East Riding of Yorkshire Council (ERYC) and Barnardo’s have collaborated on a 2.5 year partnership testing service design methodology and design thinking to create systemic change for children at risk of child sexual abuse or exploitation. Whilst the ERYC Making a Change (MaC) service has been proven to deliver strong outcomes for exploited children, there is an unknown group of children for whom the signs of exploitation go unrecognised, and they are only identified after they have suffered harm. ERYC want to understand how exploitation is currently identified by professionals much earlier in the practice system, particularly children from under-represented groups such as children who identify as LGBTQ+, those from minoritised communities and children with English as a second language.
This report shares the voice of children and their families who have been or who are at risk of exploitation to help us understand their experience of accessing support services and to identify opportunity areas that we are taking forward into co-design.