Children’s Services

Children’s service practitioners have a central role in safeguarding young people suspected of or who are being criminally exploited.

This role can be challenging to navigate due to the cross-cutting nature of child criminal exploitation. Social workers and other children’s service practitioners may find themselves working alongside the police, youth justice service, education, and third sector practitioners.

Social workers must be skilled in working with different agencies, their remits, and priorities. They must:

• be comfortable allocating clearly defined roles and responsibilities to practitioners in other agencies.
• promote the rights of the young person
• adopt child-centred approaches
• ensure that the young person is safeguarded.

This includes ensuring that the young person has the most appropriate lead practitioners, their voice is heard, and that agency responses are in the best interests of the young person.

Guidance for children’s service practitioners

For further guidance for children’s service practitioners, including warning signs for child criminal exploitation, see pages 33-37 of the Practitioner Toolkit.