Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE): Awareness, identification, support and prevention

Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) is a pressing child welfare issue. Over the last 15 years it has received a good deal of media attention, and there have been significant research, policy and practice developments. As a largely hidden phenomenon it is not possible to know the prevalence of CSE with certainty and it often raises difficult issues around the balance between respecting children/young people’s rights to choice and agency and the need to ensure their care and protection. Consequently, CSE poses challenges for professionals, organisations and communities seeking to both safeguard child welfare and promote children/young people’s rights.

Following the arguments of the Munro Review of Child Protection (Munro 2011), a key theme in this resource is good practice in the area of CSE, as others, requires professional curiosity and effective professional judgement rather than merely following routine procedures, however good those procedures might be. One of the key ingredients underpinning sound professional judgement is reflexivity – the ability to reflect on our own thinking and actions. This in turn requires us to identify the assumptions underpinning our beliefs, question the evidence for them, and consider how they have influenced us to arrive at a particular understanding or course of action.

This resource has primarily been produced for child, youth and family practitioners working within children’s social care services in England who have key roles and responsibilities in relation to child welfare, child protection, family support, disabled children/young people and Looked after Children. However, all members of society have a role in preventing and tackling CSE and the resource may have use for a broader audience seeking to better understand the nature and prevalence of CSE in the UK, and the key features of current English law, policy and practice in respect of CSE. The resource has two main parts which respectively focus on: 1) Awareness and identification; and 2) Support and prevention in respect of CSE.