PCSO warns parents and carers of how to spot signs of child exploitation

“Make their business your business” is the advice of an award-winning PCSO who has worked tirelessly as part of a team to identify and safeguard children in Staffordshire from the dangers of grooming and exploitation.

PCSO Megan Rogers recently won the Excellence in Performance Award at this year’s Staffordshire Association of Women in Policing Awards and has been reflecting how she helped to protect 15 children who were at risk of being exploited. 

“The most valuable thing I have learned by working to protect children is how vital public information is,” PCSO Rogers said. 

“When members of the public tell us of instances where young people have been loitering around, seemingly with no purpose, or engaging in nuisance or anti-social behaviour, to me that is the first sign that these children are potential victims of exploitation. 

“Once we have information from the community, we are able to act on it by carrying out patrols in hot-spot areas, speaking to the children themselves as well as their parents and carers, and then begin to develop an intelligence picture of what might be happening and how we can protect them.”

Other signs that children may be at risk of grooming and exploitation include:

⦁ Having new clothes or phones that are unaccounted for

⦁ Associating with older children or adults to which they seemingly have no connection

⦁ Frequently going missing or not adhering to parental/guardian curfews

⦁ Being secretive in relation to their whereabouts, who they are in contact with and what they are up to.

“The most important thing I can recommend to any parent, carer or guardian is to make their child’s business, their business, and by that I mean; regularly check your child’s phone/s, keep tabs on where they are and who they are with, recognise if they are wearing new clothes or have new items that you haven’t purchased and recount these instances when you make a report to us,” PCSO Rogers added. 

“Any information you can give us on concerning activities relating to children is really important as it helps us to identify those potentially at risk and work with parents and partners in the community to safeguard them appropriately. 

“Our work has shown that older children who have been exploited are often the ones tasked with recruiting younger children into the ranks, including some as young as nine or 10 years old. So it’s vital that anyone spotting concerning behaviours report these to us as soon as possible.”

For more information on the signs of child grooming and exploitation, visit: Child criminal exploitation | Child abuse | Staffordshire Police. 

To make a report, call us on 101, use LiveChat on our website or call 999 in an emergency.