Seeing the Invisible: Identifying Child Trafficking in the Modern World

The General Election promises a fresh start for social care, with each party presenting different ways in which they would tackle societal problems. With all of the main parties hard at work on the campaign trail, the real test will start on 9 June 2017

Modern slavery and trafficking is happening everywhere. It's around us in the most normal of places. Yet it's hard to see it - it's almost unseen - in the normality of everyday life.

Since the Children Act 2004 was passed, there has been a growing emphasis on services actively involving children, young people and parents/carers in the commissioning, development and evaluation of services. Increasingly, Central and Local Government has shown itself to be more interested in measuring performance than focussing and celebrating the...

Bereaved families are set to miss out on much needed financial support Not many benefits have survived the critical eye of the Tory government. From the 'bedroom' tax, to changes to jobseeker's support, successive governments have looked to balance the public purse by cutting down what has to be paid...

In 2015, a total of 64 Serious Case Reviews were reported, involving approximately 40 children under five years of age. Yet how can you take account of the Voice of the Child when the children involved are so young they might not have the vocabulary or ability to communicate effectively?...

In 2015, 8% of men and 3% of women said they drank more than 35 units of alcohol a week. In the UK, this tallies with our normalised view of alcohol consumption; a bottle of wine after a tough day a work, a beer with the football, maybe more on...

One in six men is estimated to be a victim of sexual abuse, yet there remains a reluctance by men to speak out, either due to perceived shame or embarrassment or the perception that sexual abuse is “a women's issue”. Yet the effects of sexual abuse can last a lifetime,...

More than 160,000 children may be classed as young carers, a recent report by the Children's Commissioner revealed. Yet time and again, these children are being failed by a system and falling through the cracks due to poor support and piecemeal provision. And, in this time of austerity, this situation...

“Seeing homeless vulnerable people in London recently on the day we had our Christmas get together at work really made us all challenge our thinking,” says SharedVision's Nigel Boulton. “We had far too much too eat and drink and then walked past countless men and women with little or nothing.”...

The stiff upper lip; a British cliché but an indication that we’re just not very good at talking about emotions. For the 41,000 children who are bereaved each year, this can mean struggling through difficult emotions with little support, trying to muddle through complex feelings and struggling to find ways...

If you throw a stone in a pond you get a ripple. After last week’s ‘Children Lost in a Fractured System’ debate, 350 delegates, service leader panelists and young people, could now cause ripples of their own, starting cultural change as they take the messages from the evening back to...

Shared Vision recently worked with ChickenShed and the #WhyFest at London's South Bank Centre to encourage to children speak up and be heard.

Leigh, 16, had just finished his GCSEs when his uncle asked him to join the family business: selling heroin and crack cocaine. With time on his hands and keen to please his uncle – who was a well known gangster and veteran drug dealer – Leigh agreed. “I was bored;...

When young musician Declan McKenna performed on Jools Holland’s Later programme on BBC2 recently, Declan’s teeshirt spoke louder than the lyrics of his song, with a plea in black on white: “Give 17-year-olds the vote.” It was a simple appeal for young people to be heard and taken seriously. Paul...

...and how we connected with the world's leading children safeguarding professionals in Calgary - and what we all learned...