Learning From My Work As The AFRUCA County Lines Child Trafficking Service Manager Supporting Black and Ethnic Parents

By Brian Talabi

AFRUCA first came to my attention when I was working in my previous job as a head of year in a high school in Manchester. During safeguarding meetings, I was informed about the support AFRUCA could offer our children and parents. AFRUCA’s expertise in working with black and ethnic children via mentoring and advocacy support was highlighted at meetings for good reason. It became increasing clear that black children were overrepresented in isolation and suspensions. Working with AFRUCA and other specialist organisations, my former school set about putting interventions in place to tackle the disturbing disproportionality that black children were and are still facing.

Since joining AFRUCA early last year, I have developed a stronger knowledge of how county lines trafficking impacts on children and their families across Manchester. County lines trafficking involves using children and vulnerable adults to distribute drugs across the UK and beyond. The term county lines refers to the mobile phone used to organise the transportation of various drugs including ketamine, cocaine, and cannabis to list a few. County lines trafficking has caused disruption to many families and communities in various way. Perpetrators in groups/families/gangs target young people who are of high school age and who often want to show ‘love’ to the people who have looked out for them. Unfortunately, this ‘love’ is taken advantage of, and young people can become victims of violence and experience life-long trauma as a result. The trauma experienced can also extend to the wider family and the community. Based on police data, it is clear that county lines is on the rise, and we need to work together to stop this trend.

I am also glad that my role as County Lines Child Trafficking Service Manager is having a positive effect in South, Central and North Manchester. Supporting parents whose children are at risk of County Lines is hard work, but really rewarding. I have been able to work with parents and their children using various bespoke interventions (1 to 1 and group sessions), helping to shape a better life for them. This is needed for families who are especially vulnerable due to the many mitigating situations they face - social-economical problems, racism, immigration to name a few. A trait common with the families referred into our service is neurodiversity. It is clear that perpetrators are targeting young teenagers who are neuro-divergent and black. One reason could be the belief that this cohort of young people can easily be manipulated and controlled. There is also the myth and false historical notion of black people as ‘strong’, ‘angry’ and ‘stubborn’; somehow these are desirable traits that criminal gangs look for.  

Data from our work over the past one year mirror widely known data on county lines across Manchester and the country. For instance, only 10.0% of the children of parents referred into our service are female. Males make up the other 90% of referrals. This shows that county lines disproportionately affect young Black boys, although girls too are impacted. Both groups require support targeted to meet their needs.

Most of our referrals are predominately single parent families. This demonstrates the difficulties many female led households experience in relation to single-handedly parenting their sons and the financial and economic constraints they face (especially families with no recourse to public funds). We also know from our work that most of the Black boys at risk of county lines are of African origin – indicating the need for us to intensify our work with the African community across Manchester to help tackle the problem of county lines.

As much as we work hard at AFRUCA to support families at risk of county lines, we do experience a number of challenges in our work. A lack of involvement by parental fathers can impact on the work with the mothers and their sons, since boys tend to look up to and are strongly influenced by male role models. We are seeing more young Black boys being arrested by the police for criminal activities, despite the work with their parents. We know that a factor could be the lack of safe places across Manchester for young people to socialise. In particular, we are of the opinion that the lack of support for parents with no recourse to public funds means that their children bear the brunt of the financial constraints involved, making them very vulnerable to grooming and recruitment by criminal gangs.

The AFRUCA County Lines and Family Support Service has achieved some success which we intend to build on in the coming years. It has helped create a safe space for families which in turn has helped improve family dynamics. We have supported parents to learn the effects of county lines gangs, therefore helping parents apply positive strategies in managing their children’s behaviour.

 Supporting young people and their parents to address the practical and urgent issues they face has meant we have achieved better protection for children. Our monthly coffee mornings for parents has also meant we could support parents to learn the effects of county lines gangs, therefore helping parents apply positive strategies in managing their children’s behaviours.  By providing mentoring activities for young people, we have helped improve their critical thinking skills, enabling them to be more thoughtful and reflective of the choices they make.

 The above means we are now seeing more referrals into our service, leading to more support for young people and families across Manchester. There is a knock-on effect of us being requested to deliver awareness raising training for professionals on cultural competency and how to meet the additional needs of Black and ethnic groups across Manchester and beyond. This is in addition to us delivering awareness workshops related to County Lines and Serious Youth Violence in schools and colleges across Manchester.

 In March this year, we successful finished a 12 week coding pilot project. AFRUCA was able to support 6 young people aged 10-18 years of age, who were from disadvantaged backgrounds with families on universal credit, no recourse to public funds, and on free school meals. With the help of our volunteer software engineers working on the project, the young people were able to develop their basic coding skills. We received very positive feedback from the young people with one young person saying: “it has honestly changed my life”.

 Moving on, we continue to develop more partnerships with agencies and professionals across Manchester to help build support for our families. We also continue to look for new, unique ways to engage families and young people as part of our service. We plan to take on one of our service users as a paid intern for six weeks to help with administrative duties in our office in Manchester. This will help to build their skills necessary for future paid work.

Since my time in post, I have produced a report to Manchester City Council, which funds the service, detailing our achievements, activities and learning.  I am delighted we have received additional funding for two years to enable this important work to continue across Manchester.

To conclude, this quote from one of our service users is quite pertinent:

“It is fair to say that I am learning and developing all the time at AFRUCA. I have learnt already that continuous support for those in need will ultimately pay dividends in the future.”

Brian Talabi is Service Manager, AFRUCA County Lines and Family Support Service in Manchester