Calls for more training on effects of CSE in Rotherham
It's claimed more professionals who interact with children in Rotherham need to be trained to spot child sexual exploitation.
A new report's warning those who come into contact with vulnerable children risk "re-traumatising" them because of a lack of understanding of how they react to traumatic experiences.
Jayne Senior works with child grooming victims in Rotherham - she says it's important people know what effect CSE has on victims:
"One of the things that we picked up on very early in the grooming process was changes in behaviour which usually did come out in aggression. Professionals began focusing on that behaviour rather than focusing on what caused it. What made a child go from being quite happy to becoming totally and utterly aggressive?"
"There needs to be a lot more training - some basic training, as well. If you don't understand how young people are groomed - what they experience and feel as part of that grooming process and how damaging long term it is - then how do we start to pick up on early indicators?"
Hundreds of children were sexually abused in Rotherham during the town's grooming scandal.
Charity YoungMinds has today called for those who interact with youngsters to improve their understanding of how traumatic childhood experiences - such as neglect, abuse, bereavement or prejudice - can affect their behaviour.
YoungMinds chief executive Sarah Brennan says it's a big problem:
"The last thing vulnerable children need is to be re-traumatised by services that should be helping them. If a young person who has been neglected reacts to their feelings by being aggressive at school and is excluded, it reinforces the neglect and low self-worth that they originally experienced. If a teenager who's being abused joins a gang to find a sense of belonging, but ends up in a young offenders' institution, it can lead to a career of crime and violence when the issues could have been addressed early on."
"Across the board, services need to focus less on 'correcting' behaviour, and more on identifying and addressing the underlying causes of childhood trauma."
Jayne Senior agrees - and says it's particularly true for grooming victims in Rotherham:
"The last resort ever for any young person is to take the criminal route unless we can put everything that we've got in to that child first to help them, and to deal with whatever particular issue there is. We know now that these issues stay with them for a long time."
"I think the earlier we can get in - with education and training for professionals - then we can empower young people to recognise that something's not right, to ask for help and to know where to ask for help."