What is Shropshire Council doing about it?

We've established the TREES team – Together Reducing and Ending Exploitation in Shropshire. The team helps to manage, coordinate and advocate for exploited children throughout Shropshire. It's a multi-disciplinary team, consisting of social workers, specialists and family support workers.

Shropshire Council Children’s Services is a statutory, multi-disciplinary, multi-agency safeguarding and trauma-informed service when it comes to exploitation. Therefore, we'll share information with West Mercia Police, child exploitation charities, the NHS, schools and other agencies to safeguard the young people in our care – we'll always do our best to be as transparent as possible and share why this is necessary.

Shropshire’s child exploitation process is supported within a joint framework with the SSCB Shropshire Safeguarding Community Partnership (SSCB). Our child exploitation processes and procedures can be found on the West Midlands Child Protection and Safeguarding Procedures website.

We can support parents and carers of children perceived to be at risk of exploitation. We recognise that the risks to children and young people are usually out in the community, rather than within the family home. This is what's known as contextual safeguarding.

Exploitation risk assessments are discussed via twice-weekly multi-agency triage meetings. These referrals don't always result in social care involvement, and in many cases children are referred to another service such as early help, substance misuse support or diversionary activities, the aim being to reduce the risk of exploitation.

What else is being done nationally?

Child exploitation is a UK-wide issue. The National Working Group (NWG) is a national charity helping to coordinate a national effort in tackling child exploitation, often providing support, advice and guidance whilst advocating changes in the law 

Child exploitation issues will often extend across more than one area, so we share information with other local authorities and agencies to safeguard children. The UK government is acutely aware of the issues around exploitation and has a statutory duty to provide protection for children and vulnerable adults.

One of the key agencies to help tackle this issue is the British Transport Police whose officers are specially trained in child exploitation. You may want to consider liaising with BTP directly if you suspect that your child is missing or using train lines, as they'll be able to help.

The CEOP Safety Centre is a very good resource for exploitation that focuses on the online aspect of the harm it can cause.The NSPCC has sites both for criminal exploitation and child sexual exploitation. The NSPCC has a lot of free resources and support you can access.

Issues such as 'County Lines' are addressed both locally and nationally. As these are complex, illegal, dynamic and underground organisations, the police often have to be very discreet in their operations and therefore, at times, it could feel like nothing is being done to help – but this may take time.