Steve Macabee (00:01.196)
Right then, welcome back once again to the P-Pod, the partnership podcast from the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership. My name is Steve McAbee and I'm the multi-agency training manager for the partnership. And today I'm really pleased to be joined by a very special guest for us who actually is possibly sick of me by now because we had our forum week recently of a series of webinars throughout the week on the subject of serious youth violence and exploitation. And our guests very, very kindly came along.

to that week to share her expertise with us and even kinder from that, then agreed to do a follow-up podcast episode with this. And I'm so pleased today to be joined by Lynn Sands from the NWG, the National Working Group, who focused on the subject of particularly modern slavery and exploitation of children, young people. So Lynn, thank you so much for joining us along today. It's great to have you back with us.

LIN SANDS (00:54.951)
Thank you very much, Steve. I'm very pleased to be here.

Steve Macabee (00:57.71)
Brilliant, thank you. So to get into this, I'm sure many people have heard of the NWG or at the very least a number of the big national campaigns that you run around exploitation. But for those people who haven't heard of the NWG before, are you able to a bit of an overview about what the NWG's mission is and how it supports professionals working with children, young people?

LIN SANDS (01:19.921)
Yeah, of course. So the NWG, which stands for the National Working Group, we're a networking, not-for-profit charitable organisation, mostly membership driven. We have a membership that spans many countries outside of England and Wales and Scotland, Ireland, Southern Ireland. We also have memberships from other English speaking countries outside of the United Kingdom and Southern Ireland.

We are, as I say, primarily we are networking organisation and we pride ourselves on the fact that we have an incredible reach in terms of the diversity of partners, practitioners, people that are tackling the exploitation of children and young adults and who want to know that they've got support from each other, that they've got a critical friend that they can go to.

a bit of a sounding board really in terms of the progress of their own practice, what they can do to improve it. And whilst we are about fundamentally, we are about networking and bringing people together that have similar wants, if you like, in terms of improving services, improving responses. We're also an organization where we gather.

resources and any forms, any research, anything that people have done in terms of assessment frameworks, tried and tested, where they want to use us as a platform to share that good news and that progression of that practice. We are there for that as well. So we encourage people to share practice, things that are working particularly well and where they want other people to hear about it. And whilst we do have our own campaigns,

the Say Something If You See Something campaign that was nearly 11 years ago, which informed Operation Make Peace, which has now become a really big element of the way that we deal with exploitation across the country, particularly from a policing perspective. We also support local campaigns and individual campaigns. So again, we give them a voice. We give them that opportunity to share what's going on to make sure that everyone can really benefit from.

LIN SANDS (03:38.033)
the amazing work that's going on out there. And we know that resources are becoming fewer, the demands are becoming higher. So the more that we can do to support those individuals who are already facing quite a difficult task of keeping up with the flow of this, we do our best to support them as much as we possibly can.

Steve Macabee (03:58.798)
Yeah, no, definitely. And I know you do so much work right the way across the country. And I know you work with lots of partner agencies as well, don't you? And we were talking just before recording this about a number of those that you work with. Are you able to name some of the organizations you work with on a regular basis?

LIN SANDS (04:06.574)
as you do.

LIN SANDS (04:14.862)
Yeah, we work very, very frequently with the Lucy Faithful Foundation. We work with Mary Collins, but I Mary Collins are doing some amazing work at the moment around online harm. The resources that they have and that they can share, we're working actively together to make sure again that we're sharing that really good work. The work that Lucy Faithful Foundation does around supporting and understanding perpetrator behaviour.

because there's little point in thinking about tackling exploitation if we don't actively work in the... and gain knowledge and understanding and make sure we share that knowledge and understanding of the way that perpetrators operate around grooming and exploitation. We work with the Children's Society, we do some collaborative work with them and Barnardo's. So throughout the three years that I've been with the organisation...

We've worked collaboratively with those particular independent charities, but we also support smaller charities of which there are many. And certainly from a policing perspective, we work with Hydro, we work with the College of Policing around, again, making sure that we can be as helpful as we can be in terms of sharing that knowledge, that experience, but also for us to be able to disseminate that as well.

to make sure that that's accurate.

Steve Macabee (05:42.284)
No, brilliant. I know you work with so many partners, probably way, way too many to list here today. But, and it's great, like you say, it is getting back, getting that reach and, and tapping into good practice. I'm a, I'm a great believer and I believe you are as well of not reinventing the wheel. And I think we, do that so often, don't we? But actually there's a, there's a lot to learn from each other from that. And I think that that role you can play and sort of acting as that glue to kind of bind all those bits together and link people together is, is crucial, isn't it?

LIN SANDS (05:46.49)
Absolutely.

LIN SANDS (05:57.166)
Nug.

LIN SANDS (06:09.084)
And those local networks are really important. So within the team itself, we've got 11 direct, kind of what we call direct delivery leads. And all of those leads will have their own networks and their own connections and experiences with local charities, national charities, individual authorities. And again, it's difficult even as a team where we regularly meet, we regularly share what we're doing. There's just so many. I think at the last count, was something like

25 and a half thousand memberships at different times that we've had and associations. So it is massive. that's one of our, probably I would say one of the very unique selling points if you want in terms of NWG is our reach is extensive and largely born out of the amazing relationships that Sheila, our CEO developed and has built and continues to build within the organization. Yeah.

