WEBVTT 1 00:00:03.100 --> 00:00:04.760 It's not a list, it's not a hierarchy. 2 00:00:05.180 --> 00:00:09.160 That's why they're set out like a clock face, if you will, not a set of 3 00:00:09.200 --> 00:00:11.420 pillars. They overlap like petals of a flower. 4 00:00:11.920 --> 00:00:15.680 We often say when we're introducing the principles, you can't cherry-pick them. 5 00:00:16.160 --> 00:00:19.160 They are all together and all connected all of the time. 6 00:00:20.440 --> 00:00:22.140 I'm going to start at the top of the clock. 7 00:00:24.100 --> 00:00:27.560 That first principle there in a sort of a tomato soup bread. 8 00:00:28.840 --> 00:00:30.820 The response to child exploitation 9 00:00:31.620 --> 00:00:34.620 and harm outside the home must put children and young people first. 10 00:00:35.060 --> 00:00:38.410 And when we say response, we don't only mean direct practice. 11 00:00:39.460 --> 00:00:43.240 One of the key points of the principles is that we very 12 00:00:43.260 --> 00:00:46.500 deliberately talk about what each principle asks of people in direct practice 13 00:00:46.580 --> 00:00:50.300 roles, but also what it asks of people in management roles, leadership, and 14 00:00:50.400 --> 00:00:54.220 governance roles. We really did not want to produce loads and loads of 15 00:00:54.280 --> 00:00:58.040 guidance for people who work directly with children, 16 00:00:58.180 --> 00:01:02.170 young people, and families, when we know that managers and leaders and those 17 00:01:02.200 --> 00:01:04.660 who oversee partnerships have such a crucial role as well. 18 00:01:04.700 --> 00:01:07.890 So that response is strategic as well as in 19 00:01:07.900 --> 00:01:10.770 practice. So putting children and young people first, it sounds so obvious, doesn't 20 00:01:10.820 --> 00:01:14.420 it? It sounds so clear. It's absolutely aligned with the child first principle, 21 00:01:14.700 --> 00:01:17.170 and approach that underpins youth justice. 22 00:01:17.600 --> 00:01:21.140 But you will know better than most because of the jobs you do, that putting 23 00:01:21.180 --> 00:01:23.940 children and young people first gets seemingly trickier 24 00:01:24.900 --> 00:01:27.880 when those children are indeed the source of harm to others. 25 00:01:30.120 --> 00:01:33.860 We seem, regrettably, in our country, to find it 26 00:01:33.940 --> 00:01:35.780 easier to treat some children as children 27 00:01:36.640 --> 00:01:37.100 than others. 28 00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:42.140 You'll be familiar with terms like adultification, which originally 29 00:01:42.860 --> 00:01:46.820 was very much focused on how children, particularly Black and global 30 00:01:46.840 --> 00:01:50.780 majority children, particularly Black girls, are often perceived and treated as 31 00:01:50.820 --> 00:01:53.840 more adult than they are, responsibilized for their harms. 32 00:01:54.760 --> 00:01:56.720 You'll see that in your work, I know. 33 00:01:56.800 --> 00:02:00.440 So non-negotiably, an effective response to child 34 00:02:00.500 --> 00:02:03.380 exploitation puts children and young people first. 35 00:02:04.960 --> 00:02:07.460 Moving around there to the orange petal. 36 00:02:07.500 --> 00:02:10.549 The response must recognize and challenge inequalities, exclusion, and 37 00:02:10.600 --> 00:02:14.100 discrimination. Of course. Our values are our values. 38 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:16.380 They matter. They guide us. 39 00:02:17.700 --> 00:02:20.000 I'm not sure no one on this call would disagree with that. 40 00:02:20.040 --> 00:02:22.970 But again, there's complexity. I bet you see this all the time in your work. 41 00:02:23.900 --> 00:02:27.440 In challenging inequalities, exclusion, discrimination, that sometimes means we 42 00:02:27.500 --> 00:02:31.340 have to look deep within ourselves and confront the fact that some of what we 43 00:02:31.380 --> 00:02:34.540 do in our professional responses can inadvertently 44 00:02:36.060 --> 00:02:37.840 compound discrimination. 