Identifying better responses to child abuse

Together for Childhood is a long-term programme that aims to prevent child abuse and address the issues that contribute to it. Working across four towns and cities in the UK – Grimsby, Glasgow, Plymouth, and Stoke-on-Trent – the NSPCC brings together children, families and local partners to make their communities safer for children. This involves public awareness campaigns, events in schools, engaging with communities, and direct services for children and families.

Together for Childhood spoke to 1,300 children aged 12 to 14 to better understand how we can help keep them safe from child abuse.

We wanted to know what children know, think and would do about child abuse. We learned that they would like more help with three key areas.

• Knowledge gaps – bridging the information divide: Children told us they know enough about physical abuse, sexual abuse and online abuse. But they said they know less about emotional abuse, domestic abuse, neglect and how to spot the signs of an abusive relationship.

• Sense of responsibility – shifting the narrative: Although children are never to blame for child abuse, they can sometimes feel a sense of responsibility for some forms of child abuse. This can lead to victim blaming and shame, which may stop them from speaking out.

• Support and advice – pathways they can trust: Children need trusted and reliable support pathways. They are most likely to speak with a parent/carer, another adult family member or friend. But they worry about what might happen if they do speak out.

Implications for services

Children’s voices and perspectives should be the driving force for influencing safeguarding policy and practice. We reflected on how children’s services, teams, and practitioners – including schools and educators – can proactively protect children based on the findings.

We identified calls to action based on three key themes.

1. Education and awareness campaigns – empowering children

Empowering and mobilising children is crucial for effective education and awareness campaigns. Co-producing child abuse prevention messages means they are more relatable and authentic. This includes involving them in decision-making about themes and resolutions to the issues they face. They are the experts in their own lives.

Participation is more than activity design; it is about enabling children to influence the practitioners they work with. In Together for Childhood, we ask for children’s input on practitioner qualities, knowledge and training. This can strengthen safer recruitment practices. They should always be recognised for their insights.

2. Strengthening policy – advocacy for change

To make children’s aspirations become a reality, practitioners need to listen to and learn from their ideas. This can support diverse professionals to strengthen policy and advocate for change, especially as schools and youth organisations face pressure to manage the rise in safeguarding concerns. Practitioners need to be prepared to adapt their approaches to the specific needs of the children they work with.

While we are encouraging children to ask for help, we need to make sure that practitioners are equipped to respond. In Together for Childhood, this has involved delivering effective safeguarding training sessions as part of a local youth work qualification. The aim is to build their confidence in understanding and responding to safeguarding in relation to sexual behaviour at the start of their training and career.

3. Early help and intervention – nipping problems in the bud

We know it can be difficult to engage parents/carers in child abuse prevention activities. Practitioners need to support parents/carers to normalise potentially sensitive and tricky conversations with children. It is about facilitating clear communication and open dialogue about all types of challenges children face.

This is important to safeguarding practice because children have told us that parents/carers are their most likely avenues for support. For many people, including parents/carers, hearing about child abuse can be very hard. But if children’s concerns are not heard, or shut down, or if there is blame, then the safeguarding response will not be adequate. They will be unlikely to tell again.

Children’s services and practitioners working within early help and intervention need to consider whether they are prioritising these softer behavioural outcomes.

Take-home message

We can often think narrowly about child abuse prevention. We tend to give everyone lots of information about what it is and what they can do. But really, we need to better understand what the barriers are to putting this knowledge into practice. This does not mean that knowledge is not important. Rather, it is about working with practitioners, alongside children on increasing their resilience, confidence, and positive and safe relationships.

For practitioners and children’s services, the link to these supportive factors is not always clear, but are key to ensuring that children are safe, supported and protected from harm.

Young people’s research from https://tinyurl.com/5cvtbwnf

• Leila Ghafari is a social worker, Alice Dutton is a research and evaluation officer and Kandazi Sisya is a research and evaluation manager at the NSPCC