Transcript Slide 1

Croydon Eclipse
Invest to Save Evaluation : 200710
Research evidence on Croydon Eclipse’s
effectiveness in meeting the Home Office Invest
to Save outcomes
Dr Caroline Paskell & Deborah Meyer
Barnardo’s Policy and Research Unit
Today’s presentation
•The Policy and Research Unit and work on
CSE
•Outline and operation of Eclipse
•The impacts
•Successes
•Challenges
•Priorities for multi-agency work on CSE
Barnardo’s Policy and Research
Unit (PRU)
Research
•Learning from the experiences of Barnardo’s
services.
•Providing evidence of what works for and what
matters to, children and young people
Influencing
Working to influence and inform Government policy.
PRU’s work on Child Sexual
Exploitation (CSE)
Barnardo’s has been addressing CSE since 1994 when:
•First CSE project began in Yorkshire - now 22 CSE services in 4
Nations
•First report: CSE in the context of children's rights and child
protection
•The Four A’s – Access, Attention, Assertive Outreach, Advocacy
Research and evaluation: 1994-2010 (11 major publications)
•Highlighting risks to males and females, on the internet, in specific
areas
•Evaluating CSE services, and efforts to raise awareness of CSE
•Creation of education/training pack raising awareness of CSE and
guidance on protection
Policy: Influenced government recognition of young people as
victims of abuse not criminals; informed both statutory guidance
Child Sexual Exploitation
Sexual activity involving under-18s which entails some form of
exchange – e.g. money, shelter, possessions, food – for sex but the
relationship in which the exchange occurs is unequal (typically by
virtue of age, but increasingly between peers by virtue of status)
and the sexual activity is fundamentally abusive.
Barnardo's defines CSE as:
“any involvement of a child or young person below 18 in
sexual activity for which a remuneration of cash or ‘in kind’ is given
to the child or young person, or a third party or person. The
perpetrator will have power over the young person by virtue of one
or more of the following: age, emotional maturity, gender, physical
strength and intellect”
(Palmer, 2001 - No Son of Mine. Children abused through
prostitution)
Operation of Eclipse
Eclipse began in 2007 as a three-year partnership between Barnardo’s, Croydon
Children’s Services and the Metropolitan Police. It supports young people within
Croydon who are at risk of, or are already being sexually exploited. It is staffed
by Barnardo’s workers and police officers, co-located in Croydon’s Family
Justice Centre.
Key principles of gov. guidance
•Integrated: tackling prevention,
protection and prosecution.
•Proactive: focusing on prevention,
early identification and intervention,
disrupting and prosecuting
perpetrators
•Shared responsibility: the need
for effective inter-agency working,
based on strong commitment from
managers and effective coordination by LSCB.
•Awareness
Advice and
consultancy
•Individual work
Group
work
•Police investigation, disruption,
helping young people to make formal
statements
•delivering awareness-raising sessions
in schools and to professionals working
with young people including new police
officers.
•Multi-agency protocol meetings
Barnardo’s Eclipse
Evaluation
Eclipse has worked with 125 young people at risk of CSE or known to be
exploited
June 2009-May 2010, Eclipse supported 39 young people directly and 48
indirectly
Evaluation of Eclipse was a condition of the Home Office and Metropolitan
Police
‘Invest to Save’ budget funding (ISB) and focused on four core objectives:
1.
To make Croydon a safer place by reducing child sexual exploitation
2.
To improve health outcomes and life-chances of children at risk
3.
To reduce public expenditure on out of borough placements and
criminal justice processes
4.
To improve knowledge and skills of community groups working with
children at risk.
