We are making progress in our fight against exploitation, but it is clear that responses and outcomes are often not the same for all children and young people. Racially and ethnically minoritised young people are more likely to face disadvantage because of our assumptions and biases, siloed working, exclusionary practice, and wider social inequalities which impact our ability to protect them from harm.
In this session we will explore what it means to take a proactive ‘anti-racist’ approach to tackling child exploitation and why this is essential to ensuring we can support and safeguard every young victim.
In this session for professionals, we will:
- Consider how our assumptions and biases can influence our efforts to identify, prevent, and disrupt the exploitation of children and young people and the impact of disproportionality and discrimination on protecting young people from these forms of harm
- Further consider how institutional racism compromises our efforts to prevent exploitation by impacting on young people and communities trust in services and their likelihood to seek help or report exploitation and abuse concerns
- Explore ‘adultification’ and the importance of recognising victimhood in older children and young adults
- Explore how we can improve practices to protect and respect young people, and take an intersectional and holistic approach to working with them, in order to ensure that all children and young people receive the support they need
- Demonstrate the value of anti-racist practice in the fight against child exploitation and abuse and the importance of taking a person-centred, holistic approach.
