Keeping kids safe: improving safeguarding responses to gang violence and criminal exploitation

Children’s Commissioner for England, March 2019
This report estimates there are 27,000 children in England who identify as a gang member, only a fraction of whom are known to children’s services. It recommends that the government needs to make child criminal exploitation a national priority, and lay out clear expectations about the role of all organisations working with children – including the police, schools, children’s services and NHS bodies. There also needs to be more support from the NHS, including better mental health support for children at risk of gang membership and exclusion.
Click here to view the full report.

A Crying Shame: A report by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner into vulnerable babies in England

Office of the Children’s Commissioner, October 2018
This report looks at how many babies might be vulnerable in this way and presents the facts about the sort of risks even very young children are being exposed to. Much of the data is missing; however, we are publishing the best estimates we can give of the numbers of babies living in high-risk households. A more detailed technical report explains some of the factors which affect the calculations2 – namely, that very little data is collected or collated about vulnerable babies, and that the data which does exist is often reported for children in age brackets (0-4) and not broken down for babies under a year old.
Click here to view the full report.