The evaluation has involved 47 interviewees over the three years:
13 Eclipse team members, 21 stakeholders, 7 parents and 6 young
people
Outcomes monitoring framework
Risk Type
Start Outcomes
End Outcomes
Improvement
No Change
Increased
Risk
01- MISSING
3.00
1.00
1
0
0
02- ETE
1.00
1.00
0
1
0
03- DRUG_USE
1.00
1.00
0
1
0
04- RELATIONSHIP
4.00
2.00
1
0
0
05- ACCOMMODATION
2.00
2.00
0
1
0
06- ALCOHOL_USE
1.00
2.00
0
0
1
07- RISK_TO_OTHERS
3.00
1.00
1
0
0
08- RIGHTS_RISK
4.00
2.00
1
0
0
09- ENGAGEMENT
1.00
1.00
0
1
0
10- SE
5.00
3.00
1
0
0
11- SEXUAL_HEALTH
2.00
2.00
0
1
0
Sum: 5
Sum: 5
Sum: 1
Outcomes 1/2: Reducing CSE & improving
health
•Broad reductions in risks for most young people while with Eclipse.
•Risk of involvement in sexual exploitation declined for over half.
•Risk of going missing, especially significant for CSE, also showed
broad declines with over half of service users showing reductions
•Risks on other categories such as drug dependence, alcohol abuse
and engagement with education have showed mixed but modest
change
•Risks of disengagement from education or training showed an
overall trend of moderate improvement.
•Most service users showed modest improvement or no change on
risk of drug dependence or alcohol abuse
Outcomes 2: Improving sexual & emotional health
•Two-thirds of service users showed no change in sexual health
risks
•Sexual health assessments may be unreliable, as young people
may not disclose risks or may be unaware of risks
•Those who showed improvement were aware of their original
risk, as all began at medium to high risk
•Service users said they felt better informed about sexual health
and healthy sexual relationships
•Over half of the service users included in the OMF data showed
improvements in relationships with carer
•Eclipse provides a stabilising influence – encouraging small
steps towards independence from exploitative relationships.
Stabilising families
“My behaviour has got much better now and I don’t run away so
much and I speak to my mum more.” (Service user)
“Basically having someone to talk to has stopped me wanting to
run away, I run away only rarely now.” (Service user)
“Barnardo's support has been absolutely essential to us in the
last months; without it I think I would have cracked and my
daughter would have been taken into care. It was just knowing
that there is someone else there that gives a damn. I could
always ring [the B’s and police workers] and they would give me
support and ideas for how to cope with her being really violent,
for example. It is so important when I don’t have much other
support.” (Parent)
Outcome 3: Reducing public expenditure
Out of borough placements
•Unsure whether Eclipse can reduce out-of-borough placements
•Decisions about young people’s placements are Children’s
Services’ responsibility. Eclipse can put forward a strong case for or
against placing a young person out-of-borough.
Young people’s involvement in criminal justice processes
•Members of the Eclipse team have worked closely with police ‘on
the beat’ to support young offenders who are also Eclipse service
users
•Eclipse’s relationship with the YOT has continued to strengthen.
•Tackling involvement in sexual exploitation has the potential to
reduce involvement in crime.
Outcome 4: knowledge and skills of
community groups working with children
•Awareness-raising and training sessions for multi-agency
practitioners and young people.
•Barnardo’s and Police deliver training in schools and residential
homes.
•An assessment of the schools-based awareness-raising sessions in
Croydon showed that it achieved its aims
•Schools have been very positive about the training
“Working with Eclipse gave me a different view on how children can
go missing. It made me more aware about why children can go
missing. Even though I’m a Social Worker, Eclipse has taught me
better awareness and how to manage children that I engage with out
on the street in a different way.” (Stakeholder)
SUCCESSES
•Partnership and communication
•Engagement with young people
•Police investigation and
disruption
Partnership work and communication
“Communication. I can’t stress it enough. To be able to sit and talk
to somebody face to face about a case with no barriers, no protocol
worries like ‘can I talk to you about this?’ It is simple, straightforward
and clear. We all have the same goals and objectives. To be able to
talk to somebody face to face, despite the fact Barnardo’s and the
police are from two diametrically opposed worlds, we gel so well
and work so well together because we communicate.” (Eclipse)
“I chair many meetings other than the protocol meetings and I can
say that the protocol meetings are among the most well-attended.
