Resources
Hints and Tips Support Leaflets for children and families
The below leaflets were developed to signpost children, young people and families to support during the COVID-19 period.
Safeguarding Partner Links
North Lincolnshire Council – For further information regarding services for children and young people & the North Lincolnshire Fostering and Adoption Service.
North Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group – For further information regarding healthcare services in North Lincolnshire.
Humberside Police – For further information regarding community policing in North Lincolnshire and advice on protecting vulnerable people.
Useful Links
Childline – if you have any worries about a child or young person
Not In Our Community – protection against grooming and child sexual exploitation
Life Central – central local resource for information and advice about emotional wellbeing
Kooth – An app for young people to access to online counselling and advice on emotional wellbeing.
SEND Local Offer – a local resource for advice and support for young people with Special Education Needs and Disabilities.
North Lincolnshire SENDIASS – provide free, confidential and impartial information, advice and support to parents, carers, children and young people in relation to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and related health and social care matters.
MAPPA – Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements
MAPPA is a process where the Police, Probation and Prison Services work together with other agencies to manage risks posed by offenders living in the community in order to protect the public.
For more information about MAPPA, see the guide below:
Keeping Our Communities Safe – Managing Risk through MAPPA Guide
Resources
This page contains a range of resources, advice and sources of support organised by category. Whilst this page is predominately for practitioners, many of the resources could be used to signpost children and families to additional support.
Resources written directly for children and families can be found on the Children, Young People and Families page of our website.
Additional information for schools and early years settings can be found on the individual Schools – Designated Safeguarding Leads page and the Early Years page.
Other tools can be found in our collection of thematic Children’s MARS Spotlights on the communications page.
Children’s MARS Toolkits
Child Sexual Abuse in the Family Environment
Supporting Young People’s Emotional Wellbeing – ‘Lets Talk about it’ Toolkit
Using Technology to Support Children and Families
Change the Narrative: Appropriate Language relating to Child Exploitation
Helping and Protecting Babies and Young Children Briefing
Missing Children
The below leaflet provides guidance for parents and carers around what to do when their child goes missing. It also gives advice on what to do and how to react when they return home.
Children going missing – Missing People and the NWG
Missing People charity and the NWG network have jointly published a resource to support professionals involved in return interview services after a missing child returns home. The resource provides guidance on how to remain child centred whilst also working with parents, carers and other family members to build up a picture of the child’s life and provide support.
The resource can be accessed here – Centring the child and working with their family network as part of return interviews – Missing People
Not in Our Community
Missed Me?
Missed Me? is based on real life events and shows the different ways that children and young people can be pushed and pulled into situations of great risk and episodes of going missing.
Missed Me? has been created to help raise awareness of the reasons behind young people going missing and present them as victims rather than perpetrators of crime or the cause of situations including sexual and criminal exploitation.
Watch Missed Me? on Not in Our Community’s YouTube channel
Anywhere Kids
Delivered as a collaboration with the Humber Modern Slavery Partnership, Anywhere Kids is an animation created by My Pockets which demonstrates the consequences around being groomed and exploited.
‘Anywhere Kids’ uses aspects of real stories from real victims in our area to tell the story of how young people are groomed, coerced and trapped into exploitation such as drug dealing, forced criminality and sexual exploitation, and seeks to open a dialogue with younger children about some of the dangers they may face online or in person and how they might protect themselves from being targeted by exploiters and organised criminal gangs.
Watch Anywhere Kids on Not in Our Community’s YouTube channel
Trapped
Trapped is a short film produced in Scunthorpe about events leading up to and following the near fatal stabbing of a young boy involved in a drug dealing operation. A researcher interviews five characters to try to understand why a drug related stabbing left a boy with lifechanging injuries. As the interviewer delves into the backstory of two boys and a girl we learn about the push and pull factors that lead to them becoming involved in drugs and child exploitation.
