As part of the new prevention series I had a
conversation with Donald Findlater, Director of Stop it Now UK. (www.stopitnow.org.uk) Stop it Now UK was established in 2002 by
the Lucy Faithful Foundation ( www.lucyfaithful.org.uk) as
a result of the inspirational work of Fran Henry, Joan Tabachnick, Alisa Klein
and others who of course set up Stop it Now in the U.S. The Lucy Faithful Foundation is the only UK
wide charity dedicated solely to reducing the risk of children being sexually
abused. Stop it Now UK was advocating for the primary prevention of sexual
abuse before it was really on the social or political agenda in the UK. Under
Donald’s leadership, Stop It Now UK has played a pivotal role in raising the
profile and importance of preventing sexual abuse and violence.
Stop it Now UK provides a helpline for people who
are concerned about their sexual thoughts and behaviour as well as for other
family members and for professionals wanting to know more about sexual abuse
prevention. It also provides a range of prevention and treatment services.
Before taking on the leadership of Stop it Now UK Donald,
who originally trained and worked as a Probation Officer and manager and then Director of the Wolvercote Clinic, , another
initiative ahead of its time in many ways. The clinic provided residential
treatment for men who had sexually offended and was the only one of its kind in
the UK. The clinic was forced to close due to funding difficulties and to this
day the UK still does not have a specialist residential treatment centre for
sexual offenders outside the Criminal Justice System. Funding challenges have also been an issue at
Stop it NowUK. Not surprisingly, Donald talks with frustration about the way in
which support for prevention activity has been reduced at a time when there is
finally a greater recognition of the need to intervene earlier and more
proactively to stop sexual abuse and violence occurring in the first place.
Donald’s persistence and optimism has been really important in ensuring a continued focus on sexual abuse prevention in the UK.
Other prevention services provided by Stop it Now
UK include Inform, a programme for family members of internet offenders with
the aim of helping them to understand the offenders’ motivations and how they
can best support the family member to help them remain offence free in the
future. Inform is an individually
treatment programme for online offenders that aims to ensure the recipient
understands their motivation to offend online and what they need to do to
remain offence free in the future. An adapted Inform programme has also been
developed for young people; this is