Home AffairsWritten evidence from Birmingham City Council [LCG 08]
1. The proportion of child victims in local authority care or otherwise known to social services
If the victims are in local authority care they will be known to Children’s Services and are regularly reviewed and subject to appropriate strategy meetings. There is a concern because of private children’s homes in the city that, whilst we are notified of a looked after child being placed by another Local Authority in the city, we are not notified of reasons why—for example; are they subject to exploitation in the authority in which they live and that is why they are moving to an external placement.
The notification often comes after a child is in placement so a discussion about the appropriateness of the placement based on local knowledge is not possible. In Birmingham; there are over 50 private units.
Of the 40 referrals to Birmingham Space (provider commissioned to do direct work with young people)in Quarter 1 April—June 2012: 15 were very high risk referrals of which six were Looked After Children, five were subject to CP Plans, and of the four remaining, three were allocated to Social Care. Only one did not seem to have Social Care involvement—referred via a school.
2. Whether the current criteria for triggering involvement by social services in individual cases take adequate account of the signs of localised grooming
The current criteria are clearly set out in the LSCB procedures and are based on national guidance. There is a level of understanding across agencies of risk and the vulnerability of looked after children but less widespread understanding of the vulnerability of children who live at home.
The criteria would be more effective with a well promoted, agreed across agencies tool to establish the level of risk—low, medium or high. Work on this is underway regionally (West Midlands Police region).
Barnardos—who are commissioned to undertake direct work with young people, use a traffic light tool that is understood mostly by workers.
Reinforcement of signs and indicators is done through regular training.
3. The support provided to victims and witnesses by a range of agencies such as the Crown Prosecution Service, Police and voluntary agencies
The Crown Prosecution Service has been involved in joint training/presentations around CSE victims and understands the challenge of working with victims as witnesses. There have been recent prosecutions through the police but this is still very low—they are now adopting a different approach in the West Midlands are developing a dedicated team/task force to respond to allegations of exploitation.
Both Barnardos and the Children’s Society work with young people in the city as a part of the work they are commissioned to do and independently as their main business. Barnardos do direct work with those at risk and victims and also are involved in training in conjunction with LSCB. The Amazon project is also run by Barnardos to provide support counselling for those subject to abuse up to age 25.
The Children’s Society are commissioned to undertake return visits to children looked after who go missing this enables support to the young person but also increases intelligence about risks they are involved with that make them vulnerable to grooming/exploitation. They are also commissioned for a year to provide the same service to children missing from home so we can understand more effectively the risk that they face when missing.
New services are being developed all of the time—Spurgeons is developing a project in one part of the city to respond to the issue of exploitation.
4. Whether front-line agencies are adequately equipped to identify victims and intervene at an early stage
The identification of child sexual exploitation can be variable and keeping it at the front of peoples mind is key (repeating training is essential).
The issue of exploitation: The challenge after identification is how the issue should be responded to and engaging a young person takes focused time and consistency which is not necessarily available to workers. Workers have struggled with the fact victims do not see themselves as victims and post 14 are often seen by professionals as less vulnerable and making choices. This is never the case is CSE and needs reinforcing to workers across agencies.
Training for front line agencies is being rolled out in Birmingham—part of the MSET Strategy:
BSCB has commissioned Child Sexual Exploitation Training (delivered by Barnardo’s)—6 x full day events aimed at front line practitioners, and 6 x half day sessions aimed at Managers.
Also, the Social Care L&D trainers have borrowed Barnardo’s Child Sexual Exploitation training pack that we deliver as above and plan to roll this out across Children’s Social Care staff.
5. The extent to which Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) have implemented key aspects of national guidance on child sexual exploitation, including the quality of partnership working between LSCBs, care services and police within and between local authority areas
The Local Safeguarding Board has a subgroup focused on sexual exploitation, missing and trafficked young people. The Board does not have a dedicated CSE coordinator which makes the progression of work very difficult. Under the strategic group sits an operational missing and an operational exploitation panel that considers individual young people and collates intelligence, patterns, themes etc and coordinates data (are the individual agencies talking/capturing information about the same children).
Whilst all agencies are involved in the strategic sub group the members of the BSCB do not have named leads for exploitation in their agencies. Partnership work with in the subgroup is good and there is commitment to the work. The chair of the subgroup also links in with 2 regional groups—1 that covers the local Police region and also the wider regional exploitation subgroup. These groups are also attended by the voluntary organisations that are commissioned to do work with children in Birmingham.
6. The circumstances under which care services report missing children to the Police
Looked after children are reported to the Police if there whereabouts are not known and there are concerns for the young person. They are not reported missing if it is an unauthorised absence (whereabouts are known and returning late). The residential staff keep comprehensive records of missing young people, from when, who with, did they go alone, were they picked up, what was there state of mind, when did they return, who with, how long were they gone. The Children’s Society is also commissioned to undertake return visits to children who go missing so that they are independent—the units refer to the Children’s Society when a young person goes missing and a visit is arranged.
7. The quality of data collection, data sharing and research on child victims of localised grooming
Missing children data is collected by all agencies and taken to the missing children operational group to ensure it is synchronised and that the same children are being discussed. This is a new group and there are information sharing issues being ironed out. Data collection around grooming and CSE is more challenging as it is not collected at he front door as a presenting issue. Information about missing children is much more effective.
Numbers of Information we do have about child victims of localised grooming:
Those referred to Social Care for Strategy meetings under the CSE guidance.
Those referred to Birmingham Space, as the specialist service for child victims (some overlap with the above group).
Those identified by the MSET Operational Group (again—some overlap with the above groups).
8. The degree of coordination between the Department for Education’s child sexual exploitation strategy and the Home Office’s human trafficking strategy
They are fairly reflective of each other and reflect that if these are issues for young people they are abuse and agencies should respond accordingly. The guidance around exploitation is used/referred to more frequently that the trafficking guidance but both are reflected in the safeguarding board procedures.
Birmingham City Council
August 2012