Extending the Reach of Child Sexual Exploitation Services Through Community Awareness Raising

Dr.Kate D’Arcy

Not to be reproduced without permission from the author

The International Centre

• Committed to increasing understanding of, and improving responses to, child sexual exploitation, violence and trafficking in local, national and international contexts

• Achieved through:– academic rigour and research excellence– collaborative and partnership based approaches to

applied social research– meaningful and ethical engagement of children and

young people– active dissemination and evidence-based engagement in

theory, policy and practice

Presentation outline

• FCASE – Community Awareness Raising.• Increasing geographical reach and diversifying

demographic profile of CSE services.• The benefits and challenges of undertaking community

awareness raising on Child Sexual Exploitation.• Key points.

FCASE Pilot Programme

3 distinct programme elements:

1. Direct work with young people and their parents/carers (parallel support).

2. CSE training for professionals.

3. Community awareness events.

Evaluating Community Awareness Raising

• Are there different models of community awareness raising?

• What do we know about the effectiveness of different types of awareness raising?

• Which factors promote or hinder the success of different models?

• How do service users view awareness raising?

The literature review undertaken highlighted a significant gap in research regarding raising awareness of CSE in the community. Research (Jago and Pearce, 2008,Beckett et al 2014) identified that gaps exist in knowledge and understanding of CSE amongst parents and different communities as well as key professionals.

Reviewing the Literature

Challenges: • Very wide area- what do we mean by ‘community’? • Lack of specific research related to Child Sexual

Exploitation.• Difficult to evaluate and lack of evaluation studies.

Therefore considered: • Child protection;• National evaluation of Sure Start;• Health promotion e.g. sex and relationship education; organ

donation;• Community-led service development;• ….and evaluated.

4 models identified:

• Multi-media campaigns (including TV, national and local radio, local press and social media);

• Community events;• Peer educator programmes;• Multi-model activities e.g. informal outreach such as social

events and organised outreach via home visiting.

FCASE Community Awareness Raising

• This element of the pilot was especially innovative, it provided important opportunities to extend and reach out into local communities.

• Each site to provide a minimum of 36 awareness raising events in diverse communities within the three areas: 57 were achieved.

• Events focussing on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) groups, Black Minority Ethnic (BME) groups and new or emerging communities.

• Sites completed Equality Impact Statements (EIS) early on in the pilot to inform this work.

Increasing reach: Examples of events

• Community training course.• Conference aimed at preventing violence towards vulnerable groups. • Community events in schools focussing on healthy relationships. • Stalls at events such as ‘Violence against Women’, Pride events,

Black History month, community safety partnerships event. • Input / information sharing at a LGBT forum. • Input / information sharing at a Muslim Youth club.• Internet safety workshops for parents/carers. • Parenting workshops for Romanian, non-English speaking parents.• Sexual health promotions training for community workers working

with young people from ‘hard to reach’ communities.

What works and why ?

• Clear aims and objectives. • Adopting a strengths-based, respectful approach focussed

on identifying relevant opportunities to raise awareness in a meaningful way.

• Involving the community/group/organisation in the entire process to reflect an equal partnership between Barnardo’s and those involved.

• The ‘community champion’ or ‘children’s champion’ models whereby a group of people are trained up and supported to raise awareness and cascade information into their own communities.

• Embedding the community awareness work within CSE prevention strategy, alongside direct work and training.

Challenges

• Defining community.• Time: A long-term approach is needed.• Resources: Appropriate materials to raise awareness in a

meaningful way are important.• Training: Community work is very different from direct CSE

work. • Engaging with a variety of people in communities.

Key points

• Community Awareness raising is an empowering approach to prevent CSE and increase geographical reach and diversifying demographic profile of CSE services.

• Clear educational value for communities and workers.• Can improve community awareness and reduce risk – long-

term may mean that referrals reflect the range of young people in local communities.

• Further research needed to continue to evaluate what works in

raising awareness of CSE among different communities.

Kate.D’Arcy@beds.ac.uk

For more information on our work including research publications, short films and

outputs from young people please visit www.beds.ac.uk/ic