45 00:02:39.400 --> 00:02:41.890 It can compound marginalization. 46 00:02:42.730 --> 00:02:46.660 Not because anybody in our sector wants to do that, but because the system too 47 00:02:46.670 --> 00:02:50.660 often allows us to work in ways 48 00:02:50.680 --> 00:02:54.080 which are exclusionary. I know that many of you work 49 00:02:54.160 --> 00:02:57.780 tirelessly to try and challenge inequalities, inequity, exclusion, 50 00:02:57.840 --> 00:02:59.280 discrimination in all that you do. 51 00:02:59.300 --> 00:03:03.140 And it's not an easy context to do that in right now, is it? 52 00:03:03.900 --> 00:03:06.840 Not an easy context at all. And again, I must stress, this is not just about 53 00:03:07.660 --> 00:03:11.180 teachers, social workers, family health workers, police officers, 54 00:03:11.650 --> 00:03:14.060 health colleagues doing it in direct practice. 55 00:03:14.100 --> 00:03:17.910 It's also about managers, leaders, strategic partnership leads, 56 00:03:18.520 --> 00:03:22.420 really embodying this principle in all that they do at a strategic 57 00:03:22.460 --> 00:03:25.760 level. We do not send our staff on DEI training. 58 00:03:26.060 --> 00:03:29.250 We embed and embody and role model this value 59 00:03:29.660 --> 00:03:31.340 whatever job we're in. 60 00:03:32.460 --> 00:03:34.960 Moving around the clock face here, that yellow one there. 61 00:03:35.280 --> 00:03:38.609 The response must respect the voice, experience, and expertise of children and 62 00:03:38.609 --> 00:03:39.400 young people. Not 63 00:03:40.220 --> 00:03:43.420 listen to their wishes and feelings. I mean, do that, sure. 64 00:03:44.120 --> 00:03:47.980 Respect their expertise. Sometimes respecting a child's 65 00:03:48.020 --> 00:03:51.660 expertise involves being brave and saying, "That's not 66 00:03:51.700 --> 00:03:52.040 right. 67 00:03:53.060 --> 00:03:53.780 I can't do that." 68 00:03:55.500 --> 00:03:56.920 I often think there's a real nuance here. 69 00:03:56.980 --> 00:04:00.040 Sometimes we fall into shorthand and we say things like, "Well, young people are 70 00:04:00.080 --> 00:04:01.700 experts in their own lives." Yes, they are. 71 00:04:02.060 --> 00:04:05.760 Young people are experts in their own lives and only their own 72 00:04:06.140 --> 00:04:09.660 lives. We do not ask children to speak on behalf of all other children. 73 00:04:09.920 --> 00:04:13.370 We do not assume that one person's lived experience translates to everybody's lived 74 00:04:13.400 --> 00:04:17.200 experience. And we do not think that lived experience weighs more or less 75 00:04:17.221 --> 00:04:18.601 than learnt experience. 76 00:04:19.560 --> 00:04:22.340 But we always non-negotiably respect that expertise. 77 00:04:22.710 --> 00:04:25.770 And that has real implications, I think, for colleagues in senior leadership roles, 78 00:04:26.060 --> 00:04:29.840 in policy roles, because it means that we cannot ask practice to be 79 00:04:29.880 --> 00:04:33.780 participatory. We need our leadership to demonstrate that 80 00:04:33.820 --> 00:04:37.120 respect for children and young people's expertise, to navigate 81 00:04:38.420 --> 00:04:42.210 where young people's expertise doesn't chime with professional 82 00:04:42.280 --> 00:04:45.960 expertise or the law or research. This is much more 83 00:04:46.060 --> 00:04:46.870 nuanced than saying, 84 00:04:47.730 --> 00:04:48.620 "I listen to children." 85 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:54.780 The response must be strengths-based and relationship-based. 