I have just completed an online awareness webinar on county lines. For those of you that don’t know, county lines is the gang related drug trafficking from big urban cities to smaller cities and towns in the countryside. It has gained popularity in recent years due to the increasing number of children they are exploiting. This is called child criminal exploitation and attacks the most vulnerable in our society.

The links are below.

Are You Listening? | Leicestershire Police (leics.police.uk)

County Lines - National Crime Agency

County Lines & Child Exploitation | The Children's Society

I am due to start training next week as a mentor for children that are at risk of CCE (child criminal exploitation) and although it is in my professional capacity, I am also worried about children like Charlie that are so vulnerable and are easily manipulated by situations like these. This is why I am sharing this post and awareness with you.

Children that are disabled and have any form of disability or SEN are more likely to be vulnerable. They are more likely to end up in criminal activity and they are more likely to be excluded from school. This was a valid concern of mine when Charlie was in the PRU. The results from research on excluded children and the risk of criminality are heartbreaking. I have included a link.

Excluded, exploited, forgotten: Childhood criminal exploitation and school exclusions | Just For Kids Law

Sharing with you this information, hopefully we can all become a little bit more aware of the dangers that lurk for our vulnerable children. Hopefully as I develop in my new role, I will be able to share with you more training tools and together we can stamp out predators and protect our children a little more.

I have started another blog on the dangers of cyber bullying and the vulnerability of our children online. I hope this blog is useful, bit out of the ream of what I normally post but felt it was too important a message to pass on.

Georgina x