Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that social workers receive specialist training to recognise signs of child sexual abuse connected to the production of online child pornography.

It is vitally important that all professionals working with children, including social workers, can recognise and respond quickly to the signs of child sexual abuse.

While local authorities and other employers are responsible for the professional development of their workforces, we are supporting them to ensure that social workers are equipped to recognise and respond to signs of child sexual abuse, including those connected to online pornography.

The government recently launched a consultation on a new post-qualifying standards and training programme for child and family social workers, and we will be publishing our response shortly. This will support social workers new to the profession, including developing the knowledge and skills required to respond to cases of sexual abuse and exploitation.

In the future, we will expand on these post-qualifying standards to include those for advanced practice, which will look to increase social work expertise and leadership in child protection, including in relation to sexual abuse and exploitation.

The government has also committed, in the Home Office’s Progress Update on tackling child sexual abuse, to develop specialist child sexual abuse and exploitation training for all key members of the children’s services.