Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit, Greater Manchester Complex Safeguarding Hub, and programme Challenger co-hosted the Children’s Society Event 2023. The event focused on sharing best practice around exploitation and extra-familial harm at both local and national levels and providing interactive sessions for staff across disciplines.

The first half of the event explored big advances in terms of research-based practice as well as systemic issues and challenges. There were presentations from Donya Lamrhari and Lucy Belcher from the Children’s Society on language, Claire Alldis and Ellie Fairgrieve from the Children’s Society on contextual safeguarding, and Anna Racher from Research in Practice on the National Practice Principles for Tackling Child Exploitation.

The afternoon consisted of workshops that showcased best practices happening across Greater Manchester and encouraged everyone to think about ways in which they can do better in their own spaces.

Workshops followed the below themes:

• Community Engagement, delivered by the Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit
• Community Trauma, led by 84YOUTH
• Lived Experience, facilitated by Lads Like Us/Schools like Us
• Exploitation and Autism/Learning Disabilities, led by Greater Manchester Health and Justice Learning Disability & Autism Steering Group

Attendees were able to reflect and share the lessons they learnt. The collaboration offered an opportunity to learn from and with each other, and to leave the room as groups rather than individuals, working together towards protecting children and young people.

Nick Cook, Director of Youth Practice at The Children’s Society, said: “Creating places to reflect, learn and grow together is so important, and this conference provided the opportunity for practitioners, operational managers and strategic leaders to consider how the city evolves its contextual safeguarding approach and to identify what steps we need to take together to achieve this.”

The Children’s Society and partners are now communicating key learnings from the event via their multiagency networks, and thinking collaboratively about how to implement the Tackling Child Exploitation principles at a strategic level and on the ground, working with practitioners to create meaningful change.

Article posted on: 04/07/2023 09:07am