Child exploitation tackled by social workers in schools

The project aims to ensure young people are identified as at risk of exploitation and receive effective support

Social workers say a project to tackle child exploitation has improved collaboration between secondary schools and social care staff.

Eight social workers have been placed in schools to identify and support children at risk of being exploited.

It comes amid concerns around a rise in the number of "unseen" children due to lockdowns that may be exposed to exploitation involving drugs, criminal or sexual acts.

The trial is running for 18 months.

'Building relationships'

The £400,000 project, funded by the Department for Education, started in January and aims to strengthen working relationships between schools and social services to support young people, and their families.

It also seeks to help schools better spot the signs of exploitation.

Luke, a social worker at The Blue School, in Wells, said: "It's brilliant for building relationships with school colleagues to understand each other's roles.

"It's also about helping young people to know the signs and how to avoid getting into situations, and to support them to get out.

"A lot of children have been unseen for a large proportion of the last year so to be able to now be in school is a privileged position to be able to get to know them."

The Blue School in Wells is one of the schools taking part in the project

Assistant headteacher at The Blue School, Bridget Cox, added: "It's been great to get to know Luke.

"We already have good links with children's social care but to have someone on site is a real luxury, we can tap into that expertise and equip ourselves even more in tackling issues around safeguarding and exploitation.

"Before the previous lockdown the ways in which we understood exploitation may be happening was much more obvious, because we were seeing students regularly and schools are vital part of that chain of information in helping to disrupt exploitation.

"When lockdown came last March and since, exploitation has been happening in a different way and part of this project is understanding that."

Last month The Children's Society warned that organised crime groups had changed their tactics to target young people during lockdown.

And in 2020 the National Youth Agency reported that drugs gangs had increased their recruitment of children during lockdown.