exemplar guidance flow diagram (Dr PWD Meerstadt)
Usual and less usual presentations of CSA (Dr Julia Hale)
Preventing child sexual abuse: evidence, theory, policy and practice - Monday September 1st 2008
Preventing Child Sexual Abuse: Evidence, theory, policy and practice (Stephen Smallbone)
2008 child sexual abuse conference
The London Safeguarding Children Board's 2008 summer conference, which focussed on safeguarding children at risk of sexual abuse, took place at the British Library on Wednesday June 18th. With presentations that highlighted the latest developments and emerging good practice from both the UK and abroad, the event was a great success and all presentations and supporting material are now available to download from the link below:
