The Disrupting Exploitation (DEx) programme works one-to-one with young people who are victims of child criminal exploitation and their parents or carers. Funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, DEx has been working across Greater Manchester, Birmingham, and London since 2018. We are committed to changing the systems around young people and we are passionate about sharing our knowledge on systems change widely across the sector. To achieve this, we work in partnership with others.
Sadly, the Disrupting Exploitation Programme is coming to an end. The programme has been funded by The National Lottery since 2018, initially for a period of 3 years. After successfully securing additional funding from The National Lottery for a further 2 years, the programme will now be concluding at the end of March 2025. This page will remain to link to resources from the programme and provide a record of work completed.
NB: Due to the upcoming closure of the programme we are no longer receiving referrals, however our resources will continue to be available beyond the close of the programme.
Our Exploitation Practice Guide is a resource which sets out to improve legal support for children and young people experiencing exploitation. This resource is designed to guide legal professionals, primarily defence solicitors, and others working in the criminal justice system to improve support for children and young people who have been exploited or where exploitation may have taken place. It is designed to support solicitors to have a more consistent approach in responding to and understanding exploitation.
Our Behaviour policy checklist is a resource that has been co-produced with young people, providing a set of recommendations about what children and young people would like to see included and considered in school behaviour policies. A group of young people who have all experienced school exclusion led peer consultations with other young people in London, exploring their experiences of behaviour policies and what they would like to see in an inclusive behaviour policy. The resulting checklist covers four themes: language & communication; sanctions; power and uniform & identity.
Our Exploitation Awareness Toolkit contains resources for schools to support pupils to develop their knowledge of exploitation and related topics. Content includes training videos for staff on topics including exploitation, transitions and therapeutic safety in trauma as well as a list of support services. The teaching resources include:
You can view a short video introduction to the tooklit.
We have also produced a number of useful resources hosted on our virtual bookshelf, for example:
Resources produced by our evaluation partners The University of Sussex will be added soon.
The DEx programme is currently undergoing internal and external evaluation, which will be shared here when it is available.
“As a social worker, I know I’m bound to come across one of these cases and at least I will be prepared and know where to start.” (Contextual safeguarding, child criminal exploitation – social workers)
“[I will] try to see past abuse...or violence and understand the root cause of their behaviour. Also [I have an] awareness that this is a response to a hostile/intense environment.” (Trauma-informed practice – custody officer)
Please see our previous evaluations and reports on our main website.