Steve Macabee (07:06.542)
No, I know you do a lot of work as well with, and you mentioned policing, yeah, I know you do a lot of work with police forces around the country, do a lot of work with local authorities. And obviously we've been working over the last year or so with the NWG and Somerset following our JTAI inspection. how do you, what does that work broadly across different local authorities? What does that look like in terms of the work you do and those...

community partners that you build up and, and, you know, to kind of ensure that that really good coordinated safeguarding response when we've got concerns around exploitation.

LIN SANDS (07:41.917)
It does vary, as I say, from each individual within the team, they have a particular focus. So many people listening to this, I'm sure, will have either met or heard of Steve Bagley, who's been with the team, probably one of the longest members of the team and Kev as well, Kev Murphy. And Steve's particular role has been to really put transitional safeguarding on the map in terms of really understanding that when

children are being exploited just because they turn 18 doesn't mean the exploitation stops. there are still there is a lot to do in terms of, again, informing practice and supporting those practitioners that are working with youngsters post 18. And so his focus has been very much around that national platform talking about transitional safeguarding from a contextual perspective. And

One of our team members, Maria, is doing lots of work around supporting families and empowering families to become more knowledgeable and more confident to ask the questions that they need to ask. you know, when they feel that they are perhaps not being involved within those conversations as much as they should be, how they might address that in a really helpful way rather than being seen as obstructive or that, you know, they don't want to, they don't want to get involved.

Steve Macabee (09:03.95)
Hmm.

LIN SANDS (09:07.708)
From my perspective, I would say that because I'm the police and justice lead, but I've also been doing the training role for the last 12 months as well. So I've had to kind of juggle both. But a lot of the work that I've been doing has been focused around helping partners to really understand when we talk about interrupting and disrupting exploitation, how important it is that it is seen as a partner responsibility, not just down to the police.

And the police are no different to any other partner in as much that they are stretched in terms of their resources. Sometimes they don't have the knowledge if they haven't got that particular expertise or if they're new in a team, new in the service itself. So a lot of the work that I've been doing is to empower and enable all of the partners to recognise that they have a responsibility and not just to look at that.

police officers sitting in that room expecting them to know everything and you know asking what can we do together and if we don't have enough information if we don't have the evidence how are going to find it how are we going to get it so that's about that work that I've been particularly involved in.

Steve Macabee (10:05.742)
Hmm.

Steve Macabee (10:20.27)
Yeah. And that's so crucial, isn't it? I think there's always a risk around things where people say, ah, well, that's a social worker's job or that's a police officer's job. And like you say, actually it's particularly around exploitation, which is tricky. You know, it takes so many different forms and I think that's evolving more and more as we see technologically assisted kind of abuse taking place more and more. Actually it's so important.

LIN SANDS (10:27.674)
Yeah.

LIN SANDS (10:44.23)
Yeah.

Steve Macabee (10:46.21)
to come together and say, actually, let's, we need to tackle this together. You can't tackle it in isolation at all. again, joining up those dots, isn't it? And I'm just thinking, obviously within your role and the role of the NWG, you see, you see things sort of evolving all the time and changing all the time. And I know again, when you're just looking at child criminal exploitation, it's a constantly sort of shifting sand of, you know, exploitation takes place, different models and things like that.

LIN SANDS (10:54.043)
Yeah.

Steve Macabee (11:14.478)
What would you say from what you see nationally? What are some of those kind of most pressing sort of challenges facing professionals in safeguarding roles?

LIN SANDS (11:24.656)
think certainly the use of technology to abuse children, we've seen, well, with the Internet Watch Foundation, we've been working closely with them to look at the ways that the new Online Safety Act has been implemented and how that's going to be governed, how that's going to be policed, if you like. So we've absolutely seen a massive change in not just...

the number of children that are being sexually exploited online and then that leading on to other forms of exploitation because it's not solely sexual, it can lead on to all kinds of exploitation. But we've really seen a shift in the kind of stereotypical boys subject, male subject to see criminal exploitation, girls sexually exploited. And I mentioned, I think, at the

the forum that I attended that from the Internet Watch Foundation, 91 % of children who are sharing images, perhaps consensually in the first instance, where those images are then being used against them to extort money or to groom them into other forms of exploitation. 91 % male adolescents. That's the largest number in terms of that sort of

group of individuals who are being extorted and that really flies in the face of what when we think about sexual exploitation in that form we generally think of girls but actually young adolescent boys are hugely at risk of this form of exploitation. But I guess as well around sexual exploitation there's been a lot of focus on county lines and gangs and criminal exploitation and we are waiting for

the Crime and Policing Bill to become an act which will bring a specific criminal offence of criminal exploitation of children. But alongside that, somehow the sexual exploitation conversation has kind of drifted off a little bit. there is absolutely no way that it's disappeared, that we've got on top of it and that we've kind of sold it. It seems to just faded a little bit into the background. And before the headlines hit around

LIN SANDS (13:46.269)
the most recent grooming gang, the group that were convicted in the northwest of the country. We as an organization, we're already hearing those kind of rumblings about why we're not talking about it, why is it not being talked about at the moment. So we've got a conference coming up in the early autumn, which will be focusing on sexual exploitation and asking the question, you know, where is it, what are we doing in response to it? Because it's

It's never gone away. It's there. So again, it's about I think there's a lot of links to what is seen to be most pressing at that moment. Where are we going to focus the resources? And that's understandable from all elements, from all statutory and non statutory positions that that's going to happen. But the sexual exploitation angle is something that that is definitely coming to the fore again.