Watch Trapped on Not in Our Community’s YouTube channel
Trapped lesson plan – this lesson plan provides examples of icebreaker activities to introduce young people to the topic of grooming and exploitation.
NIOC – Connect
NIOC Connect has films, worksheet handouts and read-aloud stories for use in classroom and group settings, with guided lesson plans to help identify the key learning points in each resource.
NIOC Interact
NIOC Interact is the UK’s most comprehensive anti-grooming e-learning platform, helping young people protect themselves and friends from grooming leading to sexual and criminal exploitation including County Lines exploitation. The e-learning is free to all young people within the Humberside Police force area.
Risk outside the home
This video provides a brief introduction to the principals of the approach to risk outside the home, also known as contextual safeguarding.
Membership of the Contextual Safeguarding Practitioner’s Network is free. By joining you will be able to access all features of the website and you will receive regular newsletter updates. Your contributions will help develop member practice and inform the research and policy efforts of the ‘International Centre: Researching child sexual exploitation, violence and trafficking’.
Humberside Police Partnership Intelligence Form (PIF)
Professionals can share intelligence with Humberside Police using the PIF form below
HP Partnership Intelligence (reportingcrime.uk)
Child Exploitation Vulnerability Tracker
The Child Exploitation Vulnerability Tracker (CEVT) was originally created by the Police and utilised as a county lines tracker. This tool is considered to be beneficial when used to enhance referrals/assessments and statutory plans for children who are identified to be vulnerable to/facing risks of/experiencing child exploitation.
The tracker encompasses both child sexual and child criminal exploitation.
To strengthen practice further, it is considered to be a useful tool across the child’s journey including at an early help level. Therefore, services and partner agencies who provide early help are encouraged to utilise the tool for example, services who support children and families including across health, education and wider agencies.
The guidance around how to use the tool is available below along with a PDF version of the CEVT.
CEVT – please note that we are unable to upload the excel version to our website. If you require a copy of the tool, please email mars@northlincs.gov.uk and we can provide the tool for you to use
Critical and Reachable moments – YouTube
The below video by Kent Safeguarding Children’s Multi-Agency Partnership provides an overview of reachable and teachable moments and how professionals can take advantage of them.
Reachable/ Teachable moments – YouTube
Criminal Exploitation: Stages of Recruitment
The Children’s Society have put together the below document for professionals to identify how children and young people are groomed by perpetrators and become involved with criminal exploitation.
Criminal Exploitation: Stages of Recruitment document
Criminal Exploitation and County Lines toolkit
The Children’s Society have produced a toolkit for professionals around criminal exploitation and county lines. The toolkit contains information around the vulnerabilities and signs of exploitation and the barriers to engagement that professionals may face.
The Children’s Society resource bank
The resource bank contains a range of resources and guides in multiple languages relating to child exploitation. Documents include:
- Capturing and reporting intelligence toolkit
- Online safeguarding guidance
- Professionals and parents guide on the National Referral Mechanism
- #LookCloser campaign posters
The Children’s Society resource bank can be accessed here
CSE police and prevention toolkits
Over the last year the CSE Prevention Programme have created a number of resources that may be useful for professionals when working with children and young people, their families and communities.
Toolkits include:
- Guidance on intelligence sharing
- Safeguarding boys and young men against sexual exploitation
- Harmful Sexual Behaviour
- Supporting parents and carers whose children are affected by exploitation
- Working with disabled children, BAME and LGBTQ+ young people affected by exploitation
The toolkits can be viewed and downloaded from the CSE police and prevention resource bank
Barnardo’s – See, Hear, Respond
See, Hear, Respond is a service provided across England by Barnardo’s and a group of national and local community-based organisations in response to Covid-19.
The programme has been created specifically to help children and young people who are experiencing harm and increased adversity during lockdown by providing support to those who are not being seen by schools or other key agencies.
To reduce the likelihood of harm and ensure other support and protective networks are in place the programme provides:
- Online digital support, including advice and information, online counselling and a telephone helpline
- Face to face interventions, such as support for groups at risk outside the home and one to one support
- Reintegration into education, including assessments and the delivery of support pathways back to education
Referrals are accepted for all children and young people under the age of 18 who are not already receiving support from statutory agencies, for example through Child Protection Plans, and especially want to invite referrals for families who are most isolated from support due to COVID-19, including:
- Under 5s with a specific focus on under 2s
- Those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities and where there are concerns about their welfare e.g. online safety
- Children who maybe at increased risk of abuse, neglect and exploitation inside or outside of the home
- Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and Refugee children who experience barriers to accessing services
- Young carers
Further information is available on the Barnardo’s website.
Resources are available through the See, Hear, Respond Support Hub on a range of subjects including emotional wellbeing, advice for young carers and how to manage caring for children whilst working from home.
ICON Programme
The ICON programme has been developed to help parents, carers and families understand that increased crying between 2 weeks and 6-8 weeks of age is normal and helps families cope with a crying baby. It also raises awareness of the dangers of a baby being shaken, something that can be triggered by a baby crying, and the devastating injuries this can cause sometimes resulting in death.
The ICON website iconcope.org provides further advice for both parents and professionals working with children and families.
ICON Resources
- ICON information leaflet
- Coping with Crying – My Personal ICON plan
- The normal crying curve
- ICON intervention talking points
- Prevention of Abusive Head Trauma in babies – information sheet
- Maternal Postnatal template for GP practices
Further reading
ICON was conceived following years of study and research into prevention of Abusive Head Trauma. The ICON founder, Dr Suzanne Smith PhD, consolidated the study and research with a visit to USA and Canada in 2016 (courtesy of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Travel Fellowship) to see the prevention programmes in action and to understand more about what makes such programmes a success.
The latest copy of her report is available here.
ICON Posters
Reducing Parental Conflict
Relationship Matters website
Disagreements and arguments are completely normal but if they are becoming a problem then help is at hand. Relationship Matters launches a new website to provide information and help to families in managing those situations that can cause arguments and stress.
Relationship Matters is a new partnership between North Lincolnshire Children’s Multi-Agency Resilience and Safeguarding (MARS) Arrangements and 14 other local authorities across Yorkshire and the Humber region helping families who may be having relationship difficulties. A new website has been launched to offer families information, tips and help and what better time than now as the coronavirus has made big changes to the way in which we live our everyday lives.
All relationships have tricky moments but it is how these are resolved that matters – especially at the moment for getting us through enforced self- isolation, lock down and social distancing. We are all spending longer periods of time with our loved ones and this is bound to bring about some added challenges.
Whether parents live together or separately disagreements are completely normal but evidence shows that regular conflict has a big impact on children.
Relationship Matters can help everyone recognise the signs such as:
- Arguing and rows, shouting all the time about things like money, parenting and housework
- Sulking and the silent treatment, slamming doors or walking away from each other
- Finding it hard to say sorry after an argument and move on
- Using hurtful texts, emails or Facebook against each other
The website can give everyone hints, tips and information about how to stay calm and work it out and where to go next if extra help is needed. www.relationshipmatters.org.uk
Sometimes it can be difficult to work out the difference between parental conflict and domestic abuse. Relationship Matters is about relationships where things are ‘mostly respectful and equal but experiencing difficulties’.
If you are afraid of your partner or feeling that they control your life then this is more likely to be domestic abuse, please seek help.
- If you are in immediate danger, call 999 and ask for the police.
Confidential advice and help is available from The Blue Door Domestic and Sexual Abuse Service shown below:
https://www.thebluedoor.org/what-help-is-available/
Helpline: 0800 197 4787
Email: info@thebluedoor.org
Parental Relationships Spectrum: Tool for professionals
The below tool for practitioners aims to help distinguish between relationship conflict and domestic abuse.
Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health
SEED – Eating Disorder Support Service
The SEED website contains an Eating Disorders: Facts for Schools briefing which will provide staff with an understanding of Eating Disorders, their triggers and symptoms so that schools are better equipped to identify and support sufferers within their setting and/or those young people in their setting who are being affected by sufferers in their families.
To access a copy of the briefing visit the SEED landing page.
Domestic Abuse
Children’s MARS Domestic Abuse Toolkit
Our domestic abuse toolkit contains a range of sources of support and tools specific to domestic abuse.
The toolkit can be found at the top left hand side of this page.
Domestic abuse – Why language matters
This resource from the NSPCC shares the importance of using appropriate language when supporting victims of domestic abuse.
Domestic abuse and the impact on children resource
The Royal College of Psychiatrists have published a document for parents and carers. It covers the effects that domestic violence and abuse can have on children, and how to try and avoid these problems.
The report ‘Domestic violence and abuse – the impact on children and adolescents’ is available on their website.
Re:Form – Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Programme
Re:Form is a comprehensive prevention package based on motivational, experiential approaches, as recommended by Respect. The primary aim is to manage risk to victims and families, increase safety, and reduce incidents thereby improving outcomes around perpetrators being able to sustain non-abusive behaviour.
Further information and referral forms are provided below:
Who’s In Charge – Child to Parent Violence Programme
Who’s in Charge? is a 9 week child to parent violence (CPV) programme aimed at parents whose children are being abusive or violent toward them or who appear out of parental control. The structure of the programme consists of 8 two and a half hour sessions with a two-month follow up.
Further information and referral forms are provided below:
North Lincolnshire Safeguarding Adults Board resources
The NL SAB website contains a range of resources and advice about Domestic Abuse.
Child Sexual Abuse
Child sexual abuse response pathway – interactive tool
Managing risk and trauma after online sexual offending: A whole family safeguarding guide – This resource supports social workers and other professionals to consider and respond to risk and trauma across the whole family when arrests have been made following online sexual offending by a family member.
Guide for responding to children telling you they have experienced sexual abuse, sexual violence and sexual harassment – Children sharing experience of sexual abuse, sexual violence and sexual harassment need to be responded to sensitively. This guide provides advice to practitioners around how to respond to a child telling them about their experience of sexual abuse.
The CSA Centre’s Signs and Indicators Template helps professionals to gather the wider signs and indicators of sexual abuse and build a picture of their concerns. Professionals are able to note what they have observed directly into the template, using practical evidence-based guidance. The template is designed to provide a common language amongst professionals to discuss, record and share concerns that a child is being, or has been sexually abused
The Communicating with children: A guide for those working with children who have or may have been sexually abused aims to give all people working with children guidance in talking about child sexual abuse, explaining what may be going on for children when they are being sexually abused; what prevents them from talking about their abuse; and what professionals can do to help children speak about what is happening. It brings together research, practice guidance, and expert input – including from survivors of abuse – to help give professionals the knowledge and confidence to act.
Children will speak to the adults that they know and trust the most, not necessarily those in specific safeguarding roles, and it’s therefore vital that all professionals are able to have that initial conversation. Child sexual abuse can feel difficult and complex, but with support and guidance all professionals working with children do have the skills to do this.
The Supporting Parents and Carers: A guide for those working with families affected by sexual abuse helps professionals provide a confident, supportive response when concerns about the sexual abuse of a parent or carer’s child have been raised or identified.
Sibling sexual abuse: A guide to responding to inappropriate, problematic and abusive behaviour helps professionals navigate key decisions at the various stages of a case where there are concerns about sexual behaviour involving siblings.
Further information and guidance on using the tool is available on the CSA Centre website.
Helping education settings identify and respond to child sexual abuse – a suite of free education resources, designed specifically for education settings to support identification and response to concerns of child sexual abuse is available on the CSA Centre website. Designed by education professionals, for education professionals, it includes tailored Communicating with children guide and Communicating with parents and carers guide for education settings.
