New lottery funding announced to support CSE projects

Children who are, or at risk of being, sexually exploited are to be supported and protected by projects receiving new funding from the Big Lottery Fund.

Parents Against Child Sexual Exploitation (Pace) receives £489,730 to develop its England-wide work supporting parents and carers of children at risk while The Children’s Society receives £366,945 for a project tackling the issue in Torbay.

Pace will support parents and family carers whose children are at risk or being sexually exploited by perpetrators outside the family. The children will benefit from parents being better informed and more confident to give the right support. Additional volunteers will be recruited to offer parents emotional support, information and guidance.

A new aspect of their work will be the development of a programme designed and run by affected parents including focus groups; an online forum; parent network days for sharing stories, reducing feelings for isolation and invited speakers; and conferences. The project expects to help 350 families.

Gill Gibbons, CEO of Pace, said: “Pace was set up in 1996 by parents whose children were being exploited by abusers outside the family.  Child sexual exploitation can have a significant impact on families and can affect their health, working life, family relationships and social life. The stress of the situation can limit their ability to respond to the needs of their children and to deal with crises that occur following the exploitation.  The sexual exploitation of one child in the family can place other siblings at significant risk of being groomed and exploited too. Parents can experience acute isolation, blame and social stigma.  Ultimately, we aim to safeguard children as a result of more confident and empowered parents able to work with agencies to protect their children.
 
“Our award from the National Lottery will help us to develop our national network of volunteer befrienders.  We’ve already attracted many volunteers with experience of working with victims of sexual crimes, with trauma survivors (one volunteer worked with trauma victims in Northern Ireland), people with counselling skills, and campaigners for social justice. This grant will help us extend our befriending role with parents from families in the south, enable parents to seek support from each other and speak publicly about their experience with the media and at training events,  and to work to bring child sexual exploitation to an end.”

Meanwhile The Children’s Society in Torbay will reintroduce and develop upon their school awareness programme delivered to children in the classroom and training to local professionals. They will also deliver intensive intervention to families of children to help develop coping skills and knowledge as well as understanding grooming processes. The issue of child sexual exploitation will be incorporated into work to promote healthy relationships. Training will be provided to governors, teachers and whole school assemblies – giving them the knowledge to protect themselves or others regarding online safety, health relationships and sexual abuse. The project aims to support 4,500 children.

Lyn Cole, Deputy Director of England at the Big Lottery Fund, said: “There have been some high-profile cases across the country about how vulnerable children have become sexually exploited by criminal gangs or via online grooming. These projects support will help to steer vulnerable children away from dangerous paths, inappropriate behaviour and exploitative relationships while training parents to know the warning signs.”

A full list of all 133 Reaching Communities grants totalling £44 million is available here.