We're seeing the change in legislation, but we're also seeing changes in the curiosity, the questions. Again, that kind of links in with what you're asking in terms of change in as much that what we are really starting to recognise and we know our partners are really recognising is that when we see a child or a young adult who's being exploited in one particular way, we shouldn't ignore the fact that the likelihood is that there are

other forms of exploitation going on as well, but they're not either able to talk about it or the curiosity isn't there, so they're not given an opportunity maybe to talk about it. And they've been, in my own experience, lots of examples of where practitioners have come to talk to us about tricky cases and asking us as a critical friend where they might go with it.

Where we've asked that question, have you considered there may be other forms of exploitation happening? And it is about encouraging that curiosity. Don't just assume that when it's one type of exploitation that we suspect that that's the only type. So we are certainly hearing of multiple forms of exploitation occurring as a means of control, as a means of instilling that fear and manipulation.

Steve Macabee (16:07.086)
Hmm. It's interesting you say that actually. and locally within Somerset as a business unit, did have a bit of a review of an old, uh, case, serious case review in the old format, um, which focused around child sex exploitation. And I think it was really interesting being part of that because one of the quite strong feeling that came out from sort of some feedback groups we did around that was that there's potentially a risk where over time, I think we start lumping everything in as, as exploitation as one thing.

And I think there was quite a concern in the room because I know obviously, you know, initially we started talking about child sexual exploitation, going back to Rotherham, Rochdale, all those, those reviews. And then it was more recently, so not that long ago, more recently, we started to become aware of county lines and, and, you know, grooming gangs and, criminal exploitation a lot more. And I think one feeling that came out is that over time we've, we've sort of lumped them together as either CE or just under the banner of exploitation.

And there's a risk within that, that quite often when we think about CE, quite often what we think about is criminal exploitation. And I think possibly, you know, we do need to recognize that if there's criminal exploitation taking place, quite often there can be sexual exploitation as well. But within that, we run a risk of losing the focus on sexual exploitation and the understanding that child sexual exploitation can take place completely independently of criminal exploitation.

LIN SANDS (17:22.833)
Yes.

LIN SANDS (17:28.017)
Yes.

LIN SANDS (17:32.284)
Mmm. Yes.

Steve Macabee (17:35.062)
I think somebody from the police actually vocalized it quite well. And they said, look, you know, the way that I am responding to a victim of child criminal exploitation, whether it's been sexual exploitation as well, they may have been, you know, perpetrator as well as a victim. That's actually probably a very different conversation that I'm going to have to somebody who is a victim of rape. And I thought that's a really important point to make, isn't it? That we can lose sight of things and it's always a risk. And we know as a safeguarding.

LIN SANDS (17:55.473)
Yes.

Steve Macabee (18:03.886)
trend nationally over time, there's a risk we shift our focus from one thing to the next. I know, you know, initially when child sexual exploitation first started really being talked about nationally following the forum back in 2013, there's a huge shift to focusing on child sexual exploitation. And then over time, we suddenly saw this rise in case reviews where there was unfamiliar sexual abuse and

LIN SANDS (18:10.352)
Yeah.

LIN SANDS (18:30.288)
Yes.

Steve Macabee (18:30.626)
So we shift our focus from one to the next, but it's so important to keep that broad perspective, isn't it, of all forms of abuse and not take our eye off the ball in terms of one or the other.

LIN SANDS (18:36.676)
Yeah, not at all. I think that's why for, you know, supervision training is so important. And yet I know, and I'm sure you know, Steve, that those are the two things that are the first to go when everyone when the workforce is under pressure, supervision gets canceled or it becomes case allocation, more than checking in on, you know, knowledge, confidence, skills and things like that.

training, I've been a trainer for years and the numbers start to go down, they start to decline and it's like the practitioners need that. Anyone that's in this line of work must be kept up to date and must have opportunities for that training to keep their knowledge fresh up to date. Because the thing is, you know I know as practitioners that we get into a way of doing something

And it's only when we go to training that we kind of stop and have a chance to reflect on that and think, actually, maybe I could try it a different way. so one of the things that we also offer as an organization is an opportunity to review and to reflect on cases. offer surgeries on a Tuesday morning and it might be a case that those practitioners have been working on for some time, but they feel like they're going round and round in a circle. And just another

Steve Macabee (19:38.094)
Absolutely.

LIN SANDS (20:03.182)
a fresh sort of pair of eyes or set of eyes in our case, to have a look at it. And it's you can see them almost thinking, well, why didn't I see that? Why didn't I think about that? But it's it's it's easy to assume that you not assume it. I think it's when you're within a particular when you're working with a particular case and you're so entrenched in it that it's like the old adage, isn't it? You can't see the wood for the trees. And just having that

that independent viewpoint can really help you to just step back a little bit. And again, that's the training that we offer as well. It's not trying to teach people to suck eggs. It's about saying, just keep your knowledge and your ideas and your views open and fresh so that you feel more confident, more competent in your role, but more confident to challenge. And well, I like to use the word educate rather than challenge.

to educate each other because we all, no matter how long we've been doing our work, there is always room for learning, room for improvement. And for me, every single day is a school day. I learn something new every single day. And I think that that perspective is really important for us all, really.

Steve Macabee (21:20.546)
Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. And it's completely my ethos as well. And, and I think you're right. You know, I always think in terms of training, yes, there's value in, in information that you've been given, but for me personally, I think the bit I always really benefit, like you say, is just that, that space to pick yourself up, put you in a completely, you know, sort of different environment and just allow yourself or be allowed that, that, that space to reflect on what's being talked about. I think every time I've been to any sort of training event.

LIN SANDS (21:45.926)
Yes.