Responding to Child Sexual Abuse during COVID-19 briefing – This briefing by the National Police Chiefs Council and the Children’s Society details what practitioners need to know, what to look for and how to respond to concerns relating to child sexual abuse and exploitation.
Video – Understanding medical examinations – All professionals need to understand the role and purpose of a medical examination in situations where child sexual abuse has been disclosed or is suspected. They play an important role in assessing a child’s wellbeing and broad health needs as well as an opportunity to identify forensic and evidential findings. This video explains what happens at a medical examination, to help all professionals be better informed to help children and families.
Harmful Sexual Behaviour
Children and young people are most likely to be at risk of sexual abuse within their family and community. But not all sexual abuse is carried out by adults. Around one third of child sexual abuse is thought to be carried out by under 18s.
And as COVID-19 restrictions mean that some children might be spending more time unsupervised offline and online or away from supportive adults, there’s a real danger that cases of harm might increase.
The Lucy Faithfull Foundation has developed a toolkit for parents, carers and professionals to help them be aware of the risks of harmful sexual behaviour in children and young people, so that they know what they can do to prevent. It contains advice, information, resources and links to useful organisations and further support.
The toolkit is available to view and download from The Lucy Faithfull Foundation website.
A Children’s MARS Harmful Sexual Behaviour basic awareness presentation for schools is also available on the training page of our website.
Harmful Sexual Behaviour Support Service
SWGfL and The Marie Collins Foundation has created a support service for professionals working with children and young people in tackling harmful sexual behaviours, funded by the Home Office and in collaboration with the Department for Education.
The support service is available for anyone in England working with children and young people, particularly, designated safeguarding leads within primary and secondary schools and alternative provision. Support is also available to early years provision, colleges and wider safeguarding professionals (including police, social workers and health care professionals). If children within your care have been displaying or are affected by specific incidents of Harmful Sexual Behaviour, the support service can provide initial support and signpost to further resources and advice.
The Harmful Sexual Behaviour Support Service will provide:
- Advice on individual cases or incidents of harmful sexual behaviour, to ensure an appropriate response both for children displaying this behaviour and others affected by it
- Guidance on policy development on tackling harmful sexual behaviour
- Relevant resources, best practice and contacts around harmful sexual behaviour, both locally and nationally
The telephone and email support is available Monday – Friday, 8am to 8pm.
Call: 0344 255 0623 Email: hsbs@swgfl.org.uk
More information can be found on their website
Technology assisted harmful sexual behaviour – NSPCC Podcast
This podcast focuses on the prevalence of TA-HSB in children and young people, the challenges for professionals and resources to manage incidents.
Listen here – https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/news/2021/november/podcast-technology-assisted-harmful-sexual-behaviour/
Online Safety
Thinkuknow has produced education resources for professionals on the consensual and non-consensual sharing of nude images among young people.
Send me a pic? has been developed in response to learning from research into young people’s relationships online, and through extensive collaboration with young people across the UK.
The resource pack contains three sessions plans based on short film clips. Each clip shows a fictional online chat where young people request, receive and discuss issues related to nude images
To access the resources, visit the Send me a pic? page.
Online Blackmail is a new education resource which aims to help young people identify key characteristics of how blackmail manifests online, understand the impact it can have, and how they access help if they experience it.
The one-hour Online blackmail session can be delivered in schools, colleges, youth groups and other educational settings.
To access the resource, visit the Online blackmail education resource page.
Removing online nude images and videos guidance for professionals NSPCC
This guidance for professionals supporting young people to report nudes shared online using the Report Remove tool. Professionals can support young people to use the tool, which can help them to take down nude or sexual images and videos. The young person can choose to access emotional support from Childline, and the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) can try to remove the image or video. The guidance includes information on how professionals can talk to young people about the tool, before they need to use it.
