Key Priorities
What is child sexual exploitation?
It is never a child's fault that or if they are sexually exploited. It is important to make sure children know this.
Child sexual exploitation (also known as CSE) is a type of modern slavery when a male or female under 18 is sexually exploited for the benefit or gain of someone else.
The benefit or gain can come in many forms such as increased social status or financial gain. Some victims are also trafficked for the purpose of exploitation.
Multiple tactics are used to exploit the child such as 'grooming' which is when the victim is given something, such as food, accommodation, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, affection, gifts or money in return for performing sexual activities or having sexual activities performed on them. Other methods may include violence, bullying and intimidation, with threats of physical harm or humiliation.
Abusers are increasingly using the internet to target vulnerable children. It can happen across any device that's connected to the web, like computers, consoles, tablets, mobile phones and smart speakers.
Children can be at risk of online abuse from people they know or from strangers. It might be part of other abuse which is taking place of line, like bullying or grooming.
Child sexual exploitation can take many different forms. It doesn’t discriminate and every child is vulnerable.
Trust your instincts – if something feels wrong, report your concerns.
If you are worried about a child or young person you must report it!
For further information on CSE, please visit the Seen Something? Say Something website.
Addressing Domestic Abuse
Domestic Abuse is defined by Women’s Aid as “an incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening, degrading and violent behaviour, including sexual violence, in the majority of cases by a partner or ex-partner, but also by a family member or carer. It is very common. In the vast majority of cases it is experienced by women and is perpetrated by men”.
What are we doing to reduce the incidents of Domestic Abuse in Telford and Wrekin?
The Telford and Wrekin Safeguarding Partnership are committed to reducing domestic abuse in the borough by working collaboratively with partner organisations to review and develop multi-agency pathways for both victims and perpetators, ensuring that all policies and procedures are fit for purpose, linked to other pathways and use local and national learning to inform sharing of good work and practice. We aim to improve the understanding of the scale of domestic abuse in the borough by developing a victim and perpetrator profile, a geographical profile and an understanding of the types of domestic abuse being perpatrated in the borough.
The Telford and Wrekin Safeguarding Partnership are committed to embedding the Telford and Wrekin Domestic Abuse Strategy, which outlines commitments from partners to address the issue. The Telford and Wrekin Safeguarding Partnership aims to develop practitioner’s knowledge on the dynamics of domestic abuse on the whole family and provide them with the appropriate training and resources to support the family. Likewise, it also aims to increase awareness in the community of domestic abuse and how to seek support.
The Telford and Wrekin Safeguarding Partnership has a Domestic Abuse Local Partnership (DALP) Board that meets on a regular basis to take forward and implement the Telford and Wrekin Domestic Abuse Strategy.
For further information on Domestic Abuse, please visit the Family Connect website.
Reducing the impact of crime, including fear of, on community wellbeing
"Any behaviour that has a negative effect on feeling safe, or has a detrimental effect on the environment, impacts on communities and their wellbeing. Reducing their impact will enable people to enjoy private and public spaces more, and protect the environment they live in. These types of crimes impact on the health, safety and quality of life of our community."
We know that people of Telford and Wrekin want to live in a safe and clean environment. Two identified factors that are currently impacting on the community's wellbeing are Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) and fly-tipping.
For more information on ASB, please visit the Telford & Wrekin Council website.
Alcohol and Substance misuse
Alcohol and substance misuse can have a major impact on not only people's lives, but also those that they are close to. Getting the right help and support can make all the difference to a person's recovery, and not being dependent upon alcohol or drugs.
For more information on alcohol and substance misuse, please visit the Telford & Wrekin Council website.
Counter Terrorism
Prevent is one of the four key stands that make up the Government’s counter terrorism strategy, CONTEST. It focuses upon supporting individuals at risk of being radicalised by terrorist and/or extremist groups, before they reach a criminal threshold. A key component of Prevent is the Channel programme.
Like child protection, Channel is a multi-agency safeguarding programme run in every local authority in England and Wales. It works to support vulnerable people from being drawn into terrorism and provides a range of support such as; mentoring, counselling, assistance with employment etc. Channel is about early intervention to protect vulnerable people from being drawn into committing terrorist-related activity an addresses all types of extremism.
Participation in Channel is voluntary. It is up to an individual, or their parents for children aged 17 and under, to decide whether to take up the support it offers. Channel operates in a non-criminal space. Channel is chaired by the local authority. Meetings are held on a monthly basis.
If you have any concerns about someone please complete the Channel Referral Form.
The PREVENT National Referral Form, which was updated in October 2024 has greater compatibility with a wider range of software. It is compatible with all versions of Adobe. Designers have recommended that, for the optimal user experience, it is best to use Adobe Reader to complete the form, which is a free software. While the form works with all versions of Adobe Reader, it is recommended to always use the latest version. This is because software is often updated to fix bugs and improve security.
Please note that in some software versions, there may be issues if text is copied and pasted into the form resulting in the text not being visible to the recipient. We therefore advise people not to copy and paste into the form.
Unfortunately, we are still unable to provide a Microsoft Word version at this time due to compatibility and consistency issues. We are aware that some referrers have converted the PDF into a Microsoft Word document on their own systems. We strongly recommend that you do not do this as it may cause technical issues and information may not be visible to the receiver.