10 comic postcards were launched this week that each highlight a different principle of working with young people affected by CSE  

This week tbe International Centre's blog features a very interesting reflective piece on a recent event that looked at closing the gap between policy commitments to listen to young people affected by CSE, and practice on the ground.

Isabelle Brodie leads work on the participation strand of the Alexi project at the International Centre. Here she reflects on conversations with project workers about the value and place of group work with young people in child sexual exploitation services.

The LEAP project is a European project which aims to support children and young people affected by sexual violence by strengthening and facilitating participatory practice. It is running from 2015-2017, and is part of the Our Voices programme of work.

This blog post introduces a poster, designed by a group of young people, for police officers, which outlines small steps the police can take when working with young people affected by child sexual exploitation (CSE), other forms of sexual abuse and associated vulnerabilities in adolescence.

This week Claire Cody writes about the launch of a new network that focuses on the ethics and value of participatory engagement with young people affected by sexual violence.

When young people have access to information and adults are able to have meaningful conversations with them a strong basis is in place for young people’s participation. However, many professionals are hesitant to discuss healthy sexual development, risky sexual behaviour and sexual violence with young people. Professionals know it’s important, but don’t feel competent to do so. This blog post shares learing from a recent webinar which explored these issues and was hosted as part of the LEAP Project.

Researchers in the International Centre are working on European projectswhich seek to prevent and support children and young people who experience, sexual exploitation and abuse. Kate D'Arcy draws attention to the LEAP project which is celebrating the end of its first year on the European Day for the protection of children against sexual exploitation and sexual abuse.

As part of the International Centre's (IC) CSE and Policing Knowledge Hub the IC are working with both young people and the police to enhance police  responses to child sexual exploitation and related vulnerabilities. Recently the team brought 7 police officers and 12 Experts by Experience together for a weekend in order to develop practical solutions to improve police responses to young people affected by safeguarding issues. in this blog post, Joanne Walker reflects on the recent residential  and some of the key messages that came out of it.

Isabelle Brodie is leading on the participation strand of the Alexi Project, an ambitious strategy developed by the Child Sexual Exploitation Funders’ Alliance (CSEFA). In this post she reflects on some of the key issues emerging from a  scoping review of the literature on participation and CSE which is published this week. You can read the reports here

The International Centre is currently coordinating a two-year project, funded by the European Commission, which seeks to develop knowledge, skills and understanding of a child rights approach to safe and ethical participatory practice.

A core aim of the International Centre is to develop and enhance opportunities for children and young people to meaningfully and ethically engage in, and influence, research, policy and practice. One way in which we hope to do this is through our partnership with The Oak Foundation, an international foundation promoting children’s rights through its Child Abuse Programme. The International Centre and the Oak Foundation are collaborating to support children’s participation in

preventing sexual violence against children in Europe.

Over the summer of 2015 researchers from the International Centre asked 45 children and young people across England, who had come into contact with the police because of safeguarding concerns, to tell us what the police did well and what they needed to do better.

Jenny Pearce is the Co-Director of the International Centre. In this post she shares some reflections on the value of co-presenting with young people, after her experience of doing so at the Blast conference with a young man called Greg.