86 00:04:54.840 --> 00:04:57.220 And I know you know this, but it bears repeating. 87 00:04:57.500 --> 00:05:01.040 To be strengths-based doesn't mean we ignore all the risks or the dangers or the 88 00:05:01.120 --> 00:05:05.020 harms. To be relationship-based doesn't mean we're just being everyone's mate. 89 00:05:06.180 --> 00:05:09.160 The work you do is so much more nuanced and complex than that. 90 00:05:10.580 --> 00:05:14.520 To be strengths-based in this work, sometimes I think of it as panning for gold. 91 00:05:15.340 --> 00:05:19.180 You or your teams might sometimes be working with a child or young person who is in 92 00:05:19.280 --> 00:05:23.160 a really, really frightening circumstances, where their parents or 93 00:05:23.260 --> 00:05:26.920 caregivers are angry, understandably so, in a 94 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:28.760 state of distress themselves. 95 00:05:29.860 --> 00:05:33.000 And your role is to pan for gold, to find 96 00:05:34.240 --> 00:05:35.680 the little nuggets of hope, 97 00:05:36.780 --> 00:05:40.600 the bits of gold in an otherwise sometimes pretty upsetting life. 98 00:05:40.840 --> 00:05:43.860 To help parents see the strengths in their children, to help children see the 99 00:05:43.920 --> 00:05:47.340 strengths in their parents, to find the bits that can keep them going, the green 100 00:05:47.440 --> 00:05:50.840 shoots, the glimmers of hope. And to do that requires something, I think, 101 00:05:50.900 --> 00:05:52.380 extraordinary of you as professionals. 102 00:05:53.340 --> 00:05:55.340 When we talk about being relationship-based, 103 00:05:56.820 --> 00:06:00.682 sometimes that is the opposite of being someone's mate.Mm-hmm. 104 00:06:01.532 --> 00:06:04.372 It's about using the power of relationships. 105 00:06:05.432 --> 00:06:08.132 I guess I would say, where relationships are not just the vehicle for an 106 00:06:08.192 --> 00:06:11.912 intervention. My colleagues in Haringey sometimes say, "Relationships 107 00:06:12.012 --> 00:06:15.602 are the intervention." I have to say, I don't love the word intervention myself. 108 00:06:15.752 --> 00:06:19.472 Sounds like something you've got to turn a big light on for, doesn't it? 109 00:06:19.492 --> 00:06:23.362 But no, support. Relationships are what changes lives. You know this. 110 00:06:23.672 --> 00:06:27.222 When you finish a working week and you are exhausted, that is because you have 111 00:06:27.452 --> 00:06:30.792 leant in deeply to the relational labour of doing the work. 112 00:06:31.442 --> 00:06:34.952 And if we want our professionals who are working directly with children and young 113 00:06:34.992 --> 00:06:36.752 people and families to be relational, 114 00:06:37.672 --> 00:06:41.072 so too they must have relational leadership, management, supervision. 115 00:06:41.652 --> 00:06:44.432 We're a system. At all levels, there's got to be congruence. 116 00:06:45.092 --> 00:06:48.852 And that strength of relationship, it's not just between professionals and 117 00:06:48.912 --> 00:06:51.632 children and families, it's the relationships we hold with each other. 118 00:06:52.112 --> 00:06:55.472 How are we being strengths-based across our partnership, knowing that we sometimes 119 00:06:55.492 --> 00:06:58.412 disagree, we have different priorities, but we share a goal? 120 00:06:58.672 --> 00:07:02.392 Seeing the strengths in each other across sometimes quite tricky 121 00:07:02.652 --> 00:07:04.372 partnership dynamics is also key here. 122 00:07:05.972 --> 00:07:08.192 At the bottom of the clock face there, the next principle. 123 00:07:08.452 --> 00:07:12.192 The response to child exploitation must recognize and respond to trauma. 124 00:07:13.312 --> 00:07:16.692 The trauma that children and young people carry as a result of these 125 00:07:16.732 --> 00:07:17.552 experiences. 