xploitation as an assessment factor decreased over the same period, which may indicate improved identification of the primary issue (Figure 4). Figure 4: Child criminal exploitation and child sexual exploitation as assessment factors Source: SP9 respondents. The England numbers are extrapolated from 123 local authority responses based on the proportion of the England population. Seventy-two per cent of survey respondents said their area had either started or increased ‘contextual safeguarding’ activities in response to harms outside the home. The term refers to the application of the seminal work of Professor Carlene Firmin and colleagues to build understanding of and responses to young people’s experiences, contexts and influences 10,363 17,754 17,207 15,317 - 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000 14,000 16,000 18,000 20,000 2021–22 2023–24 Phase 8 Phase 9 Child Criminal Exploitation (24A) Child Sexual Exploitation (11A) 22 beyond family and home.3 In 2022–23 Firmin and her team worked with three local areas to develop and pilot ‘risk outside the home pathways’ (Firmin et al., 2024) that build the application of contextual safeguarding in practice. Multi-agency involvement is core to working contextually so it was a matter of concern for some survey respondents that the police, who are essential statutory safeguarding partners, were not joining contextual safeguarding conferences due to lack of capacity. As a response to the immediate risks of harms outside the home, children may be moved out of area either with or without their family. The evidence-informed critiques of this approach (Wroe et al., 2023) were echoed by one DCS reflecting on the risks this strategy can incur. I suppose my argument on this may be perceived to be very risky, but the behaviour of these chi