Advanced Child Sexual Exploitation Practitioners Course (ACSEP)

Cost
£685
Dates
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May & June 2025
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Sept & Oct 2025
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Jan & Feb 2026
This unique course is informed by over 27 years of working with affected families. The Advanced Child Sexual Exploitation Practitioners Course is taught by highly experienced Ivison Trust staff, affected parents, and leading experts from the fields of social work, police, and academia. One of the only courses of its type in the UK, it provides eight days of training on a broad range of subjects connected to child exploitation.
On completion of the course, learners receive an NFCE level 4 qualification. Many of our graduates have changed the trajectory of their careers as a result of their learning and the increased knowledge and confidence this course provides.
Learning objectives
- The historical journey of child exploitation
- Definitions and typologies of child exploitation
- Hearing from lived experience speakers
- Trauma Informed Practice
- Combatting victim blaming
- Contextual Safeguarding and Transitional safeguarding
- Neurodiversity
- Adultism and Intersectionality (Dr Nick Marsh)
- Disruption tactics
- Online harms (Ineqe)
- Understanding information, intelligence and evidence (Stuart Piper)
- Best practice in working with marginalised groups
- Crown prosecution processes with a representative.
- Practical skills in how to support CE-affected families from disclosure through to the court process
ACSEPs are CSE specialists, armed with a toolkit of cutting-edge methods in supporting affected families and helping investigations through to prosecution.
Who is the course for?
Candidates should have experience of working in child sexual exploitation, in roles such as:
- Social worker
- Foster carer
- Family Intervention Officer, Family Support Worker, Troubled Family Worker
- Independent CSE Worker
- Missing from Home Specialist
- PSCOs/PCs with CSE specialism
The following entry requirements are necessary to be accepted onto the course
- An understanding of issues faced by young people and their families particularly in relation to sexual exploitation and abuse.
- Knowledge of safeguarding agencies and Local Safeguarding Children’s Board roles
- Knowledge of child protection procedures
- Relevant qualification, i.e. social care, probation, health, criminology, or demonstrable experience of work within a related field.
What our learners say
“This training course is extremely helpful and informative. It covers a vast range of information surrounding CSE and offers opportunity to discuss experiences and explore things in a safe open environment. The trainers have fantastic resources for you to explore further and share honest experiences. The guest speakers are amazing and share the reality of their experiences, its heart wrenching but needed and I cannot thank them all enough.”
“I have never been on a course delivered with such passion and knowledge. The course has helped to change the way I see child exploitation and I am now better equipped to deal with both victims and suspects going forward.”
Course delivery
Our ACSEP will be accessed by learners online, streamed live via MS Teams, with the ability to watch and interact with our live trainers and other course participants. Our guest speakers will also be on hand in each module for live Q and As. We have been working closely with the NFCE to ensure the experience for our learners continues to be of the highest standard.
Commitment and content
The award is a 8-day commitment, split into 3 modules:
Module one: Working with a victim and their family
Module two: Understanding trauma and supporting families through the criminal justice system
Module three: Multi agency working and online exploitation
Course Starting | Module 1 & 2 | Module 2 cont. & 3 |
January 2025 | 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th January 2025 |
10th, 11th, 12th, 13th February 2025 |
May 2025 | 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th May 2025 |
9th, 10th, 11th, 12th June 2025 |
September 2025 | 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th September 2025 |
20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd October 2025 |
January 2026 | 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th January 2026 |
23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th February 2026 |
Our speakers
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Dr Sarah Hall
Dr Sarah Hall has extensive experience as an academic researcher in child exploitation, influenced by her early career in youth work and parent support. Sarah is passionate about the importance of family-centered, holistic support for families affected by child exploitation. Some of Sarah’s recent publications are below:
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Stuart Piper Cert Ed.MA
Stuart is an experienced specialist safeguarding adviser, chair, investigator, and trainer with extensive experience in law enforcement, the public sector and partnership working. Most recently, he was the Safeguarding Adviser to the Mayor of West Yorkshire and Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime and the Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire over an 8 year period. In those roles, Stuart provided expert advice focusing on child sexual abuse and exploitation, modern slavery, human trafficking, missing people and counter terrorism.
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Dr Nick Marsh
Nick has recently completed a PHD on social work decision making and child exploitation. He co-founded a research organisation that amplified marginalised voices in child protection and has over 20 years of experience in child protection and abuse, exploitation and violence that affects adolescents.
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Parent with lived experience
An affected parent will talk about his lived experience; how his child was groomed and exploited, how this impacted his family and the support he received from children’s social care social services and the police.
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Ineqe Safeguarding Group
Ineqe is at the cutting edge of safeguarding training. Their specialist teams gather feedback from partners and capture lessons from emerging local and national safeguarding practices. Former Head of Legal at CEOP and a panel comprising of local authority, education and safeguarding professionals advise on their training course content.