Steve Macabee (21:50.422)
I have a moment where I suddenly sit there and think, hang on, actually. Yeah. And you can then make those connections in terms of the work that you do on a daily basis. like I say, when you're entrenched in it day to day and you're dealing with crisis and you're dealing with emotions and people and situations, it's so hard to sometimes just to step out from that for a minute and, and, you know, have that ability just to reflect, which is, which is so key, isn't it?

LIN SANDS (22:10.192)
Absolutely.

LIN SANDS (22:14.396)
And just to see things from a slightly different perspective as well, because when you think about the term modern slavery, exploitation, you as a practitioner might assume that everybody knows what you're talking about, that you're all actually coming from the same perspective, the same level of knowledge. But I've been in situations many times where I've been talking using language that might be considered to be quite victim blaming or offender minimizing.

I've been sitting in a strategy meeting where I've heard partners say, he's been missing, but he's always at his girlfriend's house. And then the conversation will go on. So, but his girlfriend's tenancy and it's like, well, hang on a minute. This is a 15 year old boy. How old is the girlfriend? So I've asked the question, how old, know, my previous role as an advocate, how old is this girlfriend? And then they're kind of, she's 35. And it's like.

Steve Macabee (23:09.516)
Hang on. Hang on.

LIN SANDS (23:10.84)
is that tumbleweed moment. And this is not about me blaming those practitioners or criticizing them. It is just that one moment to say, hang on, what are you talking about here? Let's just rewind a bit and think about this. So yeah, that kind of, if you like, critical friend that we offer within our organization, it's not that we have a magic wand.

It's just the fact that we're not entrenched. We're able to just have that outside perspective that can be so helpful to partners.

Steve Macabee (23:45.802)
I remember you making me think about a conversation I had with somebody a while back and it was about a boy, I think he was 13 off the top of my head and he was missing and we were massively concerned about the fact that he was missing. And I remember having a conversation with somebody and somebody said, oh, he'll be fine. He's really streetwise. He always goes missing. So he'll be okay. And I was just like...

Hold on, let's just stop and just think about what exactly what you've just said here for a minute that actually he's more safe because he's always missing and we don't know where he is. Is that what we're saying here? But like you say, you get into those ways of thinking, don't you? And it's hard to step out from that sometimes.

LIN SANDS (24:18.715)
Yeah.

LIN SANDS (24:29.37)
Yeah. And it's hard sometimes for statutory and non statutory partners. doesn't matter who you are. It's hard sometimes to have that moment of, hang on a minute, what were we saying here? It is really difficult and I really understand that. So the more that we can empower any of the partners to feel able to actually ask those questions, you know, that is part of our goal, if you like, is

If we're going to tackle exploitation, we can't just do it from one perspective. It has to come from all points to enable and empower people to be able to ask those questions and to help us take stock, step back, just have a think about it for a moment. And language, we're seeing a huge amount of work going on at the moment around language. And from my perspective, I see it within

police forces, again, because of the links that I've got, we've done some work with the inspectorate, His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, and we do some pre-inspection events and we've done some post-inspection events. And a number of inspections, particularly around child protection inspections, have really highlighted the use of language in it being victim blaming, offender minimising.

not only what that does in terms of the impact on the individual who's trying to report or who has reported exploitation and abuse, but also about the impact it has on the response as well. And I did some really, really helpful and interesting work with a detective chief inspector, Matt Hock, from the Metropolitan Police, and they had an inspection and a re-inspection of their child protection processes and

as I'm sure you're aware, highly criticised, particularly around language. So they've set up a working group, which I'm a part of, to look at how they can really make the understanding of language, not make the understanding of language, how they can inform and empower their staff to really recognise what impact their language has on both the survivor, the victim and also the response.

LIN SANDS (26:55.908)
And it was interesting, he shared a live case study of a 15 year old who was regularly going missing from residential establishments. And it was almost that rubber stamp. again, I'm sure you've heard this, know, regular misper, regular misper, regular, you might as well just have a rubber. Yeah, putting themselves at risk. Suspects CCCC, but she doesn't come to any harm. And it's like, there's a conscience.

Steve Macabee (27:13.272)
putting themselves at risk.

Steve Macabee (27:23.138)
Okay. Yeah.

LIN SANDS (27:24.412)
So he shared this particular case example which they looked at it, they went back, they spoke to the officers that were involved, they spoke to the staff at the most recent residential establishment and they discovered that the staff had registration numbers of vehicles that were coming to pick her up from the place before she go missing, she'd returned with injuries, she had made various reports of different things but the police at the time had said they couldn't.

take they couldn't take that further because she wasn't reporting. mean, there were lots of issues. So they rewrote they gave some advice and they did some training. And as a result, the very next time that she went missing, the report was very different. You know, this is a 15 year old child, high risk of being sexually abused rather than CSC, CCE actually using the words, you know, that are so powerful. And

on that occasion when she was missing, they actually found her at the second address that the police had been given and they arrested three men that were there. She was intoxicated, she was safeguarded. I think I may have shared this at the forum. And as I said, this is not a criticism of the police or any of the partners, but it really highlighted for me how just use of language, not only the impact it has on the individual themselves,

but the impact it has on the response. And we've been, as an organisation, we've been doing a lot of work around multi-agency exploitation meetings of all areas, call them different, MACE, whatever, different areas. The key things they really highlighted was the use of language and the response then from that use of language and the lack of conversations around disruption. And why were they not having those conversations?

again lack of knowledge, confidence, not wanting to upset the apple cart, all of those things. And when you look at just those two aspects of language and response they are so intrinsically linked and yet they may not be seen as so important but they are hugely important.

