Children who are victims of criminal exploitation have been put through some of the most troubling situations imaginable, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that many of them face mental health struggles as a result.
We see that children being supported through Catch22 routinely need mental health aftercare and real specialised support. However, as it stands, what little is available for them simply isn’t robust or specialist enough, with children facing barriers to access and support that is dependent on where they live and what may have been commissioned in their area. Marike van Harskamp, Head of Policy and Public Affairs, argues that this gap must be addressed to break cycles of harm and tackle child criminal exploitation.
The mental health impact of exploitation
How would you cope with aftermath of being forced and threatened into committing crimes, not just once but so perpetually it feels like there is no escape or maybe ending up in hospital with life-threatening injuries? What would it do to your mental health, that sense of being controlled, the constant ‘fight or flight’-mode, or the flashbacks of what you have experienced?
Now imagine all that – but you are only 11, 13, or 15 years old, with your brain still developing and the world even more confusing? That’s the experience of thousands of children who are being criminally exploited in the UK every year, many of whom Catch22 supports through our National County Line Support and Rescue Service, our Criminal Child Exploitation services across England, and our Redthread embedded youth work in A&Es.
While poor mental health is known to make children more vulnerable to exploitation, in our work we see time and again that the trauma of this type of child abuse leaves young victims at high risk of developing severe mental ill-health. Low mood, anxiety, self-harm, suicidal ideation, panic attacks, emotional dysregulation, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are all very common for children and young victims who are or have been suffering exploitation. Moreover, without access to specialist and clinical mental health treatment and support, they are at much higher risk of re-victimisation, staying stuck in a cycle of abuse and harm.
Real life risk
We see this back in, for instance, the girls and young women we support through our national County Lines Support and Rescue Service. Of the 143 young women the service supported in 2025, three quarters had significant mental health problems, which also showed some very telling age and risk patterns:
74% of all victims had significant mental health concerns, including:
- 21% struggling with suicidal ideation
- 24% self-harming
- 34% experiencing anxiety
Some age groups were more likely to experience poor mental health:
- 85% of 18-21-year-olds
- 79% of 16-17-year-olds
- 58% of under-15s
There is a strong correlation between ill-mental health and the risk level of further harm and exploitation. With 1 being the lowest risk score and 5 the highest, of those with:
- Score 5 – 100% experienced mental health difficulties
- Score 4 – 100% experienced mental health difficulties
- Score 3 – 77% experienced mental health difficulties
- Score 2 – 68% experienced mental health difficulties
- Score 1 – 29% experienced mental health difficulties
Even at lower risk levels and younger ages, the prevalence of mental health problems is high, and it becomes even more prevalent for 18-21-year-olds. The data suggests the likelihood that ongoing mental ill-health increases risk severity and perpetuates child criminal exploitation into young adulthood.
Clearly, there’s real potential for mental support both as an early intervention measure and to address the deep, acute trauma aftercare needs. That’s precisely why our Drawing the Line campaign calls for more and better specialist mental health support and after care for young victims of criminal exploitation.
A gap in aftercare
Sosa Henkoma, now a brilliant lived-experience advocate for exploited children, courageously described how he escaped an abusive home as an 8-year-old, only to be groomed into a life of crime and harrowing violence and fear, leaving him with complex PTSD. It was only when, years later, he finally saw a psychiatrist and accessed therapy that he could start to understand what had happened to him and work on his recovery.
But the truth of the matter is: this type of support for victims, as well as their families, comes often too late or not at all. It’s subject to a postcode lottery, dependent on Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) waiting lists or on what services might have been commissioned locally. But trauma has no postcode. Instead, it will live, fester, and grow within the child wherever they are, with potential life-long, devastating consequences for their wellbeing, mental health, and safety if untreated or unsupported.
It is important to understand that these aren’t issues with emotional wellbeing, which could be alleviated by non-clinical support or trauma-informed services alone. Instead, these young exploitation victims present with the symptoms or a diagnosis of mental ill-health that would often require clinical treatment and therapy. Any such provision will also need to be steeped in genuine insight and listening to the children and young people affected. The Life of a Top Boy: On trauma and violence in the community research by Dr Ron Dodzro and Winston Goode, for instance, offers important findings and recommendations on young Black men impacted by gang-affiliated violence – and how mainstream diagnostic tools and therapeutic approaches tend to miss their trauma symptoms. To this end, we are also looking forward to the findings of the NHS London Vanguard evaluation; a pilot project embedding psychological support in community settings for children impacted by violence and exploitation.
The opportunity clock is ticking
Now is the time to invest into this type of therapeutic support, but the opportunity clock is ticking. The government has announced a series of policies, programmes, and funding streams to tackle child criminal exploitation and to improve mental wellbeing prevention provision. As things stand, both are likely to fall short of what is needed to break cycles of harm and exploitation.
The Crime and Policing Bill, for instance, introduces the welcome new offence of Child Criminal Exploitation to target the perpetrators and gangs who groom and abuse children for criminal gain, but the Bill itself won’t create additional specialist support for young victims. The Victims’ Code of Practice update, currently under consultation by the Ministry of Justice, offers a much-needed focus on child victims of crime, including exploitation. However, here too, such a focus would still leave children alone in dealing with the mental health aftermath without an investment into the right type of support and recovery. And while the new Youth Futures Hub pilots may help to divert children away from crime through also their mental wellbeing component, the offer doesn’t seem to include clinical services or be tailored to criminal exploitation victims.
Conclusion
While these developments are welcome, they also still leave a genuine provision gap for some of the most vulnerable and traumatised children. Without therapeutic support, the risk of ongoing harm stays high – as does the risk of government not properly achieving its objectives to crack down on exploitation and safeguard children.
In December the government, rightly, announced up to £50 million of Department for Health and Social Care funding for specialist therapeutic support for child victims of sexual abuse (CSA) and sexual exploitation (CSE) as part of its VAWG Strategy. What’s needed now is that same political will to invest in specialist mental health provision – not as an afterthought but as a pivotal part to help draw the line on child criminal exploitation for good.