Mr Kurti visited a shared education partnership at Nettlefield and St Matthew’s primary schools in Belfast, talking with school children, teachers and principals about their experiences and the advantages of being in a shared education partnership. 

Professor Joanne Hughes, CSE Director, said:

"Queen’s Centre for Shared Education has a long history of working with Kosovo colleagues to support their development of an adapted shared education model. We were delighted to meet Prime Minister Albin Kurti and his team, to showcase the shared education journey in Northern Ireland. We were especially pleased that our meeting took place at the Nettlefield/St Matthew’s site, so they could see the partnership that has developed between schools in one of the most divided interfaces in Belfast."

Dr Edona Maloku, former Deputy Minister of Education in Kosovo and a Fellow at CSE, funded by the Social Change Initiative, remarked:

“I was very proud to have the Prime Minister of Kosovo and our Kosovo team visit Northern Ireland to see the work being done here in peace-building. I am particularly vested in strengthening the partnerships between our two contexts so that a model of Shared Education is locally tailored and piloted in Kosovo. It is an initiative we have been working on for a while now with our Northern Ireland collaborators, so getting the Kosovo government team to talk to the stakeholders and see the partnering schools in practice was a big milestone in this direction. There is much to learn and exchange between our two countries."

They were able to visits 23 organisations across the two cities and the key learning included: positive approaches to mental health data and outcomes; the extension of children and young people’s mental health services to age 25; the centrality of lived experience in all aspects of services including the workforce; the importance of trauma-informed care; holistic and culturally appropriate approaches to mental health; and the integration of research, and researchers, in services. The learning from the trip is being used in a number of ways including to inform the approach to data and outcomes being developed as part of the Northern Ireland Mental Health Strategy.

The trip brought opportunities to further develop relationships with key policy makers, researchers and practitioners in Australia and New Zealand and to enable ongoing knowledge exchange and collaboration. Three of the people visited by Gavin, Claire and Iain will be coming to Queen’s University this summer. Professor Darryl Maybery from Monash University was appointed as a Visiting Scholar with us in the School of SSESW and joined us in June. Two researchers from LaTrobe University in Melbourne, Tessa Zirnsak and Bianca Mandeville, joined SSESW in July.   

Nine students from across our BA programme (Social Policy, Criminology and Sociology) won scholarships to study abroad and spent three weeks in June at Belmont University, Nashville. They lived and studied on the Belmont campus, exploring the history of Nashville and the social and economic challenges that persist in the city.

Two undergraduates will spend a year abroad at Boston College and University of North Carolina, Wilmington. One of them was also successful in her application for a Clinton Scholarship, a fund established to give students opportunities to study in the USA and to develop their skills, networks and experience as global citizens. She will spend the final year of her Queen’s University Belfast degree in Criminology and Sociology studying at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.

Two Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) students did a four week teaching practice in secondary schools in Spain in May as part of their PGCE. The students were successful in getting £1000 each from the AHSS Faculty’s JetSet award.

In June, seventeen PGCE students from the English and Modern Languages pathways went to Germany for a language, literature and culture trip. They visited schools in Berlin and Munich, giving them opportunities to reflect on their experiences of education in Northern Ireland and the curriculum they have been teaching during their placements. They took part in literature trails in Germany and examine the influence of place and space on literature.

Life in Belfast is quite exciting. The people are extraordinarily friendly and helpful. Within a short period of time, Northern Ireland became one of my favourite places to live. You can find world renowned, beautiful tourist destinations like the Giant's Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, Dunluce Castle and the Dark Hedges. All are made to feel welcome to come and try the delicious food and drinks of Belfast.

I am actively engaged with numerous activities at Queen's besides my study. In 2021-22, I was elected as Faculty Representative of the QUB Students' Union. My contribution to establishing the Inter-Cultural Exchange Community in Queen's was a milestone of my tenure. This academic year, I am working as a Student Skills Assistant in the School of SSESW, giving me opportunities to extend my support to undergraduate students in Social Work. The main objective is to provide them with a smooth academic journey by solving their difficulties in structuring their assignments, referencing, avoiding plagiarism and preparing for the exams.

Furthermore, my involvement in the Centre for Inclusion, Transformation and Equality as a Postgraduate Research Student coordinator, and engagement in many more on-campus activities, are giving me an excellent experience of academic life in the School of SSESW and Queen’s University as a whole.