Steve Macabee (29:34.798)
Absolutely crucial, absolutely crucial. And it's something I talk about quite often actually on these podcasts, the importance of language. you know, it is, I think it is improving constantly, but I still think there's a long way to go. You know, there are some things that I say, which horrify people. I say intentionally, but actually it wasn't that long ago. We'd be talking about things like, you know, this young person is highly promiscuous, often intoxicated, putting themselves at risk.

LIN SANDS (29:46.097)
Yeah.

LIN SANDS (30:01.02)
Yes.

Steve Macabee (30:04.43)
you know, potentially taking part in child prostitution, all those kind of horrible, horrible phrases. It wasn't that long ago we were talking about it and people can look at that and say, well, we don't say that now. Hopefully we don't, but actually don't like you say it becomes more nuanced, more subtle sometimes when we, when we talk about these things and, and people can say, but they are putting themselves at risk. It's like,

LIN SANDS (30:27.089)
Mm.

Steve Macabee (30:28.43)
Okay, there are, there are, you know, there are risky, they're very vulnerable. are putting themselves in situations, well, they're sorry, they are in situations where they are very vulnerable to being abused. And like I say, actually it's so important because even those small nuances, like I say, can affect the response that we give very, very differently. And, and, and in terms of who we put the responsibility onto, you know, if we're saying that somebody is, is frequently intoxicated and promiscuous, actually we're very strongly putting the responsibility onto a child.

LIN SANDS (30:57.564)
Absolutely, and even things like not engaging. Again, I had an example I regularly share, a lad who was, he had a gun held to his head every single day that he was exploited by a gang. And he was shown video footage and photographs of his mum going to work. She was a nurse, his dad getting in the car, his brother going to school. And he was threatened and told, we're watching you.

If you speak to a social worker, if you speak to anyone, we'll know. And we're going to... I think he was threatened with his mother being abducted and raped. And so a 16-year-old to be threatened with... Even an over 18-year-old being threatened with something like that, they're not going to freely sit down and have a chat with a social worker or a police officer. And those are the two key professionals that generally will be the ones that will be trying to...

and try to support that person going through that, but they may not be the best people. And in fact, in that particular case, it was the family GP that he opened up to and he spoke to because he could go to the surgery legitimately, didn't feel that, you know, and he was unwell. So he was legitimately going to the surgery for treatment. And whilst he was there, he spoke to the doctor. And again, it just reminds us of, know, it's just so important that all partners recognize

recognise their role that they have in supporting, in interrupting, disrupting exploitation. They could be the playground supervisor at school. They could be the A &E nurse, the family GP. It doesn't have to be a police officer or social worker. It could be anyone. And certainly that is the perspective that I've very much taken with our updated digital

toolkit that's been around since about 2019, but we are updating and changing it to make it more user friendly, more straightforward. So if you're the A &E nurse, if you're the playground supervisor, you don't have to be an expert in exploitation, but there is a place that you can go to to get some knowledge in a way that will be straightforward to understand. And that's what I wanted the toolkit to be. I didn't want it to be focused on just the statutory agencies. I wanted it to be user friendly.

LIN SANDS (33:21.934)
and understandable, using understandable language. So it's so important because they're the people that kids will often talk to, not necessarily the social worker or the police officer.

Steve Macabee (33:34.094)
I know you've been really, really busy since our foreign week and beforehand on the digital toolkit. So you you've been doing a lot of work to update. You want to elaborate on that a little bit, sort of what is in and how people can access it.

LIN SANDS (33:37.724)
LIN SANDS (33:41.244)
Yeah.

LIN SANDS (33:46.429)
Sure. So in 2019, NWG with Barnardo's developed a disrupt disrupting exploitation toolkit, but you could only access it if you were a member of the NWG. And it was very much a kind of list, if you like, of legislation and research and things that you could access to help you understand how you might interrupt or disrupt exploitation.

And when I joined the organization, I'd used it previously in my previous role and I wanted it to come to life. I wanted it to be much more user friendly, less statutory agency kind of focused so that anyone could access it. So we've been working really hard to make it into a digital format. So it's in the first phase. So we're using a lot of the legislation, the information from the first toolkit because

Again, we're not reinventing the wheel here, but what we want to do is convert it into a more user friendly format. we are going to we have launched it already. It was launched on Monday and you can access it through the resource page of the NWG website. Although you don't have to be a member, you will need to at least register your email address to become a non-member, if you like, because that will help us with the analytics to see who's using it, how often.

and where we might need to, you know, sort of focus on a particular area. We are going to have a virtual launch on 15th of July, which will be through Teams. You can get tickets on Eventbrite, they're free, but you will need to register to get access to get the code to get in. It's an hour and half from 10 o'clock on the 15th.

It will be an opportunity to invite people that have already had a little bit of a go to give us some feedback, the things that are working really well. And we will then be using that to go into the second phase. within the second phase, we will be sharing a template that people can take away if they've got an example of disruption that they want to go into that. We're going to be collating case examples for a library, if you like.

LIN SANDS (36:04.944)
but you will also be able to access those case studies on individual pages. So as an example, one of my amazing colleagues who works in the Community Safety Partnership in Blackpool, he did a fantastic, he used the community protection warning and notice process really in such an innovative creative way.

