Sharing the evidence on CSA: Cassandra Harrison, the Centre of Expertise on CSA

The Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse was launched in February 2017. Hosted by Barnardo's and backed with £8m of Home Office funding until 2020, the creation of the centre was a key part of the former coalition government's child sexual exploitation action plan published in March 2015.

Cassandra Harrison, formerly deputy director of policy and public affairs at Barnardo's, was appointed director of the centre in November 2016 to oversee its launch. She undertook a number of policy and research positions in local government after graduating with a degree in international business, and says her mother's job as a social worker and parents being foster carers sparked her interest in children's social care issues.

What work has the centre focused on in its first year?

There are still too many questions we don't know the answer to, particularly on how we prevent child sexual abuse (CSA) and child sexual exploitation (CSE).

We are undertaking a prevalence study to improve understanding on the scale and nature of CSA. We've also produced a report for frontline practitioners and service commissioners about the eight key messages to emerge from CSE research.

Last June we launched an evaluation fund, which has allocated £300,000 to 17 organisations - voluntary groups, local authorities and academics - to help them measure the outcomes from their work. It recognises that service providers are really stretched at the moment so finding the time and resources to invest in evaluation can be difficult for them.

How difficult has it been to establish the centre?

I'm really proud of what we have achieved, getting a whole new organisation up and running. One of the key challenges has been recruiting staff. We've had to balance that against the desire to start producing materials and showing value.

We now have a staff of 20 and have one more role to fill that we are interviewing for. It's a multi-disciplinary team drawing in people with different professional expertise - some come from research and academic backgrounds, while the practice improvement advisers come from social work, policing and health services.

How does the centre work and what are its priorities?

Our role is to help equip agencies with the right evidence and knowledge that comes from academic research and practice and then apply that to work and jobs.

Robust evidence is important but we don't limit our activity to "gold standard" research. Research takes a long time to do and is often backwards looking. That has its place, but if you limit yourself to that you miss a lot of other interesting emerging evidence. Part of our approach will be to combine academic research with working with practitioners.

The practice improvement advisers are a crucial connection between the centre and services. Their aim is to make research evidence more accessible and that our work programme is in tune with the reality for practitioners on the ground. We want people to get in touch and tell us what issues are emerging.

What evidence is available about the prevalence of CSA/CSE?

There are a number of prevalence surveys, including the national crime survey and another run by the NSPCC. All ask slightly different questions which makes them quite hard to compare. Also the way you frame questions affects the response you get; for example, if you ask about it from a crime angle you get a lower response than if you ask about sexual experiences more generally. We're looking at amending existing surveys or assessing if there is a case for a national prevalence survey in 2018.

How involved are the Home Office and Barnardo's in the centre's work?

We are independent of both. To build credibility and trust with the sector it's important that they understand the degree of separation.

We have support services from Barnardo's - it has a fantastic track record in the sector. But it won't have access to our findings before the rest of the sector and we will hold them to the same standards of account.

We have a monthly meeting with Home Office management where we talk about budgets and work plans. We also have a cross-Whitehall steering group led by the Home Office.

Is there greater awareness now of CSE and CSA by policymakers and children's professionals?

We see a surge in awareness when there is a high-profile case, but we also need to step back and see the whole problem.

There is a will and commitment to tackle CSA and a desire to build evidence so that policymaking is more effective.

We're very organised with the child protection and safeguarding sector, but the multi-agency response is incredibly important. Practice improvement advisers will be working with education organisations and health services to help them and practitioners in these settings to better understand about sexual abuse and exploitation and feed key messages to them.

CASSANDRA HARRISON CV

• Nov 16-present: Director, The Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse
• May 15-Sept 16 Deputy director for policy and public affairs, Barnardo's
• Jan 14-May 15 Assistant director for policy and research, Barnardo's
• June 11-Jan 14 Senior adviser for children's social care, LGA
• Jan 09-Oct 09 European and international policy and public affairs officer, LGA
• July 07-May 11 Policy adviser, Local Government Regulation