Justice & Care and Royal Holloway, University of London have launched a major new report examining how earlier and more effective intervention can help prevent modern slavery and exploitation of care-experienced and care-affected children and young people in the UK.

Published during Foster Care Fortnight, the report comes at a significant moment in the national conversation around children’s social care and safeguarding. In the King’s Speech, the UK Government committed to placing “children and their wellbeing at the centre” of children’s social care systems and ensuring children can thrive in “safe, loving homes”. This report contributes to that agenda by exploring what more preventative, relational and genuinely trauma-informed responses to exploitation should look like in practice. 

Modern slavery and exploitation continue to pose a serious and often hidden risk to children and young people across the UK. In 2025, 23,411 potential victims were referred to the National Referral Mechanism – the highest number recorded since its introduction – including 7,028 children, the majority of whom were UK nationals. Yet these figures are widely understood to capture only a fraction of the true scale of exploitation. 

Within this context, care-experienced children and young people are recognised as facing heightened vulnerability, often linked to experiences of abuse, neglect, instability, trauma and disrupted support. Despite increasing awareness of these risks, early intervention to prevent exploitation remains underdeveloped and inconsistently embedded across current safeguarding systems. 

The report draws together current evidence alongside findings from an Expert Roundtable Day convened by Justice & Care and Royal Holloway, University of London, involving 40 experts by experience and senior leaders from across government, local authorities, social care, policing, education, mental health, housing, civil society and academia. 

Combining evidence, lived experience, practice insights and recent case studies, the comprehensive report argues that prevention must move beyond reactive, crisis-led safeguarding towards earlier intervention rooted in trusted relationships, emotional safety and genuinely trauma-informed practice. These responses must also be directly shaped by lived experience if they are to be effective, credible and responsive to children’s realities.  

The report highlights the importance of embedding support across everyday settings including schools, social care, healthcare, policing and community services, rather than relying solely on specialist interventions after harm has escalated. 

The report identifies a number of key priorities for strengthening prevention, including: 

• recognising care-experienced children and young people as a priority group within exploitation prevention strategies.

• embedding trusted adult relationships as a core protective factor.

• improving continuity of support during transitions out of care.

• reducing criminalisation through child-first safeguarding approaches.

• strengthening cross-sector collaboration.

• embedding lived experience meaningfully and ethically across policy, practice and evaluation. 

The report also highlights persistent systemic barriers, including fragmented provision, inconsistent access to support, workforce pressures and shorter-term funding cycles that can undermine sustainable prevention work. 

This publication marks the first phase of Justice & Care’s wider programme of research into exploitation and care experience. The second phase, to be published early summer and led by Sheffield Hallam University, will provide a comprehensive study focused on effective early intervention to prevent the exploitation of care-experienced young women and girls who are British nationals, particularly through the lens of sexual exploitation. 

Together, the reports aim to strengthen evidence, policy and practice around the prevention of exploitation among some of the UK’s most vulnerable children and young people.