CYP First are two passionate child exploitation professionals aiming to transform your practice and response to children by delivering creative, innovative and practical training.
Helen Matthews and Andy Thompson of CYP First hosted a workshop at our 2022 Safeguarding Adults Conference exploring how adults can be groomed for exploitation. In this post, Helen Matthews discusses the workshop, and her wider campaign.
Grooming in the Modern World
This session considered what modern day grooming looks like. We showed attendees how to recognise that someone is at risk. The session explored the role of adults within exploitation and cuckooing, equipping practitioners with the knowledge of how to escalate their concerns effectively should they believe someone is at risk.
The session concluded by providing recommendations and a checklist for practitioners that can be used when working with adults.
We designed our session at the conference to get people thinking about what they might see and what they can do if they do see it.
It’s Not Cuckooing. It’s Home Invasion
Our job is to open your eyes to the reality of grooming and exploitation in adults. We want people to realise that grooming does not just affect children.
In our workshop, we focussed on the language we can use when discussing grooming. We also discussed how we want to turn away from the term “Cuckooing”. We want to use a more appropriate term to describe the life changing impact this has on a person. “Home Invasion” is a much better name for this crime.
I think we are all guilty of overusing and misusing certain terms. We need to realise how the words we use can impact the response from other professionals. We are all dealing with other professionals who may be desensitised to the subject matter too.
Passionate Professionals Making a Difference
It was an honour when The Ann Craft Trust asked us to speak at their The Safeguarding Conference.
The Ann Craft Trust provides an exemplary service and we had heard many good things about their annual conference. But we never thought they would ask us to contribute!
The day was packed full of passionate professionals who all were there to make a difference. This is also what we aim to do with our training—make a difference.
If you want to find our more about our service then please email office@cypfirst.co.uk or access our website: www.cypfirst.co.uk.
Helen Matthews has 18 years’ first hand experience of working with CSE survivors and is now the CEO of Street Teams, a charity responding to all aspects of exploitation.