So he's done a little video that's embedded into that page so you can read the legislation. You can have a look at his video. There's a template that he's linked onto that as well, a kind of example letter that you might issue. He is the font of all knowledge when it comes to any antisocial behaviour orders. He's amazing. So in each piece, the civil orders around modern slavery, we've got DC James Rudge, who works for the County Lines Coordination Centre.

There's a little clip of him talking about what they are. So what we are going to be doing in the second phase is do more of that. So collecting more examples, the more creative, the more innovative, the better. We don't want to be just about law. We want them to bring in any local initiatives and ideas that have been really helpful to combat exploitation, whether that be around a particular place or space where we know that children and young people are being targeted.

It might be as in West Cornwall, for example, they did a huge campaign where they educated bus drivers, taxi drivers, they put up posters everywhere, you know. So if there's anything going on that you think that would be great to put on to the to the resource to share, we'd love to hear about it. So that will form part of phase two where we start to really start to build it up. And the toolkit is for you, for all of you that are listening.

It's your toolkit, it's your resource. So the only way we can make it even more your resource is for you to provide that knowledge, that experience so that it can grow and it will be regularly updated. It won't be just something that we put out there that will sit there stagnant. It will be constantly updated and reviewed and changes of case examples so that it keeps it fresh, keeps it relevant and informative.

LIN SANDS (38:29.04)
So the 15th of July, I can send you the link, Steve, for people to book on to come to that. So, it's been a busy time.

Steve Macabee (38:37.55)
Yeah, no, absolutely. I'll pop the link for that into the chat. And if anybody's listening to this after the date of that, then don't worry. I will also put in a link to the NWG workshop and sorry, website and events that you've got taking place. So, and I know there's always loads of things that you're involved in, loads of things you've got going on. So yeah, it's always a really good opportunity. Check it out on the website if you're listening after the, after the 15th of July and see all the other stuff that's going on. Cause there will be plenty of it as well.

LIN SANDS (38:53.978)
Yes.

LIN SANDS (39:05.2)
Yeah. And if anyone struggles to access the resource, happy for people to contact me, Steve. And I'm happy to do a, you know, team's call and kind of help navigate through it. But it is, it's, it's easy for me to use. And for me to say that then it should be pretty strong. I am not tech minded at all. That was, that was one of my ambitions. Absolutely. Yeah.

Steve Macabee (39:22.892)
Is that something?

Steve Macabee (39:29.986)
Is that the yardstick? If Lyn can use it, anyone can use it.

LIN SANDS (39:35.482)
If I can't do it, I have to ask an eight year old, you know, so...

Steve Macabee (39:37.847)
Yeah, absolutely. know everything. dear. I'm just thinking actually, just sort of picking up on some of other things you've talked about. It's interesting when you talked earlier about the sort of demographic of boys around sort of online sexploitation. And it was interesting actually the example you used earlier where you talked about an example where you were doing that supervision and somebody saying,

He's staying with his girlfriend and the tenancy and sometimes actually if those things are seen the other way around, as in, there's a girl and they're talking about the concerns there and talk about a boyfriend. Quite often there's that immediate like, hang on, who's he? How old is he? What's going on? I think, do you often, I guess a bit of myth busting really in terms of what you see, because sometimes people do have sort of really rigid views around particular exploitation. what sort of some of the common.

LIN SANDS (40:07.824)
Yeah.

Steve Macabee (40:34.794)
misconceptions that you see around exploitation in terms of, know, who's exploited, what their age range or gender or anything like that. What, are some of some of the sort of really common stuff that you see?

LIN SANDS (40:43.654)
Yeah.

think the most common, as you've already mentioned, that it's mostly females that are being sexually exploited, that's the kind common stereotype. We know that generally girls are more likely to be sexually exploited than boys, but that doesn't mean that boys aren't. We still need to think about that. So that's still very much a common stereotype. Again, as you've just mentioned, the language that we use when it's a male that's being exploited or abused by a female.

you only have to look at headlines. There was one about this time last year with a female teacher who'd actually abused two male pupils. And I know it's not necessarily exploitation, but again, it's that stereotype. And I can't remember the organization now, but they picked up straight away. As soon as I saw the headline, I picked up on it. But this individual who was like a campaigner around misuse of language was straight in and said,

I thought I'd help you out BBC with your misspelling of abuse as they put something like a fair, you know, as pet abuse. So.

Steve Macabee (41:46.702)
Mm.

Steve Macabee (41:50.867)
Yeah, it's so true. I see that all the time. in fact, I saw it fairly recently, like I say, it might be in the same case, but also prior to that. And it is always fascinating, like I say, particularly sometimes around teachers and it's like I say, it's extremely different reporting. If it's a male teacher and a younger female pupil, it is very much focused around abuse.

LIN SANDS (41:54.608)
Yeah.

LIN SANDS (42:06.545)
Mm.

LIN SANDS (42:11.707)
Yes.

Steve Macabee (42:17.856)
and abusive position and sexual abuse. And like you say, actually, when it's the other way around, I've seen so many things of, you know, she was in a relationship with him for four years or, you know, her younger boyfriend. That's always, always the language you see at the moment, which is really concerning.

LIN SANDS (42:29.851)
Yes.