126 00:07:18.672 --> 00:07:20.572 The trauma that their loved ones carry. 127 00:07:21.592 --> 00:07:25.242 I don't presume that just because we're a call full of professionals and 128 00:07:25.312 --> 00:07:29.142 policymakers, that none of us bring lived experience. Quite the opposite. 129 00:07:30.672 --> 00:07:32.912 We have no idea. We must never make those assumptions. 130 00:07:35.792 --> 00:07:39.652 In responding to trauma and recognizing 131 00:07:39.692 --> 00:07:42.532 trauma, that sometimes means really checking ourselves. 132 00:07:42.612 --> 00:07:46.472 Some of what we do, because that's what the policy says or the protocol says or the 133 00:07:46.492 --> 00:07:49.902 organizational stance, that can sometimes not be very 134 00:07:49.952 --> 00:07:50.792 trauma-attuned. 135 00:07:51.812 --> 00:07:54.892 Three strikes and you're out. Failed to attend. 136 00:07:56.012 --> 00:07:59.172 Fill in this checklist and I'll tell you how many adversities you've faced. 137 00:07:59.452 --> 00:08:03.252 I'll give you a score. If we want our professionals across the 138 00:08:03.292 --> 00:08:07.072 multi-agency network to work in a way which really deeply 139 00:08:07.172 --> 00:08:09.422 recognizes and intentionally responds to trauma, 140 00:08:10.892 --> 00:08:14.592 those professionals need to be led, supported, managed, and nurtured in a way that 141 00:08:14.652 --> 00:08:18.532 recognizes their own trauma. Because to work in this field, to work with 142 00:08:18.572 --> 00:08:21.792 people in pain, and to do it properly, it's going to hurt some days. 143 00:08:22.772 --> 00:08:26.152 So we have to hold the people who hold the people, and we have to take into account 144 00:08:26.212 --> 00:08:29.932 that for some people in our communities, that trauma runs deep, 145 00:08:30.552 --> 00:08:31.672 generations deep. 146 00:08:33.992 --> 00:08:36.332 And I would personally want to add, 147 00:08:37.232 --> 00:08:41.172 from my own perspective, that trauma isn't always a thing that happened to 148 00:08:41.273 --> 00:08:44.752 you, a one-off event. The consequence of abuse. 149 00:08:45.752 --> 00:08:49.432 Racial trauma, socioeconomic trauma, the trauma that comes from 150 00:08:49.572 --> 00:08:51.772 feeling that, "I don't belong here. I'm not valued here. 151 00:08:51.812 --> 00:08:52.592 I don't fit here." 152 00:08:53.472 --> 00:08:56.712 Really being curious about the multiple manifestations of trauma. 153 00:08:57.632 --> 00:09:00.872 It requires us, to move around the clock face there, that our response has got to 154 00:09:00.892 --> 00:09:04.292 be really curious, evidence-informed, knowledgeable. 155 00:09:04.712 --> 00:09:08.592 Really deliberately drawing on the best up-to-date and 156 00:09:08.632 --> 00:09:12.592 most robust research available, local data, the expertise that's 157 00:09:12.612 --> 00:09:15.972 born out of lived experience to children, young people, and families you serve, 158 00:09:16.032 --> 00:09:19.291 your own professional knowledge. Always asking, "How can I know more? 159 00:09:20.212 --> 00:09:21.372 What's changed my mind? 160 00:09:22.312 --> 00:09:26.012 Is there new evidence now that's going to shift or help me unlearn something?" 161 00:09:27.212 --> 00:09:31.192 Really, really key to what we do. It was very, very important 162 00:09:31.212 --> 00:09:34.512 to us, this next principle, and we've worded it quite carefully. 163 00:09:34.802 --> 00:09:38.732 An effective response to child exploitation is one where we approach parents 164 00:09:38.772 --> 00:09:41.112 and carers as partners wherever possible. 165 00:09:42.382 --> 00:09:44.052 We recognize it's not always possible. 