A complex challenge: tackling child exploitation and extra-familial harm. Event recordings from 16 March 2022.

These recordings were shown or recorded at the TCE Programme event on 16 March 2022. We share what we’ve learned and offer space to reflect together on responding to child exploitation and extra-familial harm.

Introduction to the TCE Programme

In this short introduction, Dez Holmes (Director of Research in Practice) shares the context, challenges, iterative process, and thinking that have shaped the TCE Support Programme’s 3 years working with local areas to improve strategic responses to child exploitation and extra-familial harm. What approach does the programme take, and why? How does the TCE Programme contribute to complex system change? Why has TCE focused on behaviour?

From sharing information to sharing actions: developing local area responses to extra-familial harm

Drawing on tangible examples from her research, Professor Carlene Firmin (Department of Sociology at Durham University, and founder of the contextual safeguarding) shares learning and insights on the development of local area responses to extra-familial harm: What are the leadership behaviours that are most important for change? How can organisational cultures evolve to better enable a more effective contextual safeguarding approach? Where could local area leaders start when evolving their approach towards working with parents as partners? Why the how matters more than the what.  

What have we learned from the TCE Programme about strategic responses to child exploitation and extra-familial harm?

Alice Yeo (Head of Evidence at TCE – Safer Young Lives Research Centre, University of Bedfordshire), explores the 4 central learning themes to emerge from TCE’s work with local areas: shared vision; connection and communication; courageous leadership; and professional curiosity. What did we learn about them, and why are they so important?

Leading for better help and protection: learning from TCE

Annie Hudson (TCE delivery partner and Chair of the National Safeguarding Practice Review Panel) brings to life what she has learned from TCE Programme and the Joining the Dots (JtD) framework, the need to work differently, and the importance of ‘slow practice’.