4.34 Supporting Children Suffering or Likely to Suffer Harm Outside the Home

1. Introduction

Some children experience abuse and exploitation outside the home. This includes children who are looked after and live in residential or foster care. This is often referred to as ‘extra-familial harm’. Harm can occur in a range of extra-familial contexts, including school and other educational settings, peer groups, or within community/public spaces, and/or online. Children may experience this type of harm from other children and/or from adults, and harm may be perpetrated by individuals or groups. Forms of extra-familial harm include child criminal exploitation (such as county lines and financial exploitation), serious violence, modern slavery and trafficking, online harm, sexual exploitation (including group based child sexual exploitation), teenage relationship abuse, and the influences of extremism which could lead to radicalisation. Children of all ages can experience extra-familial harm.

When a child goes missing or runs away, they are at risk of harm. Going missing may be a result of extra and/or and intra-familial harm, and it can also place the child at risk of new harms. This is the case regardless of where a child lives and who holds parental responsibility for them.

Children can be harmed and harm others, often simultaneously. It is important to recognise the harm that a child may experience even when they present as someone who causes harm to others, including their peers.

Where children are known or likely to be experiencing significant extra-familial harm this can mean they are being exposed to rape, sexual assault, physical assault, being groomed including into extremism or to exploit others, and other serious maltreatment. A child protection response to significant extra-familial harm should be comprehensive and timely, understanding the impact of these harms and the need for swift intervention.

When responding to children’s needs, Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams should consider the child’s current context and seek to view any extra-familial harms present as a state, not a trait, of the child. As with all other harm responses, Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams should be guided by the child’s needs, seeking to problem solve and put in place support and interventions which respond to the child and their context. Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams should be aware of the role that family, trusted adults, peers or the community can play to complement the child protection response that the Multi-Agency Child Protection Team is putting in place. Responses should include working in partnership, particularly with health, policing and education and the family where appropriate, to maximise environmental factors that are contributing to safety (such as improving lighting or running positive activities) and minimise those which are contributing to harm.

2. Action to Take

Where there are concerns that a child is experiencing extra-familial harm, practitioners should consider all the  child’s needs and vulnerabilities. Some children will have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by others and will require support appropriate to their needs to minimise the potential for exploitation.

While any child can experience harm outside the home, children with special educational needs or disabilities, those missing from home, care or education, looked after children, and those with previous experience of abuse or neglect, may be at greater risk of harms such as sexual or criminal exploitation. Perpetrators, including those acting in organised groups, may purposefully target children who are already vulnerable.

All children, including those who may be causing harm to others, should receive a safeguarding response, and practitioners should work with them to understand their experiences and what will reduce the likelihood of harm to themselves and others.

The child protection response to significant extra-familial harms should recognise that harm may be occurring within the context of wider challenges and difficulties. Parents and carers should be approached as protective partners in the first instance as some families can be protective and will need support to do so. But child exploitation can occur within the family context, so practitioners need to remain alert to the possibility that not everyone with parental responsibility can be protective partners.

Some children who experience harm, including outside the home, can be mistakenly perceived to be older than they are. This is more commonly experienced by black children but can affect children from a range of minoritised backgrounds, as well as those in contact with the youth justice system and those who are looked after. This can lead to children’s needs being poorly understood and opportunities to provide help being missed. Practitioners should seek to understand the context in which harm is happening to children and remain curious about what drives their vulnerability, including consideration of coercion, responses to adversity and trauma, and the impact of special educational needs and disabilities.

Where children may be experiencing extra-familial harm, assessments should determine whether a child is in need under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 or whether to make enquires under section 47 of the same Act, following concerns that the child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. Where the child is looked after, section 47 enquiries should be carried out alongside a review of the care, and any action required should be included and monitored through the care planning process.

A good assessment should:

• build an understanding of the child’s strengths, interests, identity, and culture;
• respond to each of the vulnerabilities and/or challenges that the child may be facing, including any within the home, or within their own intimate relationships;
• gather information on past experiences of trauma and how this may impact on the child’s current experience of harm and on how they interact with practitioners;
• explore how the child’s experiences within their families and networks, including their friends and peer groups, interplay with the risk of harm outside of the home and identify what needs to change;
• support parents, carers, and family networks to understand what is happening to the child, working with them to ensure they can best meet the child’s needs and play an active part in the solutions and processes to help create safety for the child;
• understand the risk of extra-familial harm for siblings, for example, where older children are exploited, younger siblings may also be at risk of being targeted.

See also Assessments procedure.

Where there are concerns that more than one child may be experiencing harm in an extra-familial context, practitioners should consider the individual needs of each child as well as work with the group. The children in the group may or may not already be known to local authority children’s social care. Working with the whole group enables practitioners to build an understanding of the dynamics between those within the group and the extra-familial context.

Practitioners will need to build an understanding of the context in which the harm is occurring (including online) and draw on relevant knowledge and information from parents / carers, children and wider partners in order to decide on the most appropriate actions and interventions to create safety. Practitioners should consider the influence of groups or individuals perpetrating harm, including where this takes place online, and identify patterns of harm, risk and protective factors in these contexts. This may include working across safeguarding partners, including police forces and community safety partnerships to agree a plan for keeping children safe and seeking to identify and disrupt those causing harm to the child to prevent further abuse and / or exploitation.

The Child Exploitation Disruption Toolkit provides further information on how practitioners from different agencies can work together to safeguard children from sexual and criminal exploitation, including using legislative tools such as civil orders and injunctions.

Key decisions should be recorded and communicated to both the child and their parents or carers, so that everyone understands the action that has, or will be, taken to safeguard and promote their welfare. It is important that all partners are clear how actions contribute to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the child.