The guidance can be viewed here – Supporting young people to report nudes images: Report Remove | NSPCC Learning
Online Safeguarding: What is the Dark Web? – Children’s Society guide
The Children’s Society have produced a guide to help practitioners understand more about online safeguarding including advice around how to talk to young people about it and where to seek further support.
Online Safeguarding: What is the Dark Web? guide
Child Sexual Abuse prevention campaign – Internet Watch Foundation
IWF’s self-generated child sexual abuse prevention campaign launches in April 2021. Their data shows 11-13 year old girls are increasingly at risk of grooming and coercion at the hands of online predators.
Any child, no matter what their background, with unrestricted access to internet-connected devices, is at risk.
The hard-hitting campaign, backed by the UK Home Office and Microsoft, aims to empower girls, and warn their parents and carers about the risks posed by online predators targeting children.
Videos and resources are available on the Internet Watch Foundation website
Gurls Out Loud is a resource for young girls which aims to encourage them to block, report and tell someone if an adult tries to engage with them via the internet
TALK Checklist by Internet Watch Foundation – The TALK checklist is for parents/carers to use when they are worried about their child’s internet use. The website contains practical advice on how to have the conversation with the young person.
Online Sexual Harm Reduction Guide
The Marie Collins Foundation has joined forces with the NWG Network to produce two new help guides aimed at reducing online harm.
The Online Sexual Harm Reduction Guide is aimed at professionals; How Can I Help My Child? Is aimed at parents and carers.
NSPCC online safety resource bank
The NSPCC has developed a resource bank specific to online safety featuring a number of resources such as:
- Building children and young people’s digital resilience podcast
- Online safety and social media best practice guide
- Guide to protecting children from online abuse
The full resource bank can be viewed on their website here.
Modern Day Slavery and Trafficking
The Humber Modern Slavery Partnership has a wealth of resources and information relating to Modern Day Slavery and how to spot the signs.
A list of signs and indicators and a number of video resources can be found on their website.
For further information and resources relating to Child Trafficking, please see the Children’s MARS guidance for safeguarding children who may have been trafficked
Neglect – Graded Care Profile 2
North Lincolnshire Children’s MARS has commissioned and approved the use of the Graded Care Profile 2 (GCP2) tool to assess children and their families’ experiences and situations where there is known or suspected neglect.
For further information in relation to the GCP2, please see the Neglect – Graded Care Profile 2 page.
Female Genital Mutilation
A range of resources can be found on the National FGM Centre website. Some examples include:
The Home Office have also produced a FGM Resource pack and e-learning package that can be found on their website.
Further information and resources can be found in the Children’s MARS guidance for identifying and responding to Female Genital Mutilation or the Children’s MARS Spotlight on FGM, Honour Based Abuse and Forced Marriage.
Child abuse linked to faith or belief
There is a variety of definitions associated with abuse linked to faith or belief. The National Action Plan includes the following. The concept of belief in:
- witchcraft and spirit possession, demons or the devil acting through children or leading them astray (traditionally seen in some Christian beliefs)
- the evil eye or djinns (traditionally known in some Islamic faith contexts) and dakini (in the Hindu context)
- ritual or multi murders where the killing of children is believed to bring supernatural benefits or the use of their body parts is believed to produce
potent magical remedies - use of belief in magic or witchcraft to create fear in children to make them more compliant when they are being trafficked for domestic slavery or sexual
exploitation
For further information see the National FGM Centre article on child abuse linked to faith or belief or download their information leaflet on CALFB.
Video resources can also be found below:
- Branded a Witch – An animation on Mardoche’s Yembi’s childhood in the UK where he was accused of being a witch by his aunt and uncle
- Advice for professionals video – Mardoche Yembi gives advice to professionals working with a child who has been accused of witchcraft or possession. We recommend you watch the above video first to see Mardoche’s story.
Additional resources including case examples and learning from serious case reviews are available on the National FGM Centre website.