Introduction

‘Child protection is everyone's job’ is a familiar sentiment, heard from statutory child protection services throughout the UK. In Scotland, this has been expressed by the mantra ‘It's everyone's job to make sure I’m all right’ (Scottish Executive, 2002), and in England and Wales by ‘Every child matters’ (DoE, 2003). Yet this sense of shared concern and responsibility is often accompanied by feelings of helplessness and inadequacy, in personal and professional discussions about keeping children safe from sexual harm.

This chapter builds upon our belief that protecting children from sexual exploitation and abuse cannot be considered in isolation, but is one key element in an integrated approach to supporting children and families within their communities. It cannot be separated from the range of social factors which influence children's development and life experience. That is an international approach to children's wellbeing, and to the comprehensive way in which it needs to be secured. It is reemphasised in the United Nations’ Millenium Goals (UN, 2006; Stahl et al, 2006).

Such an approach means acknowledging the realities of poverty, inequalities and deprivation, alongside culturally harmful attitudes to gender, race and diversity, as well as the predatory and brutalising behaviour of some individuals and groups. Thus joined-up strategic planning, which takes account of all available evidence of connections among personal, community and societal influences, is needed. That vitally includes fostering and supporting genuinely informed communities in protecting children and young people from abuse and exploitation, and involving young people actively in their own safety.

Contrast with individual approaches

This approach contrasts with the individually focused, narrowly professionalised approaches to child protection which have long dominated public policy. We analyse this critically in the first part of this chapter. Such systems have been unable to make substantial progress in preventing harm and abuse. While investigation will still be needed in individual cases, and must be of the highest quality we can achieve, systems based almost entirely on a case-by-case approach can never tackle the root causes of the ‘bottomless pit of need’ (Baldwin and Carruthers, 1998). Yet even where locally based, community-wide protective services are implemented, they find it hard to maintain funding stability – usually being the first to be cut during hard economic times. Witness, for example, the ‘roller-coaster’ existence of family centres, and the struggles of local Sure Start projects to maintain their outreach work.