The pioneering work by Derbyshire’s specialist child exploitation charity, Safe and Sound, has been further recognised with Big Lottery funding – enabling the charity to provide specialist support to more young people and families across the city and county.
The three-year funding will enable the charity to expand its ‘Transforming Young Lives’ programme – helping children and young people who are at risk or are victims of child exploitation and their families move forward with their lives.
This is in response to the increasing demand for its services and support which has grown from 100 cases in 2019 to supporting 385 children and young people in 2023/4.
Thanks to the funding, Safe and Sound will provide:
- Specialist one to one and group support for young people affected by child exploitation including online grooming, sexual exploitation, criminal exploitation (including County Lines), trafficking, modern slavery and radicalisation
- Specialist support for families where a child has been affected by exploitation
- Specialist support for young people and families through work in those communities that need a bespoke approach such as new arrivals
- Engagement with schools and community groups to raise awareness of the dangers facing young people online and in person
- Coordination and training for a growing volunteer base who support in a wide range of youth and outreach provision, fundraising and administrative work
Child exploitation is a rapidly growing problem. During 2021 in England and Wales there were 17,486 crimes logged by police where children had been sexually exploited – an average of 48 offences a day.
Around 75% of child sexual abuse and exploitation offences related to crimes committed directly against children with around 25% relating to online offences of indecent images of children and online grooming.
In 2023, there were 7,432 referrals relating to children to the National Referral Mechanism – the framework for identifying and referring potential victims of modern slavery of criminal exploitation – an increase of 45% since 2021.
All the agencies involved in child protection acknowledge that the true scale of exploitation is unknown as many cases are not reported or not identified as exploitation.
The national picture is reflected locally and Safe and Sound has 22 years’ expertise in working with children and young people across Derbyshire who are victims of or at risk of child exploitation.
Nearly 50% of the young people they work with are affected by child sexual exploitation and 40% are affected primarily by child criminal exploitation with the remainder of both young men and women affected by both crimes.
The charity supports children as young as seven but the majority are 13 to 18 and 32% of young people have special educational needs and/or disability with support available to them and those leaving care until the age of 25. Safe and Sound also supported 88 families in the past two years.
Safe and Sound CEO Tracy Harrison explained: “It is important to remember that any boy or girl is at risk of exploitation – regardless of their age, family circumstances, social or cultural background. Their experiences are not only devastating to them but to the whole family.
“We are therefore grateful for the continued support from the Big Lottery to enable us to expand our ‘Transforming Young Lives’ programme particularly as we redefine our community hub in Allenton and move forward with our plans to open a new city centre base next year.
“This funding is testament to the positive impact that our multi-faceted one to one and group support for young people, families and our outreach and awareness raising work in local communities is having on helping people in their darkest times to move forward positively with their lives.
“This funding will have a positive impact on our organisation, enabling us to build on the work we have done so far, expand our focus on wider exploitation and further develop our expertise in this area of work.”
