Safeguarding Boys and Young Men from Child Criminal Exploitation

Session One: Why Boys Become Invisible

Ungrievability and the assumptions built into safeguarding

This opening session introduces Butler's concept of 'grievability' and applies it to boys' experiences of criminal exploitation, asking why their victimisation is so often overlooked or reframed as culpability. Participants will examine how gender and age assumptions are embedded, often invisibly, in the legislation, policy and practice frameworks they use every day.

Covers

• Why boys' victimhood is harder to recognise — the concept of ungrievability
• A short history of how safeguarding frameworks have developed around gendered and age-based assumptions
• Where these assumptions show up in current tools, thresholds and language

Activities

• Case vignette discussion: identifying assumptions in a real-style referral
• Small-group mapping of participants' own frameworks and tools against the ungrievability lens

Session Two: Mapping the Terrain

CSE, CCE and intersectional risk

This session clarifies the overlaps and gaps between child sexual exploitation (CSE) and child criminal exploitation (CCE) and introduces an intersectional framework for understanding boys' vulnerability and masculinity — moving beyond gender alone to consider race, class, disability and geography.

Covers

• Where CSE and CCE definitions overlap, and where current thresholds leave boys unprotected
• An intersectional framework for assessing vulnerability and risk
• How geography and place can shape boys' exposure to exploitation

Activities

• Case comparison exercise: applying CSE/CCE definitions to ambiguous cases
• Guided intersectional risk-mapping exercise using participants' own caseloads or policy (anonymised)

Session Three: From Theory to Practice

Participation and adolescent development informed approaches

The most practice-focused session of the course, this workshop introduces participation-led approaches (drawing on the Lundy Model) and ‘in-between spaces’ and works through how to apply both when working directly with boys and young men.

Covers

• Rethinking participation: what genuine voice and agency look like for boys in this context
• In between spaces (Contextual Safeguarding and Van Vliet’s the Fourth Environment)— working with the spaces and relationships around a young person, not just the individual
• Practical tools for building trust and engagement with boys who are lack trust in services

Activities

• Role-play / practice rehearsal of a participation-led conversation
• Facilitated discussion: applying new approach to a shared example

Session Four: Embedding Change

From individual practice to policy and service design

The final session turns outward from individual practice to team and organisational change, helping participants build a realistic action plan for their own service.

Covers

• Key policy and practice recommendations arrived at throughout the previous three sessions, and their implications for local services
• What 'good' looks like at a service-design level for boys affected by CCE
• Building sustainable change beyond the training room

Activities

• Individual action-planning exercise, supported by peer feedback
• Closing group discussion: commitments and next steps

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Explain why boys and young men affected by CCE are frequently rendered 'ungrievable' within safeguarding systems and identify the intersectional (gender, race, ethnicity, age, geography, neurodiversity and disability) assumptions embedded in current frameworks.
• Distinguish and connect CSE and CCE as overlapping forms of exploitation and recognise where current definitions and thresholds create practice gaps.
• Apply an intersectional lens — including race, class and geography — to assessing and responding to boys' risk and vulnerability.
• Use participation-led and adolescent development informed approaches in direct practice with boys and young men.
• Identify practical steps for embedding these approaches within their own team, service or organisation.