The issue has been brought into focus by data which show that approximately one in five people in Northern Ireland have a potential mental health problem.

The conference brought together policy makers, academics and professionals from statutory, voluntary and community sector organisations to focus on prevention and to consider the impact of their work on public mental health.

Keynote speakers included Lee Knifton, Director of Devolved Nations at the Mental Health Foundation, and Dr David McDaid, London School of Economics and Political Sciences, who works on mental health and public health in the UK, Europe and globally.

Aidan Dawson, Chief Executive at the Public Health Agency, which coordinated the conference, said:

"Improving the mental health of the people of Northern Ireland is a complex but very important issue, which is why we are keen to drive forward insightful and effective conversations around how this can best be achieved. By getting to the root causes of poor mental health, and taking collaborative steps to help address these issues at source, we can take significant steps forward in improving wellbeing in our communities. This conference brings together experts, policy makers and those on the frontline to challenge and debate how we can continually evolve what we do to drive down the prevalence of poor mental health here."

The Queen’s team is led by led by Maria Lohan in the School of Nursing & Midwifery (Professor of Social Science and Health, and UNESCO Chair in Gender Equality) and, in addition to School of SSESW colleagues, includes staff from the Schools of Nursing & Midwifery, Law, and History, Anthropology, Philosophy & Politics.  

A number of SSESW doctoral students undertake research in the ANSER Network’s areas of interest around Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. These include third year PhD student Pinar Celik, whose study is focused on developing sex education tools to raise awareness on sexual abuse among primary school-aged children with special educational needs and disabilities, and first year PhD student Megan Turner who was awarded a collaborative PhD study scholarship. Megan is undertaking a Northern Ireland-wide study with Common Youth, Northern Ireland’s sexual health charity for young people, to explore sexual attitudes and sexual competencies with young people. 

The ANSER Network will focus on a range of academic activities and engagements, aiming to develop interventions and educational tools with a practical use and tangible impact in society, to improve people’s sexual health, access to good quality sexual health services, relationship and sexuality education and to raise awareness of, and prevent, sexual and gender-based violence. 

After completing a PhD in Politics at University College Dublin in 2005, I worked for nine years at the Belfast campus of Trinity College Dublin before moving to Queen’s University in 2015. I was elected to the Royal Irish Academy in 2022 in recognition of my achievements in research. 

I am lead researcher on a multi-nation project on religion in societies emerging from Covid-19, comparing the island of Ireland, Canada, Germany and Poland. It focuses on: religious discourses around health, illness and science; relationships between religions and the state; and religious adaptations to the digital world. So far, we are finding that religions in these contexts were very supportive of government restrictions, with limited complaints about violations of religious freedom during the pandemic. In addition, after initial enthusiasm, religious groups have been more cautious about practising religion online.  

I co-edited, with Queen’s historian Andrew Holmes, the Oxford Handbook of Religion in Modern Ireland, published in 2024. It has 32 chapters on a range of topics and time periods from 1800 to the present day. It engages with key debates on identity, secularization, everyday religion and gender. 

My books on Northern Ireland include Considering Grace: Presbyterians and the Troubles, co-authored with Jamie Yohanis, which records the deeply moving stories of 120 ordinary people’s experiences of the Troubles, exploring how faith shaped their responses to violence and its aftermath. I also wrote Unity Pilgrim: The Life of Fr Gerry Reynolds CSsR, a popular biography of a priest based in Belfast’s Clonard Monastery during the Troubles. Fr Gerry played a key role during the peace process through his involvement in secret talks with paramilitaries and through his pioneering ecumenical projects.  

I am a competitive runner and ran the marathon for Northern Ireland at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. I also ran for Ireland in the 2018 and 2016 European championships and won the 2022 Belfast Marathon.  

Northern Ireland has the highest economic inactivity rate across all UK regions at just under 26%. Unemployment rates are the lowest of any UK region, making it difficult for employers to fill vacancies. However, there are many people who are ‘hidden unemployed’, who would like to work but face barriers in doing so. This includes women, individuals with disabilities and people aged over 50.  

