Understanding Exploitation Strategy Meetings and MARVE for Children at Risk of Contextual Harm
To address concerns of extra familial harm affecting children and young people, this session delves into exploitation strategy meetings and MARVE intervention. Learn about making effective referrals, identifying risks, and when to convene strategy meetings to safeguard vulnerable individuals from harm.
Download Presentation
Please find below an Image/Link to download the presentation.
The content on the website is provided AS IS for your information and personal use only. It may not be sold, licensed, or shared on other websites without obtaining consent from the author. Download presentation by click this link. If you encounter any issues during the download, it is possible that the publisher has removed the file from their server.
E N D
Presentation Transcript
Official How do exploitation strategy meetings and How do exploitation strategy meetings and MARVE work for children at risk of MARVE work for children at risk of contextual harm contextual harm Laura Lacey - EVOLVE
Official What this webinar will cover: What this webinar will cover: What an exploitation strategy meeting is and how to make an effective referral. What MARVE is, how and why would a young person be referred to it and how to do the referral? The presentation and associated documents will be circulated after the webinar including the questions and answers at the end.
Official What this webinar will not cover: What this webinar will not cover: General exploitation/contextual safeguarding training. For this, please sign up on TPD online for the Evolve one day training, next one is in September. Course title is Adolescent Exploitation: Sexual and Criminal This is a one day in person training delivered by Evolve run several times a year.
Official What is extra familial harm? What is extra familial harm? Harm that children and young people experience outside of their family boundaries. May involve sexual exploitation, criminal exploitation, serious youth violence, going missing, association with gangs . Is often a combination of several. Happens to young people of all genders and backgrounds. Often coincides with adolescence as young people spend more time with friends, doing independent activities and travel, wanting to create an identity separate to their family unit. Can involve grooming and exploitation of young people in parks, schools and college, shopping centres, parties, buses and social media.
Official Ok so getting into the details .. Ok so getting into the details .. You have identified there are worries about extra familial harm. Perhaps a new referral has come in about a young person, or you have been working with a young person and their family for a while and information has started to show a worrying picture.
Official Do I need a strategy meeting? Do I need a strategy meeting? Extra familial harm is a safeguarding issue and will require consideration for threshold for strategy meeting / Section 47. Exploitation strategy meeting is the same as any other strategy meeting, but will focus on issues relating to contextual harm/exploitation. Manager will take a view about whether strategy meeting needed. Wont be relevant for young people who are vulnerable to exploitation. Will be for those where there is some evidence to suggest a risk of significant harm, eg incident, disclosure, injury, patterns or length of missing episodes.
Official How to refer for an exploitation strategy How to refer for an exploitation strategy meeting meeting form_87a_referral_to_police.docx (live.com) Same as all strategy meetings. Complete an 87a and email to CAIT: swmailbox.safeguardingcaitreferrals@met.police.uk Make contact details clear. Fill out ALL sections.
Official Top tips for 87a Top tips for 87a how to make it effective how to make it effective Include all details, be thorough, ensure all family members and possible perpetrators filled out. Be clear about what you want ..an exploitation strategy meeting, consideration for S47, consideration for MARVE Avoid vague or general statements. Detail any disclosures made, what, to who and when. Clearly detail incidents or evidence of concerns.
Official Can be helpful for Police if you use headings of themes. Can be helpful to list things in chronology form. Use of chronology s generally in the area of extra familial harm is effective as it enables you to build a picture, understand themes and identify what is happening by piecing information together. Cannot rely on young people disclosing so this is often where you will be able to collate evidence.
Official Continued .. Continued .. Make sure you complete the exploitation section at the bottom of the form. Make sure you add all the relevant details. You may be referring primarily about criminal exploitation but don t forget to add any incidents that may relate to missing or CSE. If pattern and length of missing episodes is a concern then you need to be clear about the details. Do not assume the Police know or will be able to see easily on their database.
Official Specific detail is important Specific detail is important this is where your chronology will help you chronology will help you this is where your Jessie has had 17 missing episodes in the last 3 months. These have ranged from 1-8 days and tend to take place over the weekend. It is suspected that Jessie is collected and brought back by car or taxi from placement as she has returned in socks or sliders in rain and had dry clothes and feet and the bus stop is a long walk from placement. Staff have reviewed CCTV but been unable to identify a car. Phone work completed whilst missing has suggested Jessie is travelling between London and various locations on the south coast.
Official Jessie has attended the sexual health clinic 3 times in the last year with STI s. Jessie s best friend Sarah told her social worker on 15/05/22 that Jessie is in a relationship with a 30 year old man but Jessie denied this when asked about it. In May 2021 Jessie told her keyworker that she had been raped several times, but then quickly retracted and said she was joking. Jessie was located in a car in Portsmouth on 20/10/2021 with 2 adult males and had visible bruising to her neck. CAD reference xxxx Jessie said this one of the men was her boyfriend and said the marks were love bites.
Official What happens next? What happens next? CAIT police will complete screening on the 87a. They will assess the information and determine risk level. Police will complete research from their databases based on the information in the 87a. Police systems are quite complicated and not like mosaic etc. If you just put in a couple of recent incidents and not full details, their research and where and how far back they look will be informed by this. If it is considered green (rag rating), a CAIT officer will attend the strategy meeting who has good understanding of exploitation. If it is considered amber/red, a specialist sergeant from the exploitation team will attend.
