This article reports findings from a qualitative study investigating the efficacy and the effects of a child sexual exploitation awareness raising intervention with young people. Drawing on in-depth interviews with members of a multi-agency team set up to prevent child sexual exploitation, we elucidate the way in which practitioners communicate the problem of child sexual exploitation and how risk registers are deployed to assess the dangerousness of young people’s behaviours. In examining practitioners’ understandings of child sexual exploitation, we illuminate the ways in which educative interventions in this domain are informed by a confluence of policy guidelines and personal/experiential perceptions. Unravelling the tensions arising between these two frames of interpretation, we illustrate that – despite routine recourse to embedded professional knowledge – underlying moral and cultural assumptions alongside anxieties about childhood sexuality influence practitioners’ understandings of the nature of risk, who is at risk and the context in which risks manifest themselves.

本文报告了一项定性研究的结果，该研究调查了儿童性剥削意识增强了对年轻人的干预的功效和影响。通过与为防止对儿童的性剥削而成立的多机构团队的成员进行的深入访谈，我们阐明了从业人员传达对儿童性剥削问题的方式以及如何利用风险登记表评估年轻人的行为的危险性。在研究从业人员对儿童性剥削的理解时，我们阐明了政策指导方针和个人/经验观念的融合为这一领域的教育干预提供了方法。揭示了这两种解释框架之间的紧张关系，