We get Barnardo’s workers, health, education, not always the social
workers interestingly, but we do always get the leads from other key
agencies. I think that the partnership is very positive; it’s a good
reflection on working together, definitely better than most other
meetings.” (Stakeholder)
Engagement with young people
Three characteristics facilitate Eclipse’s engagement with young
people:
•Patience
taking time to build relationships with young
people
•Flexibility
meeting at home, school or other settings, at
varied
times and at short notice, to fit young
people’s needs
•Persistence
engaging in different ways, again and again, to
ensure
that young people know they are there
for them
“The workers go into detail explaining things to you if you don’t
understand; they will really talk about things. They are always
there to take phone-calls if you want to talk to them about
something, or if parents need to talk to them about
something. They’ll always talk to you about things” (service user)
“I have had quite a few problems in school. [Eclipse worker] has
Police work in support of young people
Key characteristics distinguish Eclipse’s form of police work:
•Support
offer informal and formal assistance to
service users
•Disruption
successes in disrupting relationships between
with
perpetrators using Section 2 abduction
notices
•Information
gather, assess and share (within limits)
information
on perpetrators, networks of
abuse and risky adults
“If it is appropriate then we interview the child to gain evidence to
prosecute the offender, and to help protect the child. That is the
theory but it is rare for young people to want to be interviewed
and give evidence against the offender. So most of our
intervention with children is to gain their trust and work on
protecting them. We also share information that helps protect
children, such as if we know something about where offenders
CHALLENGES
•Limitations of Croydon Social
Services
•Policing and Criminal Justice
Limitations of Croydon Social Services
•Levels of support from senior management were initially quite high,
but commitment declined with the absence of an overall lead for
CSE after the senior manager left in 2009
•Pressurised case loads may hamper social workers from attending
protocol meetings regularly and engaging in information-sharing
•Communication is impeded by high staff turnover
Policing and Criminal Justice
•Despite the commitment and encouragement of Barnardo’s and
Police, it has proven extremely difficult to obtain statements from
young people
•The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) often judges young people
who are the victims of sexual exploitation to be unreliable witnesses
•CSE prosecutions require young victims to report intimate details of
the crime to a court which is not always in the best interests of a
child
There haven’t been a huge number of criminal investigations
because children don’t always want to disclose. Those there have
been have had difficulties in getting prosecutions. Young people’s
statements are discredited because they tell lies about other things;
this has to be highlighted to the CPS which discredits them. It is
also difficult because young people may be groomed over a year,
but the CPS require that a single criminal offence is identified which
is difficult to evidence. It can come down to a child’s word against
Priorities for multi-agency work on CSE
Priority areas for any partnership-work which aims to support young
people at risk of, or already experiencing sexual exploitation:
•Multi-agency work (including protocol meetings)
•Prevention work (with professionals and young people)
•Police disruption and effective links with police in other boroughs
•One-to-one therapeutic intervention
•Co-located partnership
Priorities for multi-agency work on CSE
•Commitment from the Local Authority
•Links with the Crown Prosecution Service may increase the
likelihood of police impacting upon CSE prosecutions.
•Delivering awareness-raising work to the CPS may encourage
greater interest and understanding of CSE and lead to higher
prosecution rates.
•Pan-London approach to CSE - It was felt that if boroughs were
unable to provide a dedicated police team on CSE, there should be
a structure through which lead multi-agency professionals could
identify primary police contacts for CSE in each borough.
And…….
Croydon Eclipse should be seen as a model of excellence with it
being the only London-based partnership between the statutory
sector, voluntary sector and a dedicated MPS team.
“The benefits [of working with Eclipse] include the fact that they
can actually get out there and do the work, they’re more creative
than we are as a statutory agency because there are so many
guidelines we have to work to, but they are able to be more flexible
and get out and do the work. It is great for us if we have an
Eclipse worker working alongside us because they can really take
action on that side of things in a way we would find difficult”
(Stakeholder)
Thank you.
Dr Caroline Paskell
[email protected]
Deborah Meyer
[email protected]
Barnardo’s Policy and Research Unit