The CSA Centre’s Key Messages from Research on Children and Young People Who Display Harmful Sexual Behaviour highlights that harmful sexual behaviour is more common than is widely thought, and is often an indicator of other issues:
“There are no accurate prevalence figures on the full spectrum of harmful sexual behaviours. However, available data suggests that under-18s are responsible for a significant proportion of child sexual abuse, and there is considerable concern about widespread and ‘normalised’ sexual harassment and abuse between students in schools. … Most pre-adolescent children displaying harmful sexual behaviour have themselves been sexually abused or experienced other kinds of trauma or neglect.”
If incidents of harmful sexual behaviour occur involving children in your setting, there are many challenges to ensure that your response is proportionate and fair – especially if you are managing conflicting expectations from the children involved, their parents, and other people in their network – each of whom may hold a very different view about how the incident(s) should be responded to. This can be further complicated by factors relating to the ages of the children, when and where the incident(s) took place, who was involved, whether there was an online element and/or images were involved, and misinformation on social media.
Resources for education settings | CSA Centre
Whole school approach to child sexual abuse | CSA Centre
Implementing a whole school approach to child sexual abuse | CSA Centre
If your capacity is genuinely limited right now, it may help to know that this framework does not need to be completed all at once. The audit is divided into six areas of practice which can be worked through individually over time, and the process can be shaped around your setting’s existing improvement planning cycles. In the meantime, we recommend two free resources that are relevant to every adult in your setting and can be used immediately:
- What You Need to Know about Child Sexual Abuse
- our 90-minute eLearning course on identifying and responding to intra-familial child sexual abuse.
They will give your colleagues an excellent grounding for when there is more capacity for a broader piece of work.
Schools and professionals in education settings play a pivotal role in identifying and responding to concerns about children and supporting them to be safe.
Half a million children are estimated to experience some form of sexual abuse each year, yet few ever reach the attention of statutory services. If children do tell an adult that they have been sexually abused, they are most likely to tell someone they know and trust, so professionals in education settings must have the confidence and skills to communicate with the children and families they work with.
Keeping children safe in education statutory guidance from the Department for Education (DfE) highlights the importance of identifying concerns early, preventing concerns from escalating, all staff having the knowledge of what to do if a child shares that they have been abused and an understanding of how to reassure victims and that they will be supported and kept safe.
To help, we have developed by professionals a series of free guides which bring together research, practice guidance, and expert input – including from survivors of abuse – specifically for those working in education settings to support response.
Communicating with children: A guide for education professionals
This resource provides guidance on how professionals should respond when they have concerns of sexual abuse, what they can say to children, building an understanding of context, how to support children and advice on responding to harmful sexual behaviour at school.
Communicating with parents and carers: A guide for education professionals
This guide is designed to help professionals understand more about how child sexual abuse affects parents and carers and their children, so that they can support them effectively. Understandably, many teachers say they find it hard to talk to parents when there are concerns, this guide helps to support conversations of this kind and build confidence. It explores the impact of child sexual abuse carried out in different contexts, and how such abuse can affect families differently. It also explains why parents need to receive a supportive response from their child’s school/college, and what this involves.