Yeah, well I think there is something about gender but I think there is also something as you say about professions and the connection that they have and you we know that grooming is a connection, it's a relationship, whichever way you look at it, it is a relationship, doesn't mean it's a consensual relationship, often it's a relationship of manipulation, it's a crime of relationship which is a term that

a psychologist called Patrick Tidmush does a lot of work around the psychology of the grooming and how that manipulation occurs. And I absolutely agree, it's a relationship of crime, it's a relationship of manipulation. So when we talk about why children and young people might be then coerced into exploiting and abusing other children, again, one of the stereotypes is that, you know, it's choice.

it's a lifestyle choice, they're benefiting from it, particularly if you know that that child or that young adult has got, it's getting a lot of money or that they're getting expensive clothing, whatever, whatever. We know that individuals who exploit will use whatever means they can to manipulate, to coerce. We see it in so many aspects of abuse, don't we? Domestic abuse, radicalization, intrafamilial abuse. And sometimes it...

that that knowledge that we've taken from all of that learning around domestic abuse, for example, is not transferred. So I still hear comments around lifestyle choice, career criminal, you know, and so that that still remains, which is quite worrying as well is about reminding. And again, I've sat in meetings where I've literally had to shout almost at the top of my voice. This is a child we're talking about. And I think

LIN SANDS (44:27.1)
The most common age range as well where it's forgotten that they're children is that later adolescent period, you know, from say 15 to 18. The law is really clear. You are a child in law until you're 18. And I know as practitioners, we might not use that term if we're speaking to a child. We wouldn't refer to them because they might feel that that's insulting and it might not help build.

a relationship, an appropriate relationship. But we just need to remind each other from time to time as professionals that until they reach the age of 18, in law, they are a child, they cannot consent to being exploited. Regardless of what the benefits are, regardless of what the appearance is, they cannot consent. And the new legislation coming through the Crime and Policing Bill is very much reflects that and emphasises that.

And even once they turn 18, we know from research from psychologists that the brain doesn't mature into an adult brain, at least until the age of 25. And that's a young person who hasn't had any adverse childhood experiences, trauma, et cetera, et cetera. We're working with children who have been through often trauma before they've even been exploited. And then they've got all of that to deal with. And I remember going to

a conference earlier this year. In fact, was Child Exploitation Awareness Day and a speaker, I was in London and this speaker came and he said, look, I was exploited as a child. And he showed a photograph of himself when he was a nine year old and he had this beautiful, sweet, lovely, innocent face. And he said, what do you see? And we saw a child and smiling at the camera. But he put his hand across the picture and said, look at

Look, obviously we knew it was him. He said, look at my eyes. And when you focused on his eyes, such sadness. he said, he said, what you don't realize, he said, when I was exploited, I was in hell. But what you don't realize is I'd already been to hell and this was another form of hell. And he said, I didn't have a role model. The person who groomed me, exploited me, became my role model.

LIN SANDS (46:52.354)
And that really was just so powerful for us to remember that, you know, that when even when a child turns 18, if they've been through that trauma, if they've had adverse trauma prior to exploitation, their ability to really see what's happening in the reality, if you like, that we see it, their reality is going to be very different. And we need to acknowledge that and understand that. And that's not always easy.

when you've got a six foot three, 16 year old, very easy to think of them as an adult when they're using adult language and acting in a very adult way, they're still children and that can be very tricky.

Steve Macabee (47:33.583)
No, and I think the other really important point you raised there, and I often see it with practitioners I work with, talk about choice and consent as we did just then. And I don't know how you feel about this. There is that sort of phrase of around exploitation of it being kind of an exchange of some form or another, kind of warped exchange, if you like, of, well, know, the child is always receiving something.

Whether that's financial or whether it's emotional or whatever, sense of belonging, sense of family, whatever it is. And I think that adds an extra layer of complexity for practitioners sometimes to see through that. And again, still see them as children and still see it as abuse, even though people say, well, yeah, but they're making money out of it and making good money out of it. And they're recruiting other young people and they're doing this at the other. it's like, they are, but that is still abuse.

LIN SANDS (48:07.259)
Yes.

LIN SANDS (48:16.368)
Yes.

LIN SANDS (48:31.868)
course it is.

Steve Macabee (48:31.886)
Do you see that? How do you work with that in terms of those agencies you work with?

LIN SANDS (48:37.692)
Well, extremely challenging element of that kind of having that mindset because I've been sitting in meetings where I've literally had to be almost raising my voice to be heard, where it's just not sinking in, it's just not being heard. And the voice of the child is so important and it often gets lost amongst all of the complexity and

legislation and who's going to do what and why haven't they done it and blaming not just of not in terms of victim blaming for the child but also around you know well that agency should have done that that person should have done that we all have a responsibility we all have a responsibility to to to call each other out but in a way that's going to be helpful and it's going to be very much focused on the child and the family

you know, there is no place for ego or one-upmanship in this type of world. It is very much about reminding ourselves, and that might mean each other from time to time, that, you know, what we might be being presented with can be challenging when you're saying, you know, like I've said, a six foot three, 16 year old, and you're talking about them as a child, but it is about that reminding and...

Steve Macabee (49:57.006)
Hmm.