Official If you don t hear back for more than 2 days, please follow up and escalate via managers. London Safeguarding Children Procedures state: Where the concerns are particularly complex (e.g. organised abuse / allegations against staff) the strategy meeting / discussion must be held within a maximum of five working days, but sooner if there is a need to provide immediate protection to a child. Do invite education and health representatives as well as social care and other key professionals.
Official Complex exploitation concerns or evidence When exploitation has been identified and there are concerns that the abuse involves one or more abuser, multiple victims, a group or location where additional focus is required to monitor peer networks and activity, consideration should be given as to whether this falls within the Organised and Complex Abuse procedures as outlined in chapter 8 of the CP procedures (CE Pan London procedures 2021).
Official At the strategy meeting: The usual outcomes apply; Continue with plan already in place, joint or single S47, a review strategy meeting (where clear rationale such as significant gap in information that is needed to make decision). Other outcomes for an exploitation strategy meeting; Whether the exploitation police team will open to their team and allocate a specific specialist officer. Whether a young person should be referred to MARVE this is a joint agreement with the Police and Social Care/meeting participants.
Official Tricky points to be aware of Police teams are not all joined up and do not know all the info from different investigations. If you are having a strategy meeting with an investigating officer from CID or missing police etc because of a specific incident, they will not know about MARVE or be able to give agreement, needs to be exploitation police team. If you want a strategy meeting that includes consideration for MARVE then make sure its clear on request and follow up during arrangements for strategy meeting so that the police understand that you are doing a strategy meeting for an incident and ongoing exploitation concerns. Then the right officers can be alerted and will reduce or avoid duplication of strats.
Official Moving on to MARVE Moving on to MARVE MARVE is a multi-agency panel that discusses children at medium and high risk of extra-familial harm- (pre-MACE level). Jointly chaired by Police and Social Care. The young people discussed at MARVE will be those experiencing harm, not those where concerns are emerging or vulnerabilities have been identified. MARVE is informed by the London Child Exploitation Operating Protocol 2021 the-london-child-exploitation-operating_protocol_2021.pdf (met.police.uk)
Official MARVE continued MARVE continued Once MARVE agreed, complete or update the Contextual Safeguarding section of the Child and Family Assessment, CiN Review, CiN/CP Updated Assessment or Looked After Children s Pathway Plan with comprehensive information. This section of the mosaic episode forms the referral to MARVE. It allows you to send the workstep early, so you can task this immediately to Marve Decision and it will go in the marve referrals incoming work. MARVE - Child exploitation (sharepoint.com)
Official The MARVE panel meeting The MARVE panel meeting Multi-agency stakeholders in the meeting will contribute with intelligence, information sharing and resources to enhance safety and protective measures. Representatives will be from Police, health, education, housing, voluntary sector etc. The goal is to make sure there is a multi-agency plan to disrupt exploitation and support the young people. MARVE also discusses locations of concern and people who may be harmful to others.
Official MARVE continued MARVE continued A decision will be made about risk level and any actions to be completed that will enhance the work the network is doing to support the child and family and disrupt the contextual harm. If the young person will be continuing to be discussed at MARVE on consecutive month/s, you will be asked to feedback on any actions and provide a written update for panel prior to the next date. Really important that you complete your actions and feedback so that the panel can be effective and ensure plans are progressing. The MARVE administrator will contact you to request this information.
Official Questions that were asked in the webinar: Questions that were asked in the webinar: Q. What does MARVE stand for? A. Multi-Agency Risk Vulnerability and Exploitation Q. What does MACE stand for? A. Multi-Agency Child Exploitation Q. What is MARVE vs MACE? A. Marve is operational level, discussions about specific children. MACE is strategic, themes and broader information and how to address borough wide issues. Q. Can non statutory professionals attend the meeting? A. Strategy meeting, yes they should if key to the child's network. MARVE panel, this is just for lead professional and manager to attend as it is a summary of what's happening, not a case discussion.
Official You made it this far! You made it this far! Hopefully you now have an understanding of the processes and how to get the best out of them. Please do familiarise yourself with the guidance and documents mentioned in the webinar. Documents and links will be circulated. Some website links are on the next slide too. For broader training on extra familial/contextual harm, do book onto the EVOLVE training. A webinar is also being planned to go through some of the tools that help when working with young people about this risk assessments, safety plans etc so keep an eye out for comms.
Official Useful websites: London Child Protection Procedures (londonsafeguardingchildrenprocedures.co.uk) form_87a_referral_to_police.docx (live.com) link to document Homepage (csnetwork.org.uk) This website is for practitioners and you can join as a member for free and then get access to lots of resources, podcasts, guidance and research etc. Welcome to the NWG Network great organisation with loads of information about extra-familial harm. https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/downloads/central/servic es/accessing-information/child-abuse/the-london-child-exploitation- operating_protocol_2021.pdf Pan London CE protocol 2021.
Official Thank you all and have a lovely day!
