Last updated March 2025.
The Safe Project is based within Leeds Children and Families Services. The aim of the team is to support young people to be safe and free from child exploitation (CE) by providing intensive, flexible and timely support to the young people and their families/carers.
The team was established in April 2015 and consists of a range of staff including social workers, youth workers, family practitioners and a harmful sexual behaviour co-ordinator. The Safe Project works closely with partners from the children’s social work service, police, education, third sector agencies, health and substance misuse services.
Families supported by the project are open to Leeds Children’s Social Work Service on Child in Need Plans, Child Protection Plans or as Children Looked After.
Who the Safe Project works with and how referrals are made
The team offers practical, emotional support and direct work to children and or parents/ carers who are assessed as at moderate or significant risk of child sexual exploitation or child criminal exploitation. This assessment of risk is made by the allocated social worker using the child exploitation risk identification tool. A similar tool, the Child Exploitation Risk Identification tool, is available for non-social work practitioners from Leeds Safeguarding Children’s Partnership (LSCP) child exploitation web pages which is completed when there are exploitation concerns and when a referral to Children and Families is required.
Following the social worker’s completion of the assessment and with the consent of the child/parent, a referral can be made to the Safe Project for specialist support and intervention. Support can be requested for individual work (with the child), Safety Net (parents/carers) or for both interventions. The social worker then remains involved for the duration of Safe’s work, with professionals working alongside each other to share information and to review and manage risks through the Vulnerability Risk Management Plan (VRMP). The VRMP will make it clear what those working with the child are doing to try to reduce the risks, to build resilience and to disrupt the exploitation.
In some cases, it is not appropriate to offer a service to children - for example, if other similar services are involved, where there is no consent or where there are already safe and well- established trusted relationships with a professional that can be utilised. In these cases, Safe can offer advice, guidance and resources through the offer of a Safe Space Consultation.
What else is offered by the Safe Project
Awareness raising and training around child exploitation
Training with staff groups both within and external to Children and Families Services.
Safe Space consultations
A one-off consultation to offer specialist support and advice to practitioners working with children who are at risk of or are being exploited.
This could include:
- advice on completing CE risk assessment toolkits
- procedures around CE
- safety planning
- resources to deliver direct work and education to children, parents/carers.
Community work
Community work aims to provide a bridge between statutory safeguarding and grassroots community action to combat child exploitation. For local community groups, the project supports community events in relation to awareness-raising and co-delivered training sessions designed to help residents and volunteers recognise the emerging signs of both child sexual and child criminal exploitation. Due to capacity, they are only able to offer support when this is requested in advance and during normal working hours (Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm).
Harmful sexual behaviour
Offering specialist advice and assessment support to the allocated social worker.
Find out more information about harmful sexual behaviour through our one minute guide.
How young people and their families are supported by the team
Children are generally seen weekly, to build familiarity and trust, and a plan of work is agreed based on key areas of risk and concern. This may include topics such as consent, healthy relationships, safety planning and developing social interests. Similarly, parents are seen weekly to develop their knowledge and skills in understanding the complexities of exploitation and in developing missing and safety plans to reduce the risks.
The team uses PACE’s (Parents Against Child Sexual Exploitation) Relational Safeguarding Model, viewing parents as protective partners. They also use the Leeds Practice Principles to identify key areas of need, and use contextual safeguarding to support partners explore how exploitation can be disrupted.
The Safe Project’s intervention is regularly reviewed, and the child is supported to participate in this process where possible and appropriate. Their work is not time-limited; Safe workers remain involved until the child no longer wants support or the risks around CE have reduced though may not be entirely eliminated. A plan will be agreed prior to the Safe Project withdrawing, which may involve other agencies continuing to support the child and their family.
Key contacts and more information
For information about making a referral and/ or about the work of the Safe Project, please contact safeprojectteamVM@leeds.gov.uk.
For more information about child exploitation, the LSCP website includes resources such as the CE multi-agency protocol, CE Checklist tool for partner agencies and practice guidance.
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