166 00:09:44.452 --> 00:09:47.872 We recognize that for some parents and carers, they're not 167 00:09:47.972 --> 00:09:50.782 able to work in partnership because of the pain they are carrying. 168 00:09:52.512 --> 00:09:56.372 In some instances, it's not possible to say that the parents and carers are 169 00:09:56.472 --> 00:10:00.202 always a protective factor, although very, very often that is 170 00:10:00.232 --> 00:10:02.482 true in relation to harm outside the home. 171 00:10:03.072 --> 00:10:06.732 Wherever humanly possible, we approach parents and carers with 172 00:10:06.772 --> 00:10:10.142 respect and empathy and humility and humanity. 173 00:10:13.152 --> 00:10:16.492 They are partners in this, and we do not love their kids more than they do. 174 00:10:18.632 --> 00:10:21.672 And if we want practitioners and professionals to work in this way, we need that 175 00:10:21.772 --> 00:10:25.082 role modeled and enabled and invested in at a strategic level. 176 00:10:26.852 --> 00:10:30.432 And that deep magenta one there, as I close the clock face here. 177 00:10:30.472 --> 00:10:34.142 An effective response to child exploitation is one that creates safer 178 00:10:34.292 --> 00:10:36.322 spaces and places for children and young people. 179 00:10:37.032 --> 00:10:40.872 It's not an individualized intervention. We're just going to risk assess Elaine. 180 00:10:40.892 --> 00:10:42.992 We're going to talk about Raquel's decisions and choices. 181 00:10:43.192 --> 00:10:44.712 We might, Raquel, actually, in the break. 182 00:10:45.592 --> 00:10:48.672 Mm-hmm. It's one where we say, "Hang on, what are the spaces and places where 183 00:10:48.712 --> 00:10:51.552 Elaine or Grace or Susan or Helen feel more or less safe? 184 00:10:51.612 --> 00:10:55.432 And what are we doing at the level of space and place and context?" And when we 185 00:10:55.452 --> 00:10:59.292 think like that, all of a sudden, our safeguarding partnership 186 00:10:59.352 --> 00:11:03.112 expands. It means that our local businesses, our 187 00:11:03.192 --> 00:11:06.072 nighttime economy, our voluntary and community sector, our grassroots 188 00:11:06.132 --> 00:11:09.392 organizations, our faith-based organizations, the bloke on the door of Primark, 189 00:11:09.792 --> 00:11:11.652 they are all your safeguarding partners now. 190 00:11:12.572 --> 00:11:16.052 Because stewards of public spaces are essential in this. 191 00:11:16.892 --> 00:11:20.602 So these principles, which as I say, we set out in the full document, what are 192 00:11:20.602 --> 00:11:22.942 asked of practice, management, and leadership. 193 00:11:23.552 --> 00:11:26.112 These principles act like a compass. 194 00:11:26.152 --> 00:11:27.772 They're not prescriptive guidance. 195 00:11:27.812 --> 00:11:30.752 It's not our place to tell you what to do on a Tuesday afternoon, in what size 196 00:11:30.812 --> 00:11:34.322 font. You're experts in your jobs, aren't you? But they act as a compass. 197 00:11:34.412 --> 00:11:38.052 They remind us which way north is. With the busyness and the complexity and the 198 00:11:38.092 --> 00:11:41.852 challenge you work in, these principles aim to articulate what you have 199 00:11:41.932 --> 00:11:45.922 always known and what the children and young people you serve have always 200 00:11:45.972 --> 00:11:46.192 known. 201 00:11:47.072 --> 00:11:50.752 It's about how we behave and how we think, not just 202 00:11:51.212 --> 00:11:54.912 what protocol is followed. So I hope that's helpful as an 203 00:11:54.952 --> 00:11:58.772 introduction to these principles, and I hope you can see the deliberate 204 00:11:58.852 --> 00:11:59.532 difference between 205 00:12:00.692 --> 00:12:04.212 these core principles and practice guidance, which is very 206 00:12:04.252 --> 00:12:06.752 important but is not what these principles are trying to do.