Throughout March, Anti-Slavery International will be publishing a blog series authored by experts who consulted on the joint Middlesex University and Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group training framework designed to strengthen Local Authorities’ Response to modern slavery. The first blog of the series offers perspectives from Emily.
Emily Vaughn is a leading expert on modern slavery and human trafficking and author of Enslaved, with extensive experience as a consultant and adviser to the Human Trafficking Lived Experience Advisory Panel and other local and national forums and panels on modern slavery. She has co-led and contributed to multiple research projects and sector‑defining tools, including the Survivor Care Standards, and co‑produced the Slavery Self‑Identification Tool. Emily has experience of delivering modern slavery training to Local Authorities and a wide range of frontline professionals.
Illustration credit: Faltrego
“Modern slavery is frequently hidden in plain sight, and without targeted, role-specific training, professionals may overlook subtle signs of exploitation that do not fit stereotypical assumptions.”
- Emily Vaughn
In May 2025, Middlesex University and the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group (ATMG) published research examining how Local Authorities – local government institutions that provide essential services – implement their first-responder responsibilities. The report found that Local Authorities face several challenges, including limited resources, awareness and training, fragmented response, barriers to multi-agency working, and gaps in supply chain oversight.
What is a first responder?
Designated statutory and non-statutory organisations, known as First Responders, have a duty to refer potential survivors of trafficking and modern slavery into the National Referral Mechanism, the UK’s system to identify and support survivors of modern slavery.
To address some of these challenges, the research team developed a Training Framework for Local Authorities, working with the expertise of Local Authorities, NGOs, and lived experience experts to strengthen and refine it.
Experts Emily, Kimberley, and Joy, played a key role in shaping the framework. We followed up with them and asked them to reflect on the challenges Local Authorities face, why training matters, and what they hope to see happen next.
Over the next few weeks, you will hear from these experts as they encourage us all to reflect on current challenges and what changes need to be made to strengthen identification and support for individuals affected by slavery and trafficking.
This week, Emily shares her reflections, including barriers to identifying victims in rural areas, the importance of understanding modern slavery as a core safeguarding issue rather than a specialist issue, and her hopes for an integrated response.
The challenges Local Authorities face in responding to modern slavery
There are several barriers that impact local authorities’ ability to perform their duties as First Responders, such as resources constraint, high caseloads, and limited trauma-informed and cultural competencies.
Gaps in knowledge, preparedness and prioritisation
Identification practices are inconsistent across the UK and frontline staff often have different levels of awareness and confidence. Many professionals lack role-specific, up-to-date training. This means that sometimes they hesitate to make referrals to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), when appropriate.
Local authorities are also responsible for responding to other urgent safeguarding priorities. With resource constraints and high caseloads, frontline workers’ ability to provide thorough, trauma-informed assessments and sustained support for modern slavery cases becomes limited.
Gaps in multi-agency coordination and limited support
The impact of exploitation on individuals is extensive, and as a result survivors often have to navigate multiple processes and support services. Immigration status, overlapping legal frameworks, and limited specialist knowledge add further uncertainty.
In this context, poor multi-agency coordination can result in delays, unclear responsibilities, and ineffective information sharing.
Together these issues often prevent access to support, further exacerbating vulnerabilities to exploitation. Housing, for example, presents a major barrier, particularly where survivors do not meet priority need thresholds or have no access to welfare benefits and public support, exposing them to prolonged housing insecurity and homelessness.
Overlooked factors that prevent disclosure and identification
Survivors’ reluctance to engage with authorities or loyalty to exploiters may be misunderstood as non-compliance by professionals and First Responders, when in reality, this behaviour is often based in fear of authorities, shame, and debt bondage. In turn, this misunderstanding reduces opportunities for identification.
Additional challenges are often overlooked, particularly for victims in rural areas who may experience geographical isolation, limited access to specialist services, poor transport links, and reduced professional visibility. All of these can conceal exploitation in agriculture, car washes, nail bars, private homes, or small businesses.
Children and young carers may be exploited within family or community settings while appearing responsible and self-sufficient, meaning their vulnerability is masked by perceived resilience.
Similarly, some victims “blend into society” including British nationals, employed individuals, students, or those with stable accommodation and may not fit stereotypical images of trafficking, leading to under-identification, especially in cases of labour exploitation, domestic servitude, criminal exploitation, or coercive control.
