Rose Project Supporting young people throughout Norfolk who have been affected by, or are at risk of child sexual exploitation

Casey's Story

Casey is 14 years old and spending time with a 32-year-old man, known to the police. She is staying out really late, receiving gifts and using a lot of sexually explicit language. She met the man through mum who had been in a sexual relationship with him. Mum has had many previous unhealthy relationships and a history of domestic and sexual abuse. She is aware that Mum uses apps to meet men and sometimes they come home overnight.
Casey’s father died two years ago and she had caring responsibilities for him as he had some physical disabilities. Mum suspected that he sexually abused Casey. There have been several recent house moves and their current location is very rurally isolated. She often refuses to go to school as she struggles with peer relationships.
Casey feels really isolated, blamed and lonely and has a difficult relationship with mum who has a mental health problem. She uses social media apps to form relationships with strangers or acquaintances and has sometimes met them for sex. We received this referral from Children’s Services.
Building trusted relationship is key to a young person engaging with our support. Working on Casey’s self-esteem giving time, nurture and advocating for her needs and choices. We explored current peer relationships; their health and their safety and exploring sexual relationships and their health and safety. Conversations about her sexual health and making an appointment with sexual health services to set up C -Card.
We requested that social worker provides more support for mum in the home. We explored low school attendance and worked with school to plan support to avoid exclusion. We made a referral to bereavement support charity.
When Casey felt she could trust is she was able to tell us about her sexual abuse and having sex with men she hardly knew. We were able to liaise with the police and children's services. We intensively worked with Casey to understand consent and online and community safety planning.
Ongoing regular non-time limited support continued for 18 months whilst all these issues were identified and navigated. After a while Casey attended the local youth project and still goes now!