Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to ensure that victims of grooming gangs are not stigmatised by social services.

The department published, in February 2017, a new definition of child sexual exploitation and guidance for practitioners. This non-statutory guidance was produced to help all safeguarding professionals who work with children and families to identify child sexual exploitation and respond to children to support and help them appropriately.

In July, the department published the attached revised and strengthened version of our statutory safeguarding guidance ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’. This clarifies the core legal requirements on individuals and organisations to keep children safe. It makes clear that whatever the form of abuse or neglect, practitioners should put the needs of children first when determining what action to take. The guidance includes clear advice on child sexual abuse and exploitation.

The ‘Knowledge and Skills statement’ for child and family social work practitioners (attached) also sets out that in terms of abuse and neglect they should be able to consider the possibility of child sexual exploitation, grooming (on and offline), amongst other harms that pose a risk to children.