Dr Katie D'Arcy University of Bedfordshire The International Centre, - Researching Child Sexual Exploitation, Violence and Trafficking

1. Extending the Reach of Child Sexual Exploitation
Services Through Community Awareness Raising
Dr.Kate D’Arcy
Not to be reproduced without permission from the author

2. The International Centre
• Committed to increasing understanding of, and improving responses
to, child sexual exploitation, violence and trafficking in local, national
and international contexts
• Achieved through:
– academic rigour and research excellence
– collaborative and partnership based approaches to applied
social research
– meaningful and ethical engagement of children and young
people
– active dissemination and evidence-based engagement in theory,
policy and practice

3. Presentation outline
• FCASE – Community Awareness Raising.
• Increasing geographical reach and diversifying demographic profile
of CSE services.
• The benefits and challenges of undertaking community awareness
raising on Child Sexual Exploitation.
• Key points.

4. FCASE Pilot Programme
3 distinct programme elements:
1. Direct work with young people and their parents/carers
(parallel support).
2. CSE training for professionals.
3. Community awareness events.

5. Evaluating Community Awareness Raising
• Are there different models of community awareness raising?
• What do we know about the effectiveness of different types of
awareness raising?
• Which factors promote or hinder the success of different models?
• How do service users view awareness raising?
The literature review undertaken highlighted a significant gap in
research regarding raising awareness of CSE in the community.
Research (Jago and Pearce, 2008,Beckett et al 2014) identified that
gaps exist in knowledge and understanding of CSE amongst parents
and different communities as well as key professionals.

6. Reviewing the Literature
Challenges:
• Very wide area- what do we mean by ‘community’?
• Lack of specific research related to Child Sexual Exploitation.
• Difficult to evaluate and lack of evaluation studies.
Therefore considered:
• Child protection;
• National evaluation of Sure Start;
• Health promotion e.g. sex and relationship education; organ
donation;
• Community-led service development;
• ….and evaluated.

7. 4 models identified:
• Multi-media campaigns (including TV, national and local radio, local
press and social media);
• Community events;
• Peer educator programmes;
• Multi-model activities e.g. informal outreach such as social events
and organised outreach via home visiting.

8. FCASE Community Awareness Raising
• This element of the pilot was especially innovative, it provided
important opportunities to extend and reach out into local
communities.
• Each site to provide a minimum of 36 awareness raising events in
diverse communities within the three areas: 57 were achieved.
• Events focussing on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender
(LGBT) groups, Black Minority Ethnic (BME) groups and new or
emerging communities.
• Sites completed Equality Impact Statements (EIS) early on in the
pilot to inform this work.

9. Increasing reach: Examples of events
• Community training course.
• Conference aimed at preventing violence towards vulnerable groups.
• Community events in schools focussing on healthy relationships.
• Stalls at events such as ‘Violence against Women’, Pride events,
Black History month, community safety partnerships event.
• Input / information sharing at a LGBT forum.
• Input / information sharing at a Muslim Youth club.
• Internet safety workshops for parents/carers.
• Parenting workshops for Romanian, non-English speaking parents.
• Sexual health promotions training for community workers working
with young people from ‘hard to reach’ communities.

10. What works and why ?
• Clear aims and objectives.
• Adopting a strengths-based, respectful approach focussed on
identifying relevant opportunities to raise awareness in a meaningful
way.
• Involving the community/group/organisation in the entire process to
reflect an equal partnership between Barnardo’s and those involved.
• The ‘community champion’ or ‘children’s champion’ models whereby
a group of people are trained up and supported to raise awareness
and cascade information into their own communities.
• Embedding the community awareness work within CSE prevention
strategy, alongside direct work and training.

11. Challenges
• Defining community.
• Time: A long-term approach is needed.
• Resources: Appropriate materials to raise awareness in a
meaningful way are important.
• Training: Community work is very different from direct CSE work.
• Engaging with a variety of people in communities.

12. Key points
• Community Awareness raising is an empowering approach to
prevent CSE and increase geographical reach and diversifying
demographic profile of CSE services.
• Clear educational value for communities and workers.
• Can improve community awareness and reduce risk – long-term
may mean that referrals reflect the range of young people in local
communities.
• Further research needed to continue to evaluate what works in
raising awareness of CSE among different communities.

13. Kate.D’Arcy@beds.ac.uk
For more information on our work including
research publications, short films and outputs from
young people please visit
www.beds.ac.uk/ic