The three-year Local Policy Innovation Partnership is funded by UK Research and Innovation. The project will facilitate further research into crucial areas including future skills needs, lifelong learning, labour market inclusion for vulnerable groups and regional balance. A key product will be a Labour Market Observatory, an online, freely available resource filling labour market data gaps in Northern Ireland and improving knowledge and intelligence about the region’s current and future skills needs. 

Paula Devine commented: “The project is an exciting and important opportunity to bring a wide range of organisations together to help ensure the inclusion of everyone in the labour market.”   

Follow EPIC Futures NI on X/Twitter @EPICFuturesNI. 

In January, ARK hosted a lecture by Professor Catherine Needham (University of Birmingham) on Social Care in the Four Nations of the UK. Professor Needham discussed how crises in social care are portrayed differently across the four nations of the UK. A video of the event is available on the ARK website.

In March, ARK hosted Nirmali Goswami and Riniki Dutta from Tezpur University. Working with Gemma Carney, Nirmali and Riniki participated in a range of seminars and workshops. The visit was funded by a Department for the Economy Overseas Development Aid grant – Changing Generations of India: developing collaborative indigenous research methods to understand young lives in India. Nirmali and Gemma have been working as co-supervisors of Murchana Kaushik’s PhD which explores intergenerational transmission of political values in Assam.

Erin Early, Paula Devine, Dirk Schubotz and Minchen Liu met with the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee which visited Queen’s University in March as part of its inquiry into integrated education. The ARK researchers published a report in 2023 exploring methods to assess demand for integrated education.

The project seeks to address this gap by working directly with CYP to understand and theorise respect and disrespect in their everyday lives and to use this to inform policy and practice. The work is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Led by SSESW academic Siobhan McAlister (Criminology), it is a collaboration between Queen’s University Belfast, Ulster University and the University of Strathclyde.

Researchers are recruiting two advisory groups of children and young people to develop their own theories of respect and disrespect, which will guide the study, as well as to make decisions about what will be researched and how the research will be conducted, and to understand and communicate the findings. A variety of methods (questions in large annual population surveys of 11- and 16-year-olds, ‘dialogue hubs’ and narrative interviews) will be used to enable children and young people to develop a theory of respect, and to capture their views, attitudes and lived experience of respect/disrespect/lack of respect. The findings are expected to inform local government policy and professional practice with a view to generating improved relationships among CYP and their peers and the adults in their lives. For more information contact s.mcalister@qub.ac.uk

Lorna Montgomery and Danielle McIlroy, both Social Work academics in the School of SSESW, and Charlene McShane from Queen’s University Centre for Public Health worked with their Ugandan counterparts, led by Dr Cyprian Misinde, Makerere University, Kampala and Professor Rose Clarke Nanyonga, Clarke International University, Kampala.

As part of this collaborative partnership the team had previously explored the needs of the estimated 6 million family carers in Uganda, concluding that family-based care, in its present configuration, is unable to deliver good quality, sustainable, integrated care. The economic burden on carers has led to increased poverty, negatively impacting on the wider family, and in particular on women and children. Lack of attention and investment in family caregiving is undermining actions to achieve inclusive and sustainable development.

Previous studies conducted by the team also highlighted the need to develop resources to educate and support family carers. Interventions supporting carers in low-income contexts were found to be feasible, affordable and acceptable.

The workshops in March were funded by the Northern Ireland Department for the Economy. Key stakeholders met to further develop the family carers’ resources and to agree a framework for a ‘Uganda Caregiver’s Toolkit’, and processes through which the toolkit could be developed and integrated. The team also met with the Ugandan Ministry of Health to discuss and action the co-production of a family caregiver’s policy.

As part of the next stage for this collaboration, the team is seeking funding to further develop and test the resource.

Published in December 2023, the Sixth Peace Monitoring Report covers the period October 2018 to May 2023, and gathers and examines data on a wide range of topics. For some of these, such as political developments, the activities of paramilitary groups, policing and community relations, the link to peace is obvious. However, a sustainable peace requires tackling socio-economic inequalities as well as building a strong and productive economy and trust in political and other institutions. These issues are, therefore, also included in the report. 

As in previous reports in the series, the report is based on four themes: political progress - how (or if) the political institutions set up under the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement are working; the sense of safety - covering safety in different contexts including the home; equality – including structural, economic and social equality, as well as progress on social policy; and cohesion and sharing – examining sharing and separation in education, housing and public space.  

