Most press coverage of the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal is drawn from a report by Professor Alexis Jay commissioned by the borough council.

Newspapers rightly covered the very dark tale laid out in the report, of gangs of men sexually exploiting over a thousand teenage girls in the town for more than a decade.

The press used the Jay report to show how the gangs first groomed and manipulated then brutalised the girls. The girls suffered violence and multiple rapes and were trafficked to other towns and cities.

Newspapers reported how, as the Jay report shows, the girls and their advocates complained explicitly about the rapes but were wilfully ignored by the police, social services and Rotherham council.

With the notable exception of Times journalist Andrew Norfolk, who has been exposing the Rotherham scandal since 2011, the press were overwhelmingly reliant on the Jay report.

But for all the press coverage, great chunks of the Jay report were barely described. Especially the bits that proposed ways to reduce sexual exploitation and help victims.

Many newspapers were drawn to the tale of misery and violence, but not so interested in how to try improving the rotten situation. Journalists went to great lengths to chase officials who ignored the warnings.

But the same papers did little to discuss proven ways to deal with the abuse that were in the same report. To try redressing the balance, here are three under-reported subjects in the report.

<B>Engaging with the Pakistani community</B>

Right-wing groups are trying to use the scandal to attack this community because Pakistani men were abusing white girls. Professor Jay advises more, not less, engagement with Pakistani-origin people.

However, she especially advises the council to work with Pakistani women’s groups rather than just “traditional community leaders” like imams.

This was especially important to reach hidden abuse of Pakistani-heritage girls rather than be guided by an “assumption” and only look for exploitation of “young white girls.”
 
<B>The vital importance of youth work</B>

Much of what we know about Rotherham abuse comes from the detailed work by Rotherham’s Risky Business project, which also played a “key role” in the only successful police prosecutions of abusers.

The Jay report has a whole chapter about Risky Business, and mentions it throughout. But national newspapers only sporadically describe the project — often wrongly.

The Daily Mirror and other papers call Risky Business a charity, when it was in fact a council-run service. No paper gets across the most worrying fact — that Risky Business has been effectively closed.

Risky Business was “a small team of youth workers” set up in 1997 to deal with problems of young people being abused through prostitution. They “adopted an outreach approach, based on community development principles.”  They “did not prescribe or direct” but responded to young people’s concerns.

They were youth workers rather than social workers or police. Being non-statutory meant they did not have legal power over the girls.

Those with legal authority so often made the wrong decision that this was a bonus. Risky Business won over the girls’ trust. Because of their reasonable mistrust of the authorities and the confusions caused by grooming, this trust was essential.

They got in touch with the girls through a “pro-active” outreach service, meeting youngsters on streets and in schools. Almost everything was right about Risky Business — except the way it was treated by social services.

Work with young teenage girls was left to Risky Business while social services focused on pre-teen children at risk. Social services “disbelieved” Risky Business evidence of abuse and thought they were “treading on their territory.”

So a vital project that actually addressed the abuse was left to struggle because social services management “failed to enforce proper joint working and effective co-ordination.”

The press rightly highlighted the way a report based on Risky Business files which fully laid out the scale and depth of the abuse was suppressed in 2002. But they seem uninterested in how Risky Business actually worked.

A survivor of the abuse told Professor Jay that “there should be more people like Risky Business.”

In fact there are less, because Risky Business has now been incorporated within social services.

Jay says “it is doubtful whether its original ethos and style of working can survive this absorption into the statutory system.”

In effect it has been closed.
 

<B>Therapy for survivors</B>

Professor Jay says there is “little if any post-abuse counselling and support for victims.” This is deeply unjust.

Establishing such counselling is one of Jay’s key proposals, but has been seriously under-reported by the press.

It’s understandable that the press wants headlines about “cover-ups” and “guilty officials” in the Rotherham scandal rather than ones reading “Reinstatement of youth outreach team key to stopping sexual exploitation by gangs.”

But if they just chase these bad guys without doing anything to promote better practice, we will see the Rotherham scandal regularly repeated.

Sleazy guys exploiting and abusing young girls is certainly not limited to one town, or one ethnic group. More police prosecutions are essential but without proper outreach work which wins the trust of youngsters at risk, these prosecutions will be sporadic.

Most importantly, properly funded and integrated youth work can prevent youngsters being dragged into abuse.

 Sadly it isn’t just the press who seem to be failing.
 

The Jay report has a formula for Rotherham which could and should be rolled out in other towns and cities. Properly integrated youth outreach services, therapy for survivors, better engagement with minority communities — especially women.

Without this effort, we will see more girls abused.

Sadly, the Labour Party are only focusing on mandatory reporting of abuse, which is a lot cheaper than a fuller package of reforms but, despite sounding firm, is probably a lot less effective.

<B>Follow Solomon Hughes on Twitter @Sol_Hughes_Writer</B>