The Safeguarding Champions are a group of young people committed to promoting the protection of Enfield’s children and young people. The programme facilitates young people to get involved in working directly with the Enfield Safeguarding Children Board. This ensures the voice of children and young people informs strategy, priorities and interventions that are designed to safeguard them.
With the support of the Board, the Champions identify a number of priority areas to focus on each year. They regularly attend Board meetings to report on progress and developments and to discuss the issues that are of concern to them and to discuss the things they feel the ESCB should be prioritising.
The Dangers of Drug Dealing
In 2015 the Champions have been involved in a number of important projects. In June they completed a short film called The Choice, a docudrama inspired by real life events, in which young people explore the reasons why teenagers become drug dealers, and what the unexpected consequences might be for their friends and family. The film was shown for the first time on 16 June and was shown at the meeting of the ESCB on 13 July. The film can be viewed on the Headliners website here:
Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE)
In March the Champions were involved in helping the Board to mark National Child Sexual Exploitation Awareness Day. They attended an event at the Civic Offices and helped professionals to pledge support to ending Child Sexual Exploitation in Enfield by writing on their hands. You can find more information on action to tackle CSE in Enfield on the CSE page and you can download the young person’s CSE leaflet designed by the Safeguarding Champions.
Homophobic Bullying
The Safeguarding Champions have pledged to tackle homophobic bullying. With the support of Proud Enfield – LGBT Group for Young People, the “Tackling Homophobic Bullying” campaign was launched in October 2014.
The campaign challenges children and young people’s services in Enfield to sign up to the campaign and get involved in leading the way. The challenges are:
• Sign up your service to be Safeguarding Champions and lead the way in tackling homophobic bullying
• Speak out and report homophobic bullying
• Recruit new members to Proud Enfield
