Safeguarding and keeping young people safe

Ensuring that young people are safe in our community is one of the key priorities of the Adur & Worthing Safer Communities Partnership. There are a number of national issues that affect young people, and some of them will likely have an impact on some young people in our local community, including:

knife crime
county lines drug dealing
child criminal exploitation and gangs (CCE)
child sexual exploitation (CSE)

Contextual safeguarding

In order to understand and mitigate the risks some children and young people in our community face, the Safer Community Partnership uses a contextual safeguarding approach. Contextual safeguarding recognises that young people are influenced by a range of people and environments outside their own family and home setting; looking at where they are spending time, who they are spending time with, and what risks could be posed to them.

For more information about contextual safeguarding please see:

To support this approach we work closely with many agencies, including Sussex Police, Social Care, the Youth Offending Service, British Transport Police, Change Grow Live, local schools and colleges, local youth organisations and charities.

Some of the Adur & Worthing Safer Communities Partnership's recent initiatives include:

creating information sheets for local Airbnb hosts about the risks of county lines
funding the Directions programme to deliver a session to some at-risk young people
funding Out of the Shadows to deliver sessions to at-risk young girls
delivering training (via YMCA) to professionals about child criminal exploitation
organising online sessions (via Missing People) for parents/guardians about child criminal exploitation
providing peer mentoring to a number of young people transitioning from junior to high school via the Mentivity Project
letters to Parents/Guardians via schools with general information and/or specific concerns
creating an online resource for young people with information about crime, exploitation and how they can report their concerns

How to report safeguarding concerns

If you have any suspicions, concerns or information about a particular community location or group of young people please contact us. When you make a report to us, it is really helpful to provide as much information as you can, such as the name of the location, any dates and/or times of significance, and what your concerns are.

There are other ways you can report any concerns, depending on the circumstances:

For any emergency where a crime is happening at the time of the call and/or there is immediate threat to safety/life, phone the police on 999
If you think a crime has taken place but it's not an emergency, call Sussex Police on 101. 101 can also be used for passing information to the Police.
Crimestoppers: for reporting crime and/or information anonymously. Not be used in emergency situations.
See: Crimestoppers website
Fearless: for young people to report crime and/or information anonymously. Not be used in emergency situations.
See: Fearless website
Integrated Front Door (IFD): to report any concerns about a young person who you think may be suffering from neglect, abuse or at is risk in some other way
See: West Sussex SCP (Safeguarding Children Partnership) website