* Sensitive Material *

Please be aware this page and associated links contain case studies, scenarios and statistical data to highlight the challenges faced by children and young people with special educational needs and disability (SEND) in relation to poverty, human trafficking and modern slavery. If you think you may need support reading this material, we encourage you to discuss this with a trusted person and only continue when you feel it is safe to do so.

Act NOW

Break the Chains

Since 2023, Dr Anita Devi has been exploring the spiral triad between children and young people with special educational needs and disability (SEND), poverty and human trafficking / modern slavery. This is very real and is happening on our door step. The Digital World has accelerated the risks by 89% (NSPCC, 2024).

Working with a wide range of national partners, Anita has curated a 3 tier package for professionals and practitioners to prevent children and young people with SEND being exploited. They project is evolving at pace, as more people can see the need for these open discussions to ask the questions:

How do we ensure children and young people are kept safe and not entrapped into any dark web of exploitation?
How do we eradicate poverty, working sensitively with families for sustainable empowerment?
How do we disarm perpetrators of human trafficking and modern slavery by educating children, young people with SEND through accessible resources?

This are not easy questions, but necessary ones.

Working with several national partners, TeamADL has created different packages to address the challenges we face. Get in touch to find out more. Fill in the form below.

Case studies

Meet Thomas (anonymised)

Thomas has Downs Syndrome. He is a friendly 15 year old who loves his food. Sadly his family do not always have enough food in the fridge. Thomas saves his pocket money and goes to the local cafe. One one occasion, he didn't have enough to buy sandwich and a piece of cake. Akin was also at the cafe that day, so he paid for Thomas. They kept meeting at cafe many times after that. Thomas had been bullied in school, but now he had a friend, who bought him food and other things. At school, Thomas had also been adult-reliant to solve his problems, so this felt OK. Thomas didn't tell anyone about his new friendship with Akin and he had a secret place to stash away his new shoes, his new phone and his new clothes. Akin told him it was their secret. Many months later, Akin said to Thomas that he owed him over £1000. Thomas didn't have the money. He was worried and scared. So Akin said Thomas could pay him back, by delivering small packages to his mate in another town. It was simply a bus ride away and Akin would pay the bus fare. Thomas was caught in debt bondage and eventually trapped in a house in another town. Thankfully a neighbour in his new place of residence reported it to the police and eventually Thomas found his way home. He was emotionally abused and traumatised.

ASC: From education to exploitation

ADHD: My son met an exploiter on Snapchat

Research

Trafficking and exploitation of children with special educational needs and disability (July 2024)

Despite children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)/additional learning needs being at increased risk of exploitation and trafficking, there is inadequate attention to the specific needs of young people with SEND in national safeguarding or modern slavery policy.
A lack of robust training may mean that practitioners may not be aware of the impact and interrelation between SEND and modern slavery.
There is a lack of data collection and a lack of understanding of modern slavery and SEND, impacting on opportunities for prevention and early identification, or to understand the scale and nature of how SEND and modern slavery interact.
There are missed opportunities for early intervention and disrupting patterns of exploitation, for example when responding to reports from parents of missing episodes for young people with SEND.
Engagement with education services is one of the most significant factors in keeping children with SEND safe from exploitation. Practitioners and parents were very clear that the most significant factor in keeping children and young people safe from modern slavery was their engagement within an education system that met their SEND needs.
Responding well and responding early requires parents’ concerns being listened to, with training and multi-agency support being in place.

What is TeamADL doing?

FACT File

What is the data telling us?

Anti-Bullying Alliance (Nov 2025) In May 2025, 21% of pupils in years 7–13said they had been a victim of bullying (for any reason) in the past 12 months. Perceived reasons for bullying (in-person): most common was “the way they looked” (44%) followed by SEN/disability (14%), sexual orientation (10%), race/ethnicity (9%), sex (8%), nationality (5%), religion/belief (4%). Perceived reasons for bullying (online): “the way they looked” (37%), SEN/disability (12%), sexual orientation (10%), sex (8%), race/ethnicity (8%), religion/belief (5%), nationality (4%).This is a block description. To edit, click and type the text or replace it with your own content. Use this space to convert site visitors into customers with a promotion.
DWP: (February 2026) It is estimated that there will be 4.2 million children in relative low income after housing costs (AHC) by March 2030. Rising to 4.8 million in 2026 before falling.
UNICEF: (2025) The UK saw the largest increase in relative child income poverty of 37 high-income countries between 2013 and 2023 – an increase of 34%.
Missing People (January 2026) A child is reported missing every 2.5 minutes in the UK, totalling around 210,000 incidents each year. These cases affect more than 430,000 people annually, and 48 children died while missing in 2023–24.
Children’s Commissioner (Feb 2024): Almost 120,000 children of compulsory school age were recorded as missing education at some point in 2022/23 which is up by almost 25% from the year before.
Independent Slavery Commissioner (2024): Research has found that children with special educational needs and disabilities, as well as those outside of education including through school exclusion and dropout, are particularly vulnerable to exploitation (citing Celiksoy, E. et al, 2024)

Local Poverty Data UK (2025)

Child Modern Slavery UK (Jan 2024)

RISKS in The DIGITAL WORLD

Online grooming crimes against children increase by 89% in six years

The data reveals the most common platforms that perpetrators used to target children online, in cases where the means of communication was disclosed. The total number of offences recorded in 2023/24 where a tech platform was recorded is 1,824. Of total cases where gender was known in 2023/24, 81% of children targeted were girls. The youngest victim of online grooming in 2023/24 was a 5-year-old boy.

48%

Snapchat

12%

WhatsApp (Meta)

10%

Facebook and Messenger (Meta)

NSPCC Article (2024)

OUR Approach

Joining the dots ...

Three levels of support:

Awareness (2-3 hours) whole team | Enhanced (1 day) Leaders | Specialist (1 day + follow-up) Change Management

Special Educational Needs & Disability

We approach SEND in multiple settings from a perspective of 4 areas of need within 'whole child' development and more broadly driven by a strategic Provision Framework: Cognition & Learning, Physical & Sensory, Social Emotional Mental Health and Communication & Interaction.

Open to all, at different levels of engagement.

Training | Materials | Tools | Signposting

Poverty

Within the 5 broad dimensions of human need, we recognise 6 types of poverty:

Absolute, Relative, Situational, Generational, Urban, and Rural.

The training is ideal for Family Workers & Pastoral Leads

In the training we provide a tool for financial situation transformation.

Training | Materials | Tools | Signposting

Human Trafficking / Modern Slavery

Human trafficking is the transportation of people for exploitation. There are 9 main possible types of exploitation: Cuckooing, Debt Bondage (Bonded Labour), Domestic Servitude, Forced Labour, Forced Benefit Fraud (Identity Theft), Forced Criminality, Forced Marriage, Organ Transplant, and Sexual exploitation.

Training | Materials | Tools | Signposting

Ambiguous Loss

Additional Materials (password protected)

“Each Party (country) shall establish and/or strengthen effective policies and programmes to prevent trafficking in human beings, by such means as: research, information, awareness raising and education campaigns, social and economic initiatives and training programmes, in particular for persons vulnerable to trafficking and for professionals concerned with trafficking in human beings.”