Every day this week, we've heard from the various agencies that work together in the Island's Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub - or MASH.
Today, we're going to hear how they would come together to work on a case.
In this fifth Newscast special, Siobhán Fletcher speaks to our Island's professionals about "Harriet".
Hi, I'm Siobhan Fletcher, and welcome along to the latest edition of our newscast. Every day this week, we've heard from the various agencies that worked together in the island's multi-agency safeguarding hub, a key element of safeguarding here in the Isle of Man, the MASH is a co-located multi-agency and multi-disciplinary team that brings together professionals from services that have contact with children and young people who may be at risk of harm. Now that we've met our professionals and heard more about the MASH and its work, we're going to hear how they all work together in real time to support a vulnerable teenager. Let us introduce you to Harriet. Harriet is 15 and in her final year at school. She's predicted good grades and she's wishing to go to college when she leaves school. Harriet's hoping to study health and social care and wish us to pursue a career in nursing. Harriet's friends have fallen out with her because one of her friends' boyfriends shared that he liked her. Now there are rumours going around school that she slept with him and they're calling her really mean things. This doesn't stop when Harriet gets home. Snapchat and WhatsApp messages of images of Harriet being altered to depict her in a state of undress of being sent around school. Harriet starts to miss lessons to avoid some of her friends. Her grades soon start to decline and her parents are called in to discuss. During this time Harriet receives a message of a young boy who reports he's 16 and who she doesn't know. "Hey beautiful," the message reads. Harriet responds, "Do I know you?" He replies with, "No, but I'd like to get to know you." Harriet and Luke begin to message late into the night. Over the next few days pictures and many messages are sent between the two until one day Luke asks to meet up. They plan for Harriet to skip school and meet at his flat when his parents are out. Harriet meets Luke as she gets off the bus and he looks older than 16. But she continues as he's being friendly. When they're at Luke's they have vodka and Harriet feels drunk. Harriet falls asleep and when she wakes up she realises school finished hours ago. She looks at her phone and she has 32 missed calls from her parents. She tries to leave but Luke persuades her to stay, telling her he's falling in love with her. He also confesses that he's 32 years old. During the next day Harriet feels scared to try to leave. Young boys come to the flat and drop off parcels for Luke. In return they receive vapes and some get money. Harriet watches one boy get punched to the floor because a parcel has gone missing. A day later Harriet makes a run for it and heads to the local shops to ask for help. To avoid accidentally replicating any active cases, I asked Monk's care's name professional for contextual safeguarding Samantha Holmes to invent a teenager for us to discuss. But Harriet is based on many cases Samantha has personally dealt with. I asked her what the first steps would be in tackling this sort of situation. So Harriet would be discussed in a daily exploitation meeting and looking at the case study and how I've created it, I've tried to cover everything within the case study just to give everybody that snapshot and a bit more of an overview of what we do from a health perspective. So more than likely this would have come into our daily exploitation meeting that school have got some concerns that she's not attending and obviously the friendship group has changed. More than likely my first point of call with Harriet would be contacting either Harriet or her parents in relation to her going missing and again capitalizing on that missing from home episode during that return home interview, looking at where you were, was it a planned obviously to go missing, was it impulsive, who was you with, where did you go, really gathering as much information as I can. And then obviously as part of that return home interview, I do explore the emotional and the health well-being and how I can support them. And obviously I look at substance misuse as well, any alcohol intake, so I would capture all of that. With Harriet I would definitely be seeing her again, it wouldn't be a one-off visit, I would offer a responsive visit in terms of what's going on for her because there's you know there's concerns there in terms of the pictures that are being shared and obviously the alcohol and then obviously that element of grooming as well and then being held in that flat. So that is how I would be in contact with Harriet. Alongside Samantha's work, what would the police's involvement look like? Sam Cannell is the Isle of Man constabularies detective inspector for protecting vulnerable people. We've got a sort of hypothetical case study here of Harriet, she's aged 15, I guess we wanted to look at this case study with the various different elements of Mash that I'm speaking to this week to sort of understand where your agency would come into dealing with this case. So can you chat to us a little bit about what the police's involvement in that Mash conversation would look like in the case of Harriet? Yes, I would hope that we would be involved in this conversation from the start which gives us the maximum exposure to the information and gives us the greatest opportunity to get involved from a law enforcement point of view. So this scenario is around a girl who is being groomed and will likely go on to be exploited either sexually or criminally and at the point that she manages to escape the situation physically and run away from the address. She would then come to parents I would imagine and vis-a-vis onto multi-agency