Understanding Child Abuse means looking beyond visible behaviour and asking deeper questions about harm, trauma, exploitation and unmet need. In a powerful session from the Preventing Child Abuse and Exploitation Conference, Molly Ellis, CEO and Co-Founder of Project Accountability, challenged professionals to rethink how they respond to young people affected by violence and exploitation.
Drawing on both lived experience and frontline practice, Ellis explored how children can become known for their behaviour before anyone fully understands their story. Her message was clear: if services only see aggression, missing episodes, school exclusion or offending, they may miss the trauma and exploitation sitting underneath.
The full session is now available to watch On Demand as part of the Preventing Child Abuse and Exploitation Conference.
Why Understanding Child Abuse Requires Looking Beyond Behaviour
Ellis opened her session by asking professionals to think about children as children, not as statistics, referrals or risk assessments. That distinction matters. Many vulnerable young people first come to the attention of services because of behaviour that appears risky, disruptive or criminal.
“Imagine a child has experienced trauma, abuse, neglect, exploitation, violence, loss, or rejection. Now imagine they walk into your service. What is the first thing that you see? Because for many services, what we first see is behaviour. The aggression, the missing episodes, the violence, then school exclusion, the offending, the risk. But behaviour is often the final chapter of a story that started long before we became involved.” – Molly Ellis
Children who have experienced abuse, neglect, exploitation, violence, loss or rejection may not enter services expecting help. They may enter asking whether they can trust the adult in front of them. For professionals, this means that engagement cannot be treated as a simple compliance issue. A young person who appears angry may be frightened. A young person who seems disengaged may have stopped believing that adults will stay. A young person who is labelled difficult may be protecting themselves from further abandonment.
Trauma, Exploitation and Youth Violence
A central theme of Ellis’s session was the relationship between trauma and youth violence. Trauma changes how a young person sees the world, how they relate to adults and how they respond to perceived threats. When trust has repeatedly been broken, survival responses can be mistaken for deliberate defiance.
This is especially important when considering child exploitation. Ellis emphasised that exploitation is first and foremost a safeguarding issue. Too often, children enter systems through the lens of risk before they enter through the lens of harm. Professionals may ask why a young person is carrying drugs, going missing, disengaging from education or becoming involved in violence. But Ellis argued that services must also ask who is exploiting them, who is benefiting from their vulnerability, who is grooming them and who is making them feel seen.
When exploitation is not recognised, vulnerability can become criminalised. The child becomes defined by what they have done, rather than by what has happened to them.
The intersection of education, mental health and child abuse is an important one. All three of these factors play into one another, with education being either a catalyst for positivity or negativity in those dealing with mental health issues or child abuse trauma. Ensuring that the support networks in education are prepared to support and care for young people’s challenges will create environments where pupils feel seen, heard and cared for. We’re hosting The Student Mental Health and Wellbeing Conference 2026 this September. We’ll examine the latest government initiatives tackling the rising challenge of student mental health and explores the obstacles faced by service providers. It highlights practical solutions for delivering effective support and offers clear guidance on next steps to strengthen student support pathways.
The Problem with Short-Term Interventions
Another key point from the session was the sector’s reliance on short-term interventions. Many young people affected by trauma and exploitation have experienced adults coming and going throughout their lives. Social workers, schools, placements and services may change repeatedly. Relationships break down, promises are broken and new referrals can feel like yet another adult who will eventually disappear.
Ellis explained that trust cannot be rushed. Engagement cannot be rushed. Relationships cannot be rushed. For many young people Project Accountability works with, it can take around 12 weeks before genuine engagement begins. Yet, in many cases, interventions end just as trust is starting to form.
This creates a damaging cycle. Young people are referred between services, asked to retell their experiences, assessed repeatedly and expected to begin again with new professionals. Meanwhile, exploiters may offer what services struggle to provide consistently: belonging, identity, protection, status and connection.
Why Lived Experience Matters in Safeguarding
Ellis was careful to explain that lived experience does not replace professional expertise. Instead, it strengthens it. People with lived experience can help services understand risk differently, build trust with young people and engage those who may have stopped responding to traditional approaches.
This is particularly relevant in work around exploitation and youth violence, where young people may trust people from their own environment before they trust professionals. A trauma-informed response must recognise that credibility, consistency and connection are essential to effective safeguarding.
Contextual Safeguarding: Seeing the Wider Picture
The session also highlighted the importance of contextual safeguarding. Many risks facing young people exist outside the family home – in schools, peer groups, communities, online spaces, public transport and local neighbourhoods. This means no single agency can solve exploitation alone.
Effective safeguarding requires schools, youth services, police, health professionals, families, communities and specialist organisations to work together around the same young person. Without this shared approach, professionals may only see fragments of the risk, rather than the full context in which exploitation is occurring.
Project Accountability’s Prevention-Focused Approach
At Project Accountability, Ellis described prevention as the core response. Their “What’s the Point” programme supports young people to understand who they are before others define that identity for them.
Engage
The first stage focuses on building trust and belonging through sports, mentoring, creativity and lived experience. This stage recognises that meaningful support begins with relationship-building.
Understand
Young people are supported to explore trauma, emotional intelligence, identity, relationships and the experiences that have shaped them. This helps move the conversation from blame to understanding.
Develop
The programme then builds confidence, communication, resilience, decision-making and self-awareness. Practical skills that help young people navigate challenges differently.
Progress
Finally, young people are supported into education, employment, enterprise, volunteering and meaningful opportunities. The aim is not simply to reduce risk, but to build purpose, hope and a stronger sense of future.
Changing the Question Professionals Ask
One of the most powerful takeaways from Ellis’s session was the need to change the question. Instead of asking, “What is wrong with this young person?”, professionals should ask, “What happened to them, and what can we do differently?”
This shift is not about excusing harm or lowering expectations. It is about understanding the root causes of behaviour so that responses are effective, humane and safeguarding-led. When a child is carrying trauma, behaviour rarely tells the whole story. Behind anger there may be fear. Behind violence there may be pain. Behind exploitation there may be a child searching for safety, belonging, love or protection in the wrong place.
Conclusion: Understanding Child Abuse Means Choosing Connection
Understanding Child Abuse requires professionals to see beyond labels, risk assessments and referral forms. Molly Ellis’s session is a reminder that vulnerable young people are too often punished before they are supported and criminalised for survival strategies developed in response to harm.
For anyone working with children and young people, the call to action is practical and powerful: lead with curiosity, build consistency, recognise exploitation as safeguarding, and create relationships strong enough to support change. One professional who listens, believes and sees potential instead of problems can make a lasting difference.
Don’t forget to explore The Student Mental Health and Wellbeing Conference 2026 – a timely opportunity to align strategies, build partnerships and ensure students have access to the right care and support.