What do we mean by Risks Outside the Home?
Risks outside the home is sometimes referred to as contextual safeguarding.
Supporting children at risk of, or experiencing, harm outside the home. Some children experience abuse and exploitation outside the home. This is often referred to as “extra-familial harm. (Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023)
Extra-familial harm
Children may be at risk of or experiencing physical, sexual or emotional abuse and exploitation in contexts outside their families. While there is no legal definition for the term extra-familial harm, it is widely used to describe different forms of harm occurring outside the home.
Children can be vulnerable to multiple forms of extra-familial harm from both adults and/or other children. Examples of extra-familial harm include (but are not limited to): criminal exploitation, such as county lines; serious violence; modern slavery and trafficking; online harm; sexual exploitation; peer to peer (non-familial) sexual abuse and other forms of harmful sexual behaviour displayed by children towards their peers; abuse, and/or coercive control, children may experience in their own intimate relationships (sometimes called teenage relationship abuse), and the influences of extremism which could lead to radicalisation.
Extra-familial contexts include a range of environments outside the family home in which harm can occur. These can include peer groups, school, and community/public spaces, including known places in the community where there are concerns about risks to children (for example, parks, housing estates, shopping centres, takeaway restaurants, or transport hubs), as well as online, including social media or gaming platforms. (Working Together to Safeguard Children, 2023)
Exploitation
Child exploitation refers to the use of children for someone else’s advantage, gratification or profit, often resulting in unjust, cruel and harmful treatment of the child. These activities are to the detriment of the child’s physical or mental health, education, moral or social-emotional development. The definition covers situations of manipulation, misuse, abuse, victimisation, oppression or ill-treatment. Child exploitation may include, modern slavery, county lines, sexual exploitation, trafficking etc.
Child Criminal Exploitation
(as set out in the Serious Violence Strategy, published by the Home Office) is where an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, control, manipulate or deceive a child or young person under the age of 18 into any criminal activity (a) in exchange for something the victim needs or wants, and/or (b) for the financial or other advantage of the perpetrator or facilitator and/or (c) through violence or the threat of violence. The victim may have been criminally exploited even if the activity appears consensual. Child criminal exploitation does not always involve physical contact; it can also occur through the use of technology. (Working Together to Safeguard Children, 2023)
Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE)
CSE is a form of child sexual abuse. It occurs where an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, manipulate or deceive a child or young person under the age of 18 into sexual activity (a) in exchange for something the victim needs or wants, and/or (b) for the financial advantage or increased status of the perpetrator or facilitator. The victim may have been sexually exploited even if the sexual activity appears consensual. Child sexual exploitation does not always involve physical contact; it can also occur through the use of technology. (Working Together to Safeguard Children, 2023)
Online abuse
Online abuse is any type of abuse that happens on the internet. It can happen across any device that's connected to the web, like computers, tablets and mobile phones. This may be via social media, messaging apps, online gaming, chat rooms, live stream sites etc It may be from people known to the victim or strangers. It can also be an extension of abuse taking place offline also.
Extremism
Extremism is the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance, which aims to:
1. negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others; or
2. undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights; or
3. intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in (1) or (2). (New Definition of Extremism, Dept. Levelling Up, Housing & Communities, 2024).
Radicalisation is defined as the process by which people come to support terrorism and extremism and, in some cases, to then participate in terrorist groups.
Teenage Relationship Abuse
Relationships between young people which are physically or emotionally abusive. This may include emotional abuse, coercive and controlling behaviour, online abuse, controlling finances, snooping, sexual abuse and physical abuse. Practitioner guidance available on LSCP website
Harmful Sexual Behaviour
It is estimated that two-thirds of sexual offences against children are committed by their peers (Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, 2018). It is important therefore that practitioners do not dismiss harmful sexual behaviour as a part of "normal' sexual development. Children who display harmful sexual behaviour should be identified at the earliest opportunity and their behaviour addressed in order to both meet their needs and to protect other children.
Other Useful Definitions:
Serious violence
Serious violence covers specific types of crime, such as homicide, knife crime, and gun crime, and areas of criminality where serious violence or its threat is inherent, such as in gangs and county lines drug dealing. It also includes crime threats faced in some areas of the country such as the use of corrosive substances as a weapon.
For the purposes of the Serious Violence Duty, as per section 13 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, Serious Violence in the local area is violence that is serious in that area, taking account of: the maximum penalty which could be imposed for the offence (if any) involved in the violence, the impact of the violence on any victim, the prevalence of the violence in the area and the impact of the violence on the community in the area.
The Duty provisions commenced on 31 January 2023; local partners were required to publish their first serious violence strategy by 31 January 2024 and then review it as appropriate. Statutory guidance to support authorities in meeting the Duty requirements was published in December 2022.
Controlling & coercive behaviour
Also known as coercive control, controlling or coercive behaviour. A form of domestic abuse. In 2015, the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour was introduced under Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act as a criminal offence. Controlling or coercive behaviour is included in the definition of domestic abuse in section 1(3)(c) of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.
Controlling or coercive behaviour is a pattern of abuse (on two or more occasions) involving multiple behaviours and tactics used by a perpetrator to (but not limited to) hurt, humiliate, intimidate, exploit, isolate, and dominate the victim. It is an intentional pattern of behaviour used to exert power, control or coercion over another person.
Controlling or coercive behaviour is often committed in conjunction with other forms of abuse and is often part of a wider pattern of abuse, including violent, sexual, or economic abuse.
Children can be used to control or coerce the victim, for example, by frustrating child contact
and/or child arrangements, telling the children to call the victim derogatory names or to hit the victim, or by threatening to abduct the children.
This pattern of abuse causes fear, serious alarm and/or distress which can lead to a substantial adverse effect on a victim’s day-to-day life. This can have a significant impact on children and young people. Section 68 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 came into force on 5 April 2023 and removed the ‘living together’ requirement for the controlling or coercive behaviour offence, which means that the offence applies to partners, ex-partners or family members, regardless of whether the victim and perpetrator live together. More information about controlling or coercive behaviour, including the impact on children can be found in the Controlling or coercive behaviour: statutory guidance and the Domestic Abuse Act 2021: statutory guidance.
In other circumstances, it is the things we see, hear or notice which make us feel concerned for a child. Remember that:
There is no stereotype of an abused child; children can react differently to each other, or the same child can react differently from day to day:
- You can speak to the child; they may add information
- Changes in behaviour are particularly significant, and need some thought as to their origin
- Some features are common to all types of abuse, some more specific
- Many of the indicators are displayed by children at some time and may be reactions to distressing yet normal life experiences. It is important to have abuse in your mind as a possibility
- Signs are only indicators and not proof of abuse
- The bigger picture of the child is always more important - what else do we know about the child (and their developmental needs), any siblings, the family?
Contextual safeguarding: re-writing the rules of child protection
This Ted Talk is available on YouTube by Dr Firmin, the founder of Contextual Safeguarding outlines:
- how contexts beyond families are associated with abuse
- how traditional child protection systems fail to engage with these contextual dynamics
- the components of the Contextual Safeguarding system that would redefine what child protection means.