to step in. Now from the constabularies point of view we would work with the family, work with the child that's been exploited to find out information in relation to what is this address, who is this person, how did you meet them, what comes information can we get to support an evidential conviction and an investigation and then really we would be targeting that perpetrator and we would be not only looking at contact that they've had with that child but also what is their risk to other people, to other children or the vulnerable adults because if they have been able to go to the extent of purporting to be a 16 year old when in fact they're over 30 then that is grooming behaviour and there is a specific offence around grooming of which we would be investigating for sure. I suppose when we talk about the conversations within MASH I mean when all the different agencies meet up do you devise a strategy so in that scenario are you saying right as the police we're going to go and do this, you know the safeguarding team on Demaxka you're going to go and do this it's like a sort of that multi-agency working together to form us a strategy really on how you deal with these cases. Yeah and then that's exactly what it is you know we all have various roles we all have things that we're good at as well so the police have powers of arrest we have powers to investigate and we have recognised offences that we can investigate with a view to prosecution. A lot of the time we also wear a uniform which can be a barrier for people wanting to come and speak to us so that being the case then it might be better actually for one of our colleagues in health for instance or social care to approach and to speak and to try and understand what that child's gone through and the experiences that they've had but we will absolutely use that information where we can and with consent and where we see that the risk is significant we will take steps to basically flex our muscles and to target that perpetrator behaviour. Jumping back to health and social care Samantha's return home interview with Harriet could lead to further lines of inquiry. So once you've had that initial interview and you've sort of worked out they're going to have some contact going forward um how would what would this case look like them for you in terms of discussing it with the police and the various agencies within those meetings. So obviously again with consent the return home interview would be shared with police in terms of closing that missing from home episode down and then along with obviously social care because sometimes in some cases you know again it's just adolescent behaviour so it doesn't need to go anywhere and it can just be closed down but obviously in Harriet's case there is a significant concern there for sexual exploitation and obviously the alcohol that she's been given as well and then what she's then gone on to witness with the boys that have attended the flat as well. Would you be concerned in this case about all the kids involved like whether Harriet's the only the only case or would you then be trying to work out you know who else has been impacted there. I mean it wouldn't be my role you know to go off and find out who these children are but um you know through conversation with Harriet I would gather that information police would then obviously find out you know who these um children are rather any concerns. More than likely these other children would have been reported missing and they may be known to services already and again the same support that I would be offering to Harriet I would be offering you know to the young people that have been obviously within the flat. More than likely um how we would pick you know one of the boys up in there it's obviously at the end of the case study where she witnesses him being punched to the floor he potentially could have come through our emergency department and this is where which is really important where our nurses doctors any health professional is utilising that risk indicator checklist tool because more than likely they may have said oh does that a little bit of a fight but actually we need to explore it. But the matches work wouldn't just end with one strategy meeting. Manx cares head of safeguarding Terry Banks sums up the matches work in three words she says they have to think the unthinkable. Oh so as part of the return home interview we would also try and entertain if it's been any sexual contact between Harriet and Luke because obviously she's taken alcohol and she's fallen asleep so you've always got to think um as Laming said think the unthinkable so it would be a way of getting those teasing those questions really out of Harriet um just to see because if that was the case that was when we would call on our SART colleagues to see if she was any forensics needed doing or if she needed any emergency contraception or indeed any medical assistance so that all forms part of the picture when you're asking the questions we'd think the unthinkable but just make sure that obviously every need that even if it's not apparent and sometimes people won't tell you unless you ask so we'd have to ask. What would the support look like for Harriet and her parents going forward because she's maybe had this sort of quite traumatic incident here but like you say there's a teenage thing involved but he's my boyfriend and I love him you know how do you support her going forward to maybe understand what's happening and you know what does it look like a few months down the line after this initial event. Because the information's shared so school would be involved in either the strategy meeting or the den meeting we've got school nurses within the organisation so they'd also be aware of what's happened to Harriet so if she was still in school they'd bid that support from the school nursing service they'd be ongoing support from the sexual assault referral centre and also if this male of