Relocation, relocation, relocation: home and school-moves for children affected extra-familial risks during adolescence

ABSTRACT

From sexual exploitation and serious youth violence, to recruitment into drugs trafficking lines, young people encounter a range of risks in their neighbourhoods. Safeguarding partnerships in England face a practical challenge in addressing these ‘public’ types of significant harm, when using a child protection framework designed to respond to risks within the ‘private’ space of families. In the absence of a safeguarding system equipped to reshape unsafe extra-familial contexts young people are moved away from them. Drawing upon cumulative evidence from 20 case reviews and audits of safeguarding practices in 14 local authorities this paper explores the extent to which such relocations have achieved physical, psychological and relational safety. In doing so it articulates how relocation following public-space risks can disrupt private-space safety and recommends the practice be reviewed to identify the conditions in which it is an appropriate safeguarding mechanism.

KEYWORDS:

• Relocation
• care placements
• adolescence
• extra-familial abuse
• exploitation
• contextual safeguarding

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the Contextual Safeguarding team at the University of Bedfordshire, and the practitioners, young people and parents with whom we work, for informing this paper and the continued advancements child protection responses to adolescents.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Mayor’s Office of Policing and Crime, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, The Samworth Foundation, and Trust for London