Cultural stigma, language barriers, digital exploitation, and online recruitment further complicate detection. The transition period after NRM support ends often creates a “cliff edge,” leaving survivors at risk of homelessness, re-exploitation, or deteriorating mental health, with Local Authorities absorbing responsibility without dedicated funding. Weak data collection, limited local intelligence analysis, and insufficient prevention strategies compound these issues.
The importance of training
Modern slavery is often hidden in plain sight, and without targeted, role-specific training, professionals may overlook subtle signs of exploitation that do not fit what we think modern slavery looks like.
High quality training strengthens understanding of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, safeguarding duties under the Care Act and Children Act, and referral pathways such as the NRM. It can help reduce uncertainty and increase timely decision-making. It also embeds trauma-informed practice to help practitioners understand why victims may appear fearful, disengaged, loyal to exploiters, or reluctant to disclose abuse. This understanding can help in preventing practitioners from misinterpreting these behaviours.
Importantly, training challenges unconscious bias and myths about what a victim “looks like.” It supports early intervention and prevention by equipping housing officers, environmental health staff, licensing teams, and community safety practitioners to recognise patterns of exploitation and disrupt them sooner. Training also promotes multi-agency collaboration, professional challenge, and reflective practice (where practitioners review their decisions and actions, consider what worked and what didn’t, and use those insights to improve safeguarding responses and professional judgement), strengthening consistency across services.
When training is ongoing and reinforced through supervision rather than delivered as a one-off session, it builds workforce resilience and reduces risk-averse practice, reducing potential harm and avoiding actions that could increase danger, distress, or vulnerability, while ensuring survivors are supported safely and with informed choice. Ultimately, this improves survivor outcomes by ensuring modern slavery is understood not as a rare or specialist issue, but as a core safeguarding responsibility embedded within everyday practice.
Looking ahead
Strengthening the response to modern slavery requires action beyond frontline training and individual case management. To improve the identification and support for survivors, local authorities must address structural, systemic, and cultural issues, and the other factors that prevent survivors from being identified that are sometimes overlooked.
To improve the response to modern slavery, the government must ensure:
- Sustainable and dedicated funding for Local Authorities and partner agencies so that identification leads to meaningful, long-term recovery rather than short-term crisis intervention.
- Stable housing pathways, access to specialist trauma-informed mental health services, substance misuse support, legal advice, immigration guidance, financial inclusion, and employment opportunities to reducing re-exploitation.
- Clearer guidance, particularly around adults with care and support needs, access to welfare benefits and public funding, age-disputed young people, and transitions after National Referral Mechanism (NRM) support ends would reduce inconsistency and risk-averse practice.
- Stronger multi-agency governance, with clear accountability, escalation routes, and lawful information-sharing protocols, to prevent gaps between police, health, housing, social care, education, and voluntary sector partners.
- Considerations and focus on overlooked factors and cohorts, such as:
- The impacts of poverty, homelessness, migration status, disability, learning difficulties and other factors which create structural vulnerabilities that increase risk of exploitation.
- Male victims, LGBTQ+ individuals, older people, and British nationals who may not fit dominant narratives.
- Digital exploitation, online recruitment, and the use of social media and messaging platforms for grooming and control require enhanced digital safeguarding capability.
- The impact of organised crime networks, county lines activity, and cross-border exploitation, which demand stronger regional and national coordination.
- Workforce wellbeing and reflective supervision are vital, as complex cases can lead to burnout and desensitisation, affecting professional judgement. Ethical procurement and supply chain transparency within Local Authorities themselves should be strengthened to ensure public services do not inadvertently contribute to exploitative practices.
- Community-level prevention, including awareness campaigns in rural and isolated communities, partnership with faith groups and community leaders, and culturally sensitive outreach that builds trust among groups wary of statutory services.
Survivor voices must move beyond consultation toward co-production of policies and services, ensuring responses are genuinely person-centred and trauma informed.
Going forward, I would like to see a more integrated national framework that bridges immigration, criminal justice, housing, welfare, and social care systems; long-term recovery pathways that extend beyond NRM timelines; improved data sharing and analytical capacity to identify emerging trends; and stronger investment in early intervention. Ultimately, the response should shift from reactive, threshold-based crisis management to a coordinated, prevention-focused, and rights-based system that prioritises safety, stability, dignity, and protection from re-exploitation for all victims, including those who are most hidden from view.