The Tackling Child Exploitation (TCE) Support Programme was a £3m project funded by the Department for Education and delivered by a consortium of Research in Practice, The Children’s Society and the Safer Young Lives Research Centre. Between 2019-2022, TCE worked with 84 child safeguarding partnerships across England to improve strategic responses to child exploitation and extra-familial harm. In year 4, the Programme team consulted with 758 professionals, 203 children and young people and 39 parents and carers to develop a set of non-statutory Practice Principles [PDF] for responding to child exploitation and extra-familial harm.

The Principles are evidence-informed (Yeo et al, 2023)^[1], endorsed by four government departments and key sector influencers, such as Inspectorates, professional associations and leading charities. They are also now included in the revised ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ guidance.

Just over a year after the Practice Principles were launched, this project is the first research to explore the impact of the Principles in responding to child exploitation and extra-familial harm across multi-agency partners in two ways. Firstly through a survey of multi-agency partners which will explore the following:

• Awareness, understanding and views of the Principles
• Implementation of the Practice Principles
• Barriers and facilitators to implementation

The survey data will give an indication of the number and range of organisations currently or planning to implement the Practice Principles in their workstreams and what this will look like in practice.

The second part of the research will consist of three case studies in local areas that are implementing the Principles. Through three in-depth interviews will explore the journey of implementation; facilitators and barriers and any impact experienced and/or measured in order to identify and share learning.

[1] Yeo, A; Kiff, J; Millar, H and Beckett, H (2023) Tacking Child Exploitation Support Programme: Practice Principles Research Summary Tackling Child Exploitation Support Programme