LIN SANDS (50:02.582)
whatever our response is going to be, it must be age appropriate, it must be appropriate to that child. But what does that child need? What does that family need? And sometimes we've reached a point where actually their need was about five years ago. And we're at the position we're now because perhaps we didn't acknowledge it, we didn't see it, we didn't respond to it. I know that one of our members, he was telling me about an 11 year old in his local area, he said he was

one of the most prolific criminals in that area at the age of 11. And the question I asked was, well, where were we before he got to the age of 11? Because clearly that's been going on for a very long time. And when you see in the news where a murder has taken place, a child has murdered a child, and you think, oh my gosh, know, what happened? There must have been signs, there must have been indicators.

of exploitation, why didn't we see them, why didn't we respond? And again, just to kind of link back to the disruption and the interruption element of the work that I'm doing, is it's about dispelling myths, stereotypes in the way that you've just, we've just talked about, but also we don't need evidence to be at a criminal standard in order to intervene. And one of the things that James Rudge talks about

in the slavery trafficking risk order section of the toolkit is about risky acts and keeping a kind of log of those risky acts. Now that doesn't mean that we can prove to a criminal standard that that that a person has exploited whoever, but it puts us in a position where we can do something. We can do something that is going to really interrupt and separate

the individuals from each other because there are serious consequences. for instance, with the Modern Slavery Act, whilst those orders, the risk order is a civil order, the consequences of breaching, we're talking five years imprisonment. We are talking serious consequences and the courts are becoming much more aware of these particular orders. You we've had them sexual risk orders for harassment, stalking, you know,

LIN SANDS (52:30.492)
These orders are not new, but bringing them into the conversation, particularly around modern slavery. When you think it's 10 years since we've had modern slavery act and we're only really just starting to feel confident about using them. The prohibitions that I've seen that have been used have been phenomenal. And I've had practitioners come to me and say, well, please say we can't do anything because there's not enough evidence. And they're giving me a list of risky acts.

So I say, right, OK, this is a person you can speak to. This is what you can do. And as soon as you give them that knowledge, they're away. And then they inform others and they share that with others. And we start to see that momentum. So I think one of the things I'd like, a really big message I'd really like to impart is don't wait until we've reached a criminal threshold. We don't need to wait till we get to that point. As soon as we start to have

a note of and we become conscious of those activities that would indicate that there's exploitation going on and that can be from the family, it can be from the school, it can be from a support worker, it could be from anyone at all. It doesn't have to just be evidence that the police gather. We can start to respond in a way that can interrupt and disrupt because what we don't want is waiting until it's too late and that 16 year old, 17 year old is sitting.

in a youth detention centre. Where did we go wrong? What did we not do before that? And that interruption is so important. It's critical.

Steve Macabee (54:07.766)
I can't think of a better way to kind of conclude things from that message really of that real takeaway. And I think it's a very important point you make and actually one that's been echoed in other aspects. We had the National Child Safeguarded Practice Review Panel, recent report around child sexual abuse, inter-familial sexual abuse. And actually one of their key points from that is like you say, that misunderstanding sometimes around the threshold for legal intervention as in beyond reasonable doubt.

as opposed to the threshold for safeguarding response, which is that balance of probabilities and how often, you know, it may not be meeting that threshold or may not have the evidence, which we know particularly around child exploitation, it's difficult to get that evidence often. But just because the police are saying, we can't do anything, we haven't got the evidence for it, or the CPS are saying, this wouldn't go through court, we don't have enough for that even, doesn't mean we don't do anything.

LIN SANDS (54:42.492)
Absolutely.

Steve Macabee (55:05.934)
and actually that opportunity to safeguard children effectively to prevent it from getting to that stage where actually it does meet that threshold for criminal involvement and prosecution, which is very, very high. Actually, I think you're right quite often by that point. I wouldn't say it's too late. I don't think it's ever too late, but I think we've...

LIN SANDS (55:11.665)
Yes.

LIN SANDS (55:24.858)
No, I'd like to say that I'm never, never too late, but I'm saying from a position of where we feel that to be able to have that, build that relationship may have gone that step too far and it may be very difficult to bring them back. It doesn't mean that we lose them and we should ignore them and not care about them, but it may be that we just didn't do enough early enough really.

Steve Macabee (55:50.383)
And we've lost that opportunity to prevent harm from taking place, guess. Well, Lynn, thank you so much for coming in today and sharing your expertise with us, which is so valuable and the work that the NWG do as a whole. We talked about the digital tool kit that you've just released. Is there anything else the NWG are working on that you want to make people aware of?

LIN SANDS (55:53.264)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

LIN SANDS (56:13.722)
Well, certainly the work that we're doing to empower and support chairs of the multi-agency meetings, we're very much focusing on that this year. And certainly Steve and a number of other colleagues within the organisation are providing shadowing opportunities, we're reviewing, offering those elements of opportunity really to think about and reflect on practice. And we're just going to keep following with

certainly looking at trends, finding where the gaps are that practitioners are saying that they need those gaps to be filled and wherever we are able to find those, we'll be continuing to offer support in the best way that we possibly can. But at the moment, as I said, the kind of key things that are going on are around adolescents post 18, how we can support them effectively, how we can support

chairs and those practitioners who are participating in those multi-agency meetings to make them more fruitful and more useful, rather than just being a duplication of other meetings, giving them purpose and really finding ways to use them in a really purposeful way. So that's a key part of the work that we're doing at the moment alongside updating resources.

Steve Macabee (57:35.054)
Fantastic. Well, I will put links to all of that into the description for this episode. And like Lyn says, do check out the website, do check out the webinar if you're in time for this going out and do get in touch if you need some advice and support at any point in time, because the NWG are absolutely brilliant at that. So Lyn, thank you so much for your time. It's been amazing speaking to you as always. And yeah, if there's anything else that comes along in the future, please...

LIN SANDS (57:38.822)
Thank you.

LIN SANDS (57:54.3)
Thank you.

LIN SANDS (57:58.94)
Thank you so much.

Steve Macabee (58:02.306)
get in touch and we'll let everybody know about it as well. Brilliant, lovely. Thanks, Lynn. Take care. See you later. Bye bye.

LIN SANDS (58:05.454)
Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks. Bye.