Criminal Exploitation of Children (CEC) Awareness Raising

· Understand criminal exploitation of children as a form of child abuse, and why children should be seen and responded to as children first.

· Become familiar with the key messages, language and principles within the CEC Framework for Practice.

· Recognise indicators of exploitation, including how children may be groomed, coerced, controlled, targeted or constrained.

· Explore push and pull factors, and how exploitation connects with harm outside the home, relationships, places and wider contexts.

· Understand why children may not recognise, disclose or speak about exploitation, and why trust, safety and persistence matter.

· Consider how the Framework can support child protection, GIRFEC and rights-based responses in local practice.

· Think about the impact criminal exploitation and harm outside the home can have on parents and carers, including fear, blame, shame, stress and feeling unable to protect their child.

· Reflect on how professionals can work with parents and carers as protective partners, by sharing information, reducing blame, building trust and supporting family safety.

· Learn about the key laws, policies and guidance that should shape our response to CEC.

· Reflect on your own role, agency responsibilities and the need for coordinated multi-agency responses.

· Build confidence in responding in ways that protect children, reduce criminalisation and uphold children’s rights.

· Apply the screening tool to identify and assess concerns.

· Gather and interpret evidence to support intervention and planning.

· Consider how to embed the tool into your existing child protection processes and multi-agency assessments.

· Integrate use of the tool within developmentally informed and proportionate risk practice.

· Explore peer, place-based, and environmental risks, how they intersect and influence the conditions that allow harm to be cultivated using a contextual safeguarding lens.

· Strengthen partnership responses with clear roles and shared accountability.

· Use trauma-informed, rights-based approaches that uphold the child’s needs and experiences.

· Reflect on common challenges and build strategies for use in complex or overlapping cases.

Facilitator : - Donna McEwan