Contextual Safeguarding London Funders Children and Young People’s Network

1. Contextual SafeguardingLondon Funders Children and Young People’s Network Dr Carlene Firmin @C_S_Network @carlenefirmin

2. Presentation overview • Contextual nature of harm in adolescence • System challenges • The Contextual Safeguarding Framework • Implications for VCS organisations • London engagement

3. Contextual nature of harm in adolescence

4. Why does ‘adolescence’ matter (Hanson and Holmes 2014)

5. Contextual dynamics of abuse, vulnerability and risk (Firmin, 2015) Street-based victimisation and grooming Criminal exploitation routes Robbery CSE in parks, shopping centres Bullying Corridor culture Peer recruitment Curriculum Domestic abuse Siblings Neglect Parental capacity Peer association to intimate partner violence Peer group sexual offending

6. Integrated challenges of exploitation Firmin, Wroe and Lloyd, 2019

7. System challenges

8. The common referral The MASH receive a referral for 13 year old girl where a sexual image of her has been shared around a group at school via Snapchat. The referral comes from the school where the young girl attends. Upon contacting the referrer the MASH find that the young person’s image had been shared after she refused to take part in a sexual act with a group of boys at the school. What might happen?

9. A common response The social worker visits the home and speaks to the family. Since finding out her parents have been upset and are taking steps to support their daughter. The parents have spoken with other parents and found out that images have been shared of other students via snapchat at the school. The social worker speaks to the child about how to keep safe online. They make brief inquiries into who the other young people affected are and make a series of referrals for the boys involved. The social worker closes the case and refers the young person for Early Intervention around social media use and healthy relationships delivered by a VCS organisation.

10. Traditional reach of child protection

11. Partnership working Safeguarding is ‘Everyone’s business’ = referral and information

12. ‘It hasn’t reached a threshold’

13. A Contextual Safeguarding Framework

14. Four domains of Contextual Safeguarding (Firmin et al. 2016)

15. Expanding ‘Capacity to Safeguard’ Who’s capacity in which space? AND Which space is impacting which service’s capacity? (Firmin et al, 2016)

16. To: ‘Everyone’s business’ = creating safe spaces

17. Building peer relationships into assessment (Firmin, 2015) #ContextualSafeguarding

18. Creating a Contextual protection, welfare and safeguarding system (Firmin et al. 2016)

19. Three part implications for the VCS

20. CS Programme work with VCS • Creating wider systemic change across services and legislation associated to this cross-sector change • Contextual Safeguarding VCS Collective and Implementation Group • Development of bespoke masterclass sessions and training for VCS organisations • Potential to support VCS champions via our network (Current blogs for example) • Developing an evidence base on the need for contextual interventions – and routes to record their effectiveness • Providing critical insight into outcomes measurement

21. Current London Demand on CS resources • CS Team currently supporting eight London boroughs (only funded to work with four). 17 boroughs applied to participate in CS testing • Previously supported 11 others to audit responses to peer-on-peer abuse • All London boroughs have practitioners signed up to the network • Quarterly briefings for MPS, building on previous two years work for an Adolescent Safeguarding London Steering Group • Practitioner network engagement in London is nearing 1,000 nearly 5,000 in total (UK and international)

22. @C_S_Network Staying in touch For more information and resources visit our the Contextual Safeguarding website: https://www.contextualsafeguarding.org.uk/ contextual.safeguarding@beds.ac.uk #ContextualSafeguarding