Memorandum from London Councils and the
London Safeguarding Children Board
London Safeguarding Children Board
The London Board provides strategic advice and
support to London's 32 Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs),
and aims to respond to London agencies' needs on specific issues
within a broad remit of:
— providing a strategic safeguarding
children policy lead for London;
— promoting information sharing and
collaboration in practice guidance and training for London agencies;
— supporting research and initiatives
to improve services and practice in London; and
— helping London agencies meet the
challenges of national safeguarding children policy.
The London Board is chaired by Cheryl Coppell
(Chief Executive, LB Havering), and its membership is made up
of representatives from the London boroughs, the police, health,
and probation; and London independent, voluntary and community
agencies.
The Board facilitates a number of professional
networks and subgroups on key issues, and has a specific subgroup
in place to address concerns around child trafficking within London.
Over the past year, this subgroup has led the development and
piloting of a best practice multi-agency safeguarding model for
responding to the trafficking of children—see below for
further details.
Child Trafficking in London
An accurate picture of the child trafficking
problem in London is difficult to obtain, particularly as few
LSCBs collect data in a routine fashion. However, a number of
research projects have found clear evidence that the issue is
prevalent in London:
— In their 2004 report Cause for
concern, ECPAT UK found that 26 of the 33 London boroughs
had trafficking concerns regarding individual cases, or were suspicious
about the circumstances in which a child had been brought into
the UK or was currently living in. Only one borough stated that
they had no concerns at all regarding trafficking.
— Through a mixture of outreach work
in eight pilot boroughs and file auditing conducted in four boroughs,
the London Safeguarding Children Board's Community Partnership
Project (2007), part funded by the Home Office and DCSF, also
found that child trafficking was more common than expected in
London.
Professional Awareness and Understanding
The ECPAT UK report also found that professional
awareness and understanding of trafficking was lacking at times,
and recommended that specific guidance be produced to address
this knowledge gap.
— The London procedure for safeguarding
trafficked and exploited children was subsequently published
in 2006, and was later used to inform the 2007 DCSF guidance Safeguarding
children who may have been trafficked.
— In March 2008, London Councils' lead
members instigated a multi-agency seminar to further raise awareness
of the growing problem of human trafficking, adding to a number
of conferences and seminars held on the issue both locally and
pan-London in recent years.
London Trafficked Children Pilots
Seven London boroughs are participating in an
initiative which brings together workstreams from London Councils,
individual London LSCBs, the MPS and theHome Office. The project
aims to develop and share good practice local safeguarding responses,
and to assist the integration of national trafficked children
mechanisms with existing safeguarding children procedure and practice.
A London Trafficked Children Toolkit has been
drafted to assist implementation of the model. The toolkit includes
legislation, local structures, training plans and an updated version
of the original London procedure for safeguarding trafficked and
exploited children and is aimed at any professional who may come
into contact with a trafficked child (LA children's social care,
asylum teams, schools, health services, youth offending teams,
UKBA etc).
London boroughs participating in the initiative
are: Camden, Croydon, Islington, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow
and Southwark.[1]
The pilots are running for one year, and began in March 2009,
with a final report to be published in spring 2010.
Potential impact of 2012 Olympics
An emerging issue for that the London Safeguarding
Children Board is the potential increase in trafficking associated
with London hosting the 2012 Olympic Games. Evidence from previous
Games and other major sporting events suggests that.
Recommendations and Future Work
The London Safeguarding Children Board's work
on child trafficking and the emerging findings from the trafficked
children pilots provide some important recommendations that the
Joint Committee may wish to consider.
G
ender impact assessments
Gender impact assessments should be undertaken
with every licensing application for adult entertainment premises—in
the same way that child impact assessments are undertaken by Local
Safeguarding Children Boards. Evidence links an increase in attacks
on women in areas where such clubs operate. The London Board suggests
that trafficking could be an element of the assessment and that
training for licensing officers would enable them to identify
potential trafficking when visiting premises.
P
rovision of safe accommodation
Safe accommodation is important in helping minimise
the risk of child victims going missing from care. Child victims
continue to be at risk from the serious organised crime networks
that employ a range of techniques to try and ensure a child re-establishes
contact with the trafficker if a child is in the care of a local
authority. The pilot project has identified the importance of
being able to provide a safe environment for the child and an
opportunity to build trust as being critical in order to minimise
the risk of children going missing from care.
Further work in understanding why this is the
case is required along with the development mutable option safe
accommodation package.
L
ocal specialist support
Providing professionals with access to specialist
support is another key finding from the trafficking pilots. The
model developed through the pilot sees local authorities nominate
a local professional and assist him/her to develop specialist
knowledge in relation to trafficked children. This local trafficked
children lead will act as an adviser to other professionals and
the lead professional in cases where the concerns in relation
to a child are related to trafficking. A "trafficked children
lead" could be a joint-funded post and could support staff
in more than one LSCB area.
A
ge assessments
Assessing the age of a victim of trafficking
can be necessary because a child may have documents which are
false, or belong to another child, in order to make them appear
younger or older. The age assessment process can be lengthy and
distressing for the child, and may result in them missing out
on services and protection as agencies consider who should take
responsibility. Subsequently, the new London guidance states that
the child must be given the benefit of the doubt and be provided
with full protection as a child victim of trafficking until his
or her age can be verified.
N
ew assessment tool for identifying child victims
of trafficking
Current LSCB and competent authority referral
and joint working arrangements will benefit from enhanced information
sharing protocols and a child centred multi agency safeguarding
training package. The toolkit developed as part of the pilot project
contains a joint assessment tool and referral form to assist local
professionals in both assessing the needs of the child, the continuing
risks that they may face, and referring their case to the United
Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC), as a competent authority
or the UKBA as a competent authority.
The assessment was created within a children's
services team and enhanced by the multi-agency ACPO victim identification
group, and is also being used by the Home Office. Child trafficking
sits within the child protection framework with early identification
through assessment forming a critical first stage in safeguarding
a child. Reasonable and conclusive grounds decisions within the
context of the Council of Europe's Convention on Action against
Trafficking in Human Beings play an important role in safeguarding
a child, as through a children's services assessment and outcomes
process lead to a clear definition of a child's experience and
also defining the needs of a child within the statutory service
provision.
A
ssessment Framework/Common Assessment Framework
Children are unlikely to disclose they have
been trafficked, as most do not have an awareness of what trafficking
is, may be too frightened of their traffickers or may believe
they are coming to the UK for a better life. It is likely that
the child will have been coached with a story to tell the authorities
in the UK and warned not to disclose any detail beyond the story,
as this would lead them to being deported. To assist professionals
in all agencies to recognise the signs that a child may be trafficked
as early as possible, the London toolkit provides a matrix of
risk assessment indicators and links these to the CAF process
and the national Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need
and their Families.
P
otential impact of 2012 Olympics
An emerging issue for that the London Safeguarding
Children Board is the potential increase in child trafficking
associated with London hosting the 2012 Olympic Games. Evidence
from previous Games and other major sporting events suggests that
incidence of child trafficking rises in line with the increased
movement of people into host cities. Children are largely trafficked
for sexual exploitation and child labour (including forced begging).
Conclusion
London has had a significant influence on national
thinking around support for victims of child trafficking for a
number of years, and seeks to continue to do so through the new
toolkit and pilots. The initiative integrates immigration issues
for children with their right to be safeguarded and their welfare
promoted under the Children Acts 1989 and 2004. The toolkit should
further raise awareness of child trafficking and give frontline
professionals and their managers in all agencies, in London and
across the UK, the tools they need to identify and respond to
child victims.
January 2010
1 Other pilot authorities are: Kent, Manchester, Slough,
Solihull, Glasgow, and Newport. Back
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