The Department for Education has commissioned a refresh of the Tackling Child Exploitation (‘TCE’) Practice Principles, updating the 2023 framework to reflect developments in research, policy and practice. The eight interdependent principles provide a ‘compass’ for multi-agency responses to child exploitation and extra-familial harm, emphasising child-centred, welfare-led approaches over procedural compliance.
Details
The Practice Principles are intended to guide, not prescribe, how local partnerships and individual agencies should shape their approach to child exploitation and extra-familial harm. They apply to all agencies within local partnerships involved in safeguarding, and to professionals at all levels from strategic leaders to those working directly with children and families (p.3).
The principles are evidence‑informed, drawing on published research, learning from the TCE Support Programme (2019-22), consultations with over 750 professionals across government and statutory/non-statutory partners, and consultations with 242 children, young people and parents/carers with direct and indirect experience of exploitation (p.5).
The principles explicitly address the tension where children are both victims and causing harm to others, requiring ‘sustained and deliberate rebalancing of welfare and justice approaches at both system and partnership levels’ (p.14). Professionals should avoid making decisions that limit future options, such as permanent exclusion or criminalisation, while acknowledging these may sometimes be necessary (p.13).
The eight Practice Principles
- Principle 1 - Put children and young people first: Responses must see the child behind presenting behaviours, considering them holistically including trauma, identity and structural inequalities. Children who cause harm to others must still be treated as children first; a ‘Child First’ approach aligned with youth justice policy (pp.10-14).
- Principle 2 - Recognise and challenge inequalities, exclusion and discrimination: Practice must attend to structural inequalities, including the over-representation of certain minoritised ethnic groups and those experiencing poverty in safeguarding and criminal justice data. Adultification, infantilisation and criminalisation of minoritised groups must be actively challenged (pp.15-21).
- Principle 3 - Respect the voice, experience and expertise of children and young people: Listening to children and taking their views seriously when deciding how to support them, working ‘with them’ rather than ‘doing to them’. Participation is a core part of protection (pp.22-26).
- Principle 4 - Be strengths-based and relationship-based: Seeing children holistically and identifying their strengths rather than just viewing them as at risk or causing harm. Relationship-based approaches include modelling consensual and respectful relationships (pp.27-32).
- Principle 5 - Recognise and respond to trauma: Responses must understand how trauma impacts development and behaviour, including how professional decisions, language and interventions can compound traumatic experiences. ‘Non-engagement’ or ‘negative’ coping strategies may be a result of trauma, not a lack of need for support (pp.33-38).
- Principle 6 - Be curious, evidence-informed and knowledgeable: Practitioners should demonstrate professional curiosity, challenge assumptions and recognise that children may feel too unsafe to share key information. Risk assessment tools should not be applied mechanistically; professional judgement must be applied alongside evidence (pp.39-43).
- Principle 7 - Approach parents and carers as partners wherever possible: Parents and carers hold invaluable information about their child and community contexts, including about exploiters and unsafe places. Professionals should recognize that parents and carers often understand both the needs and strengths of a child, including how to engage and communicate effectively with them (pp.44-49).
- Principle 8 - Create safe spaces and places for children and young people: Professionals must pay attention to the contexts of children’s lives, the spaces and places they spend time online and offline and ensure interventions do not inadvertently criminalise or exclude children. A holistic understanding of safety includes physical, relational and psychological dimensions (pp.50-56).
Commentary
The refreshed Practice Principles provide an important advocacy tool for youth justice practitioners. The explicit alignment with ‘Child First’ approaches, and the emphasis on rebalancing welfare and justice responses, directly supports legal arguments challenging the criminalisation of exploited children.
For practitioners representing children in criminal proceedings, the principles offer clear language to deploy in submissions concerning culpability and public interest. The recognition that children may feel ‘too unsafe to share key information’ (p.41), that ‘non-engagement’ may reflect trauma rather than lack of need (p.33), and that risk assessment tools should not be applied ‘mechanistically’ (p.42), can all be used to challenge assumptions underpinning charging decisions or sentencing recommendations.
The principles’ focus on adultification and the criminalisation of minoritised groups is particularly significant given ongoing concerns about racial disproportionality in youth justice. Practitioners should use these principles to challenge assumptions and biases that are used against children.
Overall, these principles should be used as a credible, evidence-based benchmark for challenging inadequate safeguarding responses and advocating for trauma‑informed, non‑criminalising approaches to exploited children.