Peer-on-Peer Abuse Understanding the Issues: Building a response in Greenwich

Transcription

1 Peer-on-Peer Abuse Understanding the Issues: Building a response in Greenwich Dr Carlene Firmin MBE University

2 Overview 1. The nature and scale of peer-on-peer abuse and exploitation 2. Emerging trends and challenges 3. Building a response in Greenwich

3 Nature and Scale

4 Current Definitions Domestic Abuse Child sexual exploitation Serious Youth Violence Harmful Sexual Behaviour

5 Domestic Abuse Definition Any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are or have been intimate partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality. The abuse can encompass but is not limited to psychological, physical, sexual, financial, emotional

6 Definition Child Sexual Exploitation Sexual exploitation of children and young people under 18 involves exploitative situations, contexts and relationships where young people (or a third person or persons) receive something (e.g. food, accommodation, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, affection, gifts, money) as a result of them performing, and/or another or others performing on them, sexual activities.. In all cases, those exploiting the child/young person have power over them by virtue of their age, gender, intellect, physical strength and/or economic or other resources. Violence, coercion and intimidation are common, involvement in exploitative relationships being characterised in the main by the child or young person s limited availability of choice resulting from their social/economic and/or emotional vulnerability.

7 Definition Serious Youth Violence Any offence of most serious violence or weapon enabled crime, where the victim is aged 1-19 i.e. murder, manslaughter, rape, wounding with intent and causing grievous bodily harm. Youth violence is defined in the same way, but also includes assault with injury offences

8 Definition Harmful Sexual Behaviour Children and young people presenting with sexual behaviours that are outside of developmentally normative parameters

9 Peer-on-Peer Abuse One in five girls in England suffered physical violence from their boyfriend More than four in ten teenage schoolgirls aged between 13 and 17 in England have experienced sexual coercion. The rates of violence were higher for girls in England than in other countries. Nearly half-48% of girls reported instances of emotional and online abuse from their partners. Over a third of young boys in England admitted watching porn and held negative attitudes towards women (University of Bristol and University of Central Lancashire, 2015) Two thirds (65.9%) of contact sexual abuse experienced by children up to age-17 was perpetrated by someone under-18 (Radford et al 2011) ¼ Barnardo s service users was sexually exploited by their peers (2011) Almost a third of year-old girls say they ve been subjected to unwanted sexual touching in UK schools (EVAW 2010)

10 Implied association to context Crime-affected neighbourhoods CSE in parks, shopping centres Neighbourhood School Peer Group Sexual harassment and bullying Peer recruitment Home Peer association to IPV Peer group sexual offending Child Domestic abuse Neglect

11 The impact on a young person Missing Physical Injuries Drugs and alcohol Offending Sexual Health Disengagement from school Change in appearance Mental health and emotional well-being

12 Emerging trends and challenges

13 What is safety The challenge of relocation physical vs. relational safety (Shuker 2013) Travelling exploitation and the pull of home Victim vacuums County lines Managed moves across schools Case vs. trend management

14 Limitations of child protection system Vulnerable adolescents vs. Vulnerable children Risk outside the home vs. Risk within the home Abuse by young people vs. Abuse by adults Unsafe social spaces vs. Unsafe individuals

15 Issue-specific responses Harmful Sexual Behaviour Missing Domestic Abuse Serious Youth Violence Trafficking Child Sexual Exploitation

16 Safeguarding response to young people who abuse Consent/Power Consent/MACR Consent/Agency - Tracking of referrals - Plan for no-further action cases - Non-criminal justice pathways available - Gender and broader equalities work - Exploration of group influence

17 Building an effective response in Greenwich

18 Contextualised Safeguarding? Society Neighbourhood School Peer Group Home Child Firmin 2013

19 Contextual responses operational examples Peer Group Mapping, assessment and intervention Social workers and youth offending workers identified links between their individual cases Met to map and refined assessment Designed complimentary interventions Currently being applied through Asset Plus Fair Access Panel Managed moves used for HSB Referral document contains information on offence and context in which it occurs Data to be collected and analysed to build a picture regarding use of moves and HSB in schools Contact with schools are a result Case Review Reviewing cases of murder and rape Contextual review: where the risk sits and where intervention was directed Complainants, suspects and bystanders addressing victimisation for all groups The incident escalation towards it in all social spaces

20 Strategy and training linkage Profiling Peer Influence Grooming and Consent Community safety Disclosure Parental capacity CSE Teenage relationship abuse Missing Substance misuse Radicalisation Trafficking Gang association and serious youth violence EGYV documentation links issues as does analytical work within it DA strategy yet to do so Is Community Safety linked in with Safeguarding?

21 Application in Greenwich 1) Work with analysts to identify gaps in analytical data and provide a contextual account of Greenwich s peer-onpeer abuse profile - Review of current data collection process - 2 x case reviews of peer-on-peer abuse including digital ethnographic research Leads: Linea Heinonen and Rachel Egan, Performance Analysis Service 2) Work with GSCB to better engage schools in all stages of the response to peer-on-peer abuse - Workshop for young women to capture their views on school safety - Training for school safegurading leads - Follow on workshop to develop on-going plan, present to GSCB in January 2016 Leads: Jill Smith, Eltham Hill School and Jack Kenny and Ken Palmer, RBG Education 3) Working with professionals across the multi-agency network to identify preventative approaches and early identification in relation to peer on peer abuse (Jan April Using data from case reviews, identify preventative approaches that could be utilised Leads: Audrey Johnson, Youth Offending Service

22 Building a contextual model of safeguarding Local Safeguarding Children Board Oversight of 1. Individuals affected by peer-on-peer abuse 2. The social fields in which abuse has occurred 3. Services commissioned to address social fields and individuals Multi-agency identification, assessment and intervention Prevention Early Intervention Reactive intervention Neighbourhood School Young person Peer network Firmin (forthcoming, 2015) Home

23 @carlenefirmin For more information on our work including research publications, short films and outputs from young people please visit