Safeguarding Leaders’ Assembly: Safeguarding Children at Risk of Exploitation and Serious Youth Violence
The SLA was attended by 38 safeguarding leaders from the Community Safety Partnership, in addition to the BSCP. James Thomas (CEO of Birmingham Children’s Trust) and Richard North (Chief Superintendent, West Midlands Police), our Co-Chairs, introduced the session and provided an update on the Safeguarding Partnership.
James’ update referenced the upcoming launch of the refreshed Right Help, Right Time guidance, reinforced our Safeguarding Priorities, and introduced the focus of the event: ‘Safeguarding Children at Risk of Exploitation and Serious Youth Violence’. The session drew on key themes which emerged from the ‘Serious Youth Violence – Breaking the Cycle’ Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review, such as the governance of Serious Youth Violence in Birmingham, the significance of ‘place’, and the importance of helping young people at ‘reachable moments’. Richard discussed how we plan to strengthen our governance and accountability arrangements, which will see the formation of the ‘Child Exploitation Sub-Group’, the further development of the Reducing Violence Board, which will replace the Contextual Safeguarding Board.
Understanding the Regional and Birmingham Context, Nicky Penniston & Andrew Brumwell, West Midlands Violence Reduction Partnership
The critical role of the Violence Reduction Partnership was explored, emphasising its collaborative approach to addressing serious violence through the framework of the Serious Violence Duty.The discussion underscored the importance of understanding the unique context of the West Midlands, highlighting how regional dynamics shape strategies to reduce violence. Key insights from the Local Strategic Needs Assessment were shared, focusing on its implications for Birmingham and identifying priority areas for action.
Implementing our Serious Violence Strategy, Waqar Ahmed, Community Safety Partnership & Clair Graham, Birmingham Children’s Trust
The critical role of the Violence Reduction Partnership was explored, emphasising its collaborative approach to addressing serious violence through the framework of the Serious Violence Duty. The discussion underscored the importance of understanding the unique context of the West Midlands, highlighting how regional dynamics shape strategies to reduce violence. Key insights from the Local Strategic Needs Assessment were shared, focusing on its implications for Birmingham and identifying priority areas for action.
We watched At What Cost – My Tomorrow, a poignant film inspired by the experiences of young people across the West Midlands. My Tomorrow, the region’s youth-led campaign, reveals the often-unseen realities of young people’s lives to spark conversations between communities that can build understanding and lead to collaborative, positive action.
Reducing Serious Youth Violence and Child Exploitation Workshop
James and Richard facilitated a workshop on ‘Reducing Serious Youth Violence and Child Exploitation’. The first part of the session focused on what individual organisations could do. The discussion amongst safeguarding leaders generated some really great ideas, with eleven organisations identifying a total of 26 specific internal actions they will undertake to help reduce Serious Youth Violence and Child Exploitation.
The second part of the session concentrated on what we could collectively do, by working more effectively together to tackle serious youth violence and child exploitation. The discussions identified eleven areas for further work to enhance our partnership arrangements.
- Strengthen the Leadership, Governance and Accountability arrangements.
- Campaign to raise public awareness of the risks of serious youth violence.
- Work with the faith and voluntary sector closer to raise awareness of signs of exploitation.
- Provide refuge for children, young people, and families under threats of violence.
- Improve understanding of agency roles and links to safeguarding leads.
- Stakeholder mapping of services in the exploitation space to improve access to available support.
- Continue to build upon the specialist Empower-U Hub and embed the new Child Exploitation Sub-Group.
- Support frontline practitioners’ confidence through targeted multi-agency training.
- Create practitioner resources which are appropriate to be used for children of different ages.
- Streamline processes so we can know where all different resources are when required.
- Promote understanding of the new Combined approach: PCC, WMCA and local authority representatives.
Birmingham Safeguarding Children Partnership is committed to working in collaboration with the Community Safety Partnership to explore how these recommendations should be implemented and would like to thank attendees for their contributions to the session.