As we might expect, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is obvious throughout the report, as is the influence of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, especially given its 25th anniversary. 

The team was led by Ann Marie Gray (Ulster University), and also included Jennifer Hamilton, Grainne Kelly, Brendan Lynn and Richard Johnson (Ulster University) and Richard Martin (London School of Economics). The project is run by the Community Relations Council. It was financially supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. 

The Peace Monitoring Report is available on the ARK website.

From 2015-2017 I was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Criminal Justice Centre and Centre for Operational Policing Research at the University of Warwick, before taking up successive post-doctoral roles in the School of Law and Mitchell Institute at Queen’s University Belfast. I took up my current role as lecturer in Criminology in the School of SSESW in September 2021. 

My primary research interests are in the area of transitional justice, with my published work covering post-conflict police reform, truth recovery, memorialisation and debates around victimhood. More recently, I’ve developed an interest in narrative criminology/victimology and the use of memoirs in understanding lived experience of conflict, harm and victimisation. This has been useful in getting students on our Exploring Harm & Victimisation and Criminological Theory modules that I currently convene and teach on to think critically about structures of exclusion, the voices that we don’t hear from in mainstream discourse and different conceptualisations of harm and victimhood. 

I have also been lucky enough to see my research make some real-world impact in the lives of those impacted by victimisation and harm. For example, my work with colleagues in Queen's University School of Law on compensation for conflict-related bereavement has proven useful to the Commission for Victims & Survivors for Northern Ireland, while other aspects of this research have been drawn on by international NGOs like REDRESS and the International Centre for Transitional Justice. 

The research was commissioned by the Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland (SBNI), with funding from the cross-Executive Programme on Paramilitarism and Organised Crime. The SBNI has been supporting organisations to become trauma informed since 2018 and commissioned the research to gauge progress. The research also identified potential benefits for staff and organisations, including increased job satisfaction and reduced staff sickness and turnover, leading to cost savings in the longer-term.  

The resulting report, ‘We are on a Journey: Implementing Trauma Informed Approaches in Northern Ireland’, recommends governmental commitment through a trauma informed strategy for Northern Ireland. The authors recommend establishing a regional Trauma Informed Approach resource centre or hub and a trauma-related training framework promoting best practice consistency across services and settings.  

Bernie McNally, Safeguarding Board, said:

"Early adversity and trauma can negatively impact on individuals and communities. We all deserve to live in a society that prioritises trauma responsive environments, policies, systems and services, that can benefit local people and communities."

The research included an international literature review, online survey, focus groups and case studies from Fane Street Primary School, the Salvation Army Thorndale Parenting Service, Youth Justice Agency, and Belfast Trust Health Inclusion Service for homeless people.  

Suzanne Mooney said:

"Trauma informed approaches were universally perceived as having ‘no downsides’. They provide many benefits for service users and their family/network, but also for staff and service providers. These are critical issues in light of workforce recruitment and retention challenges across Northern Ireland."

The current system for handling threats to life is managed by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and it was found that the current practice of issuing warning letters often leaves victims traumatized and feeling abandoned. The report found that this process could benefit from a more consistent approach. 

The report notes that current issues around community trust in policing and the impact of ongoing paramilitary intimidation in communities have had an impact in reporting threats and accessing essential services. 

Proposed options include reforming PSNI guidance on threats to life, extending coordination protocols to 'at risk' adults, formulating minimum standards for data collection and establishing a centralised process for the threat management process. 

The report suggests that a greater focus on partnership working and a public health approach (which involves early intervention and co-operation across professional sectors), aligned with a review of guidance for those deemed ‘at risk’ and a greater focus on data analysis and accountability mechanisms, will help to improve support for victims and increase community confidence in policing. 

The report, entitled ‘Human Rights and the Management of Threats to Life’, was funded by the Executive Programme on Paramilitarism, Criminality and Organised Crime and can be accessed on the Ending the Harm website. 

The Philosophical Limitations of Educational Assessment: Implications for Academic Selection offers a brief overview of the history of academic selection in the United Kingdom, and a review of evidence relating to its consequences. The book argues that the practice of using the results of contemporary high stakes tests to make important decisions about students involves logical and moral dilemmas that a conscientious educator cannot ignore. Furthermore, it is suggested that the nature of the moral dilemmas depends on the purpose and significance of the test. In the case of high stakes tests used for academic selection purposes, the book argues that, not only can the moral wrong be highly significant, but better solutions are within reach.

The Philosophical Limitations of Educational Assessment: Implications for Academic Selection (from Palgrave Macmillan) has received positive peer reviews, including one from Professor Alex Lautensach, University of Northern British Columbia, Canada:

“The book presents a convincing argument that high-stakes academic testing measures the wrong attributes and, on the whole, does more harm than good, especially in the context of academic selection. It places the onus on educators and on wider society to come up with better alternatives. The book is well researched, concise, to the point and extremely relevant to educators, caregivers, and school system administrators everywhere.”

Conversion practices (also known as conversion therapies, reparative therapies, and cure therapies) encompass all medical, psychological, religious, cultural or any other interventions that seek to erase, repress or change a person’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Integral to these practices is the assumption or belief that LGBTQI+ identities are damaging, sinful or the result of a ‘medical dysfunction’ that can be cured.

This research was commissioned by LGBTQ+ sector organisations Cara-Friend, HEReNI, The Rainbow Project and TransgenderNI and was supported by funding from the Department for Communities to develop an understanding of conversion practices in Northern Ireland. The research study found that they were advertised publicly, or conversely, performed in a clandestine way. Participants identified a range of harm caused by participation in conversion practices, reflecting findings similar to those of cross-country studies of such practices.

The prestigious Gold Medal award is bestowed on distinguished representatives from the world of science, culture, higher education and public life in recognition of their outstanding contributions, including their commitment to the struggle for human rights and dignity. The Gold Medal was presented by the Rector of MUNI, Professor Martin Béreš during their 105th anniversary celebrations at MUNI earlier this year. 

Karola said about her Masaryk University award: "Receiving this international recognition for my work in relation to bringing the science of behaviour analysis to the community in the Czech Republic means the world to me. I have been working with my colleagues in the Czech Republic since the mother of a child with profound autism contacted me asking for help. Our team of parents, autistic adults, academics, politicians and professionals work together to enhance the lives of autistic children and adults. I feel that I received this award in the name of the whole team.”  

Professor Sir Ian Greer, President and Vice-Chancellor of Queen’s University, commented: “I warmly congratulate Professor Dillenburger on her well-deserved recognition for her remarkable achievement in advancing autism services in the Czech Republic. Her unwavering commitment and impactful research have brought about positive change, enriching the lives of autistic individuals and their families throughout the world.”

Taking a chronological and all-island approach, the Handbook explores the complex and changing roles of religion both before and after partition. It includes fresh perspectives on long-standing historical and political debates about religion, identity and politics, including religion's contributions to division and violence. It also features contributions on how religion interacts with education, the media, law, gender and sexuality, science, literature, minority religions and memory. 

The Oxford Handbook of Religion in Modern Ireland, edited by Gladys Ganiel (School of SSESW) and Andrew R. Holmes (School of HAPP) is available from Oxford University Press.  

After qualifying as a social worker in 1995 Gavin worked for 12 years in mental health services, in the Northern Health and Social Care Trust, as a Community Mental Health Team social worker, out of hours Approved Social Worker, project manager and team leader in assertive outreach and rehabilitation. His research interests are in the area of mental health, specifically: the effectiveness of mental health services; the social determinants of mental health; human rights and mental health/mental capacity legislation; and the associations between adverse childhood experiences and mental health. Gavin moved to Queen’s University in 2008.

In his inaugural lecture, Gavin focused on the importance of human rights and social justice in the areas of law, policy and practice around complex needs. He also highlighted the benefits of working with Praxis Care as a research partner in order to inform change and promote positive outcomes for service users and carers.

At the Praxis conference, a combination of international and Northern Ireland based research was presented to an engaged audience of policy makers, service providers, service users, carers and researchers. The event was supported by the School of SSESW, Praxis and the Research and Development Division of the Public Health Agency.

Students and staff heard from guest speaker Aine Morrison, Chief Social Worker in the Department of Health, and were joined by Gillian McAuley representing the Northern Ireland Social Care Council.

