Free St Giles Trust Learning Series – Supporting Practice in Violence & Exploitation
St Giles Trust delivers evidence-led, trauma-informed services that address poverty, violence & exploitation and involvement in the justice system. Their work focuses on people facing the highest levels of disadvantage, where unmet need drives demand across health, justice, housing and social care.
These sessions are FREE to anyone – but are particularly valuable for professionals working with children, young people and families across safeguarding, education, health, youth justice, policing and community settings. Led by St Giles’ Dr Junior Smart OBE, FCGI – an expert in child criminal exploitation, county lines, youth violence and safeguarding – each of the five sessions will focus on a specific topic and are designed to help practitioners:
- Recognise early signs of exploitation
- Understand grooming, coercion, and control
- Challenge assumptions and victim-blaming
- Improve safeguarding and engagement
Tuesday 16th June 2026 10am-11:30am:
The Young People We Misread: Gender, Assumptions and Hidden Exploitation
This session explores how gender, adultification and professional assumptions can shape the way young people affected by violence and exploitation are seen, understood and responded to. It will examine how girls and young women in particular can be overlooked, blamed, sexualised or misunderstood, while their wider experiences of coercion, loyalty, fear and violence remain hidden.
Participants will be encouraged to reflect on how risk presents differently across gendered experiences, how safeguarding systems can unintentionally miss harm, and what practitioners can do to strengthen curiosity, challenge victim-blaming and improve responses.
Click here to register to join The Young People We Misread: Gender, Assumptions and Hidden Exploitation
Tuesday 14th July 2026 12pm-1:30pm:
Weapon Carrying: Fear, Status and the False Promise of Safety
This session explores why some young people carry weapons, moving beyond simplistic explanations of criminality, bravado or poor choices.
It will examine the role of fear, reputation, retaliation, peer pressure, trauma, humiliation and the perceived need for protection.
The session will support practitioners to have more effective conversations with young people about weapon carrying, understand the emotional and social pressures behind the behaviour, and consider how prevention work can respond to the need for safety, status and belonging without reinforcing shame or fear.
Click here to register to join Weapon Carrying: Fear, Status and the False Promise of Safety
Wednesday 5 August 2026 10:00–11:30am:
The Moment of Contact: Trust, Crisis and Intervention
This session focuses on the critical moment when a practitioner first reaches a young person affected by violence, exploitation or serious harm.
Whether that contact takes place in a hospital, custody suite, school, community setting or family home, the first response can either open a door or close it.
Drawing on St Giles’ experience of trusted relationships and crisis intervention, the session will explore what helps young people feel safe enough to engage, why disclosure is rarely straightforward, and how practitioners can use moments of crisis to build trust, reduce harm and support longer-term change.
Click here to register to join The Moment of Contact: Trust, Crisis and Intervention
Monday 5th October 2026 12noon-14.00pm
Twenty Years of SOS: What Young People Have Taught Us About Violence, Trust and Change
Five lessons from twenty years of SOS:
- Young people are not hard to reach, systems are often hard to trust
- Lived experience is powerful, but only when it is supported and professionalised
- Violence is rarely just about violence
- Families are part of the harm and the hope
- The next 20 years must move from intervention to influence
SOS should not only be celebrated as a project that helped young people. It should be positioned as a model that has shaped practice, challenged systems and still has something to teach.
Click here to register to join Twenty Years of SOS: What Young People Have Taught Us About Violence, Trust and Change