concerns and being arrested and it's going to be a criminal trial the support via or through that we don't just deal with the issue and then not see the child again because you know yourself these processes can take a long time so it's regular phone calls sometimes a coffee with Sam and we keep that nurturing and it's also it's a very difficult time for parents as well so we can support the parents as much as much as we can in respect of what's going on with her a health needs and the police with in respect of the ongoing police inquiry. I suppose with parents I mean it's so difficult right now I mean in this case today it talks about using Snapchat and WhatsApp and things like that you can't really track everything kids are doing on phones and iPads and everything now on the internet is scaring off for our generation but you know so what advice you know because parents may be worth listening what the red flags may be initially but also you know if an incident like this happened then they had no idea what was going on what would your advice be them to them reacting to that then as well. So obviously all of the new phones have now got many platforms in terms of social media and how obviously people can contact these children particularly Snapchat you know it's very very easy for anybody to add anybody and it gives you location so I think it's been open and honest with the children in terms of has anyone recently contacted you that you don't know if you added anybody that you don't know and because obviously our children are constantly on the phone so it's ping ping ping with messages that's normal and so I suppose it's just the parents you know exploring that with them in terms of keeping them safe and ensuring that they've got passwords on the phones and if they have got passwords can the parents have the password so that they can access it and if the child starts to be really secretive around the phone I think that's when that's that first initial maybe red flag would be well why do you not want me to have a look in your phone what is it that is there that you don't want more more dad or parent or carer to see at that time would be my recommendation and some of the advice we do give to parents is that if your child is using Facebook because we do know that children today are obsessed with social media aren't they is not having them on there in the school uniform because that identifies what school they go to for the you know the the badge and it's on the blaze or the school tie home address and things like that and also to keep the profile private so there are settings in there I mean I'm not the most tech but you can go in and you can look at getting your settings private and also the children not lying about their age as well when they're on there putting the right age down because if they put themselves down at 19 and they're putting pictures of themselves on in their underwear then they are going to track people that are there for the wrong intentions so you can share everything online now so I mean for anyone with kids you know what what should they be sharing online what should they be sharing to I mean it's whole bigger question isn't it then they've gone a week but you know I suppose what to do by for them parents initially keeping their kids safe when they're maybe a bit younger again what Debbie's just shared is you know don't put what nursery they go to or daycare or you know even you know like live timing if that makes sense whether you might share your location where you are with a video because that's the only way that you're going to keep these you know these children safe and again is having it as a private profile and you never know actually who you're friends with on you know on social media platforms so it's been really specific in who you have a allowing you know to see your children online and because any picture and if we just use Facebook for example and if I went on to say Terri's Facebook profile if she'd uploaded a picture of herself I can actually save that to my phone so it wouldn't be any different if you'd uploaded you know a picture of you know your child and really innocently it could be in one of the splash parks where they're in the swimming costume so it's just to be really mindful that anybody could actually take that picture and then obviously re-send it anywhere so we've covered a whole range of red flags and also the fact that it isn't that easy to see if there's exploitation happening or if there's safeguarding concerns but if a parent or a care is listening and they maybe are worried or some of this is you know just paying some of it in the brain oh actually that I've seen my teenager do this who should they contact what what's the first point of call when if they thought there was immediate concerns then my recommendation would be that they pick up the phone to the place so they can have that immediate response which would then obviously then follow on to the some of the procedures that would Terri and I have spoken about today and they could reach out to the school and ask to speak to the safeguarding lead at the school you know have the school got any any concerns which they could then reach out obviously to the school nurse you know for them to go out and do any health assessments and they can actually pick up them for themselves and reach out to the social workers because they've got a lot of knowledge and support in terms of keeping children safe and obviously support for parents and signs to look out for but yeah the immediate one would be the police. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manks Radio newscast you are obviously someone with exquisite taste may I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of Manks Radio podcasts at your favorite podcast provider so our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone thank you. a lot of people are not going to be able to get a little bit of a good idea. You