Most of Aine Morrison’s career has been spent in learning disability services for children and adults and she also practiced as an Approved Social Worker so she had plenty of encouraging words to mark students’ dedication to their professions by investing in improving their professional practice through completion of their School of SSESW programmes.

The School offers a suite of Postgraduate Pathways in healthcare topics.

The project Act on Early Life Autism Signs (Act-ELAS), led by Katerina Dounavi with Meral Koldas and funded through an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, saw more than 1,000 parents and professionals take part in a range of on-site and virtual dissemination events held in Belfast, Thessaloniki (Greece), and online in English, Turkish and Greek.  

Katerina Dounavi and Meral Koldas presented a poster entitled Parental perspectives around autism early life screening and genetic testing at the Association for Behavior Analysis International 18th Annual Autism Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada. Their paper was published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 

The Centre for Behaviour Analysis webinar series welcomed Dr Paulie Gavoni, a distinguished  American behaviour analyst and best-selling author. He reported on Organizational Behaviour Management as a means of creating meaningful behaviour change, closing gaps in staff performance, improving retention and ultimately increasing learner achievement.  

World Behaviour Analysis Day (WBAD) on 20 March was established to support the spread of accurate information about the applications of behaviour analysis. To celebrate WBAD, the Centre for Behaviour Analysis hosted a webinar with Zuzanne Maštenová, who shared her expertise about countries where Applied Behaviour Analysis-based interventions are not funded. 

In February, our Honorary Professor of Practice, Koulla Yiasouma, presented on Best Interests, Children’s Rights and Youth Justice: The Impossible Dream while Dr Sarah-Jane Conrad (University of Berne) spoke on Children’s Moral Concept of Privacy. 

Mark Linden was guest speaker at Yonsei University, College of Nursing, South Korea. He spoke on Developing Interventions to Support Carers and Children with Intellectual Disabilities. 

Laura Lundy was the guest speaker at an event in March in the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge. She spoke about the Lundy Model of Child Participation which has been used by Dr Jan Ewing and Professor Anne Barlow to frame their research on Child Inclusive Mediation. 

Paul McCafferty hosted an online seminar in March as part of his European Children's Rights in Practice Special Interest Group. The presentation was entitled Residential Child Care, Rights and Identity Formation for Looked After Children. The speaker was School of SSESW colleague and Centre member Gerry Marshall.

Bronagh Byrne was keynote speaker at the Annual European Federation of Associations of Teachers of the Deaf Congress in April. She spoke on The State of Deaf Children’s Rights and Responsibilities. 

Dr Cadhla O’Sullivan, Children’s Policy Centre, Australian National University, Canberra, and Queen’s alumna presented on understanding, accessing and responding to poverty from a child standpoint. 

In May, the Centre hosted Judge Anthony Fitzgerald, a New Zealand District Court Judge with a Youth Court designation and a Family Court warrant. Judge Fitzgerald presented on children’s rights-based approaches to judicial proceedings.

Adele Brown, EPPOC, said:

"Evidence shows paramilitarism continues to affect up to 40% of adults and 45% of young people in Northern Ireland and in some areas these figures can be almost double. Preliminary research estimates this costs Northern Ireland at least £0.5bn a year. EPPOC invests in over 100 community, voluntary and public sector projects, aiming to create safer communities more resilient to paramilitarism, criminality and coercive control. It funds activities designed to break the cycle of paramilitary harm in communities. Our EA Connect Programme reduced young people’s intent to engage in violence from 43% to 3%. We understand that a sustained and collaborative approach can make a difference."

SSESW academic Colm Walsh said:

"The Troubles normalised violence in communities, making them a breeding ground for paramilitaries and criminals to operate in. We are getting to grips with the hidden harms caused by these gangs such as child criminal exploitation, abuse of women, coercive control, economic crime, extortion, and gatekeeping."

My research revealed examples of young people being groomed over a prolonged period, taking increasingly dangerous risks to undertake more serious crimes. Young people described violence, intimidation, extortion, property damage and the concealment of weapons. The study revealed significant overlap between Child Sexual Exploitation and Child Criminal Exploitation, with young people at risk of being exploited in different ways within criminal and non-criminal networks. The research also revealed that very often victims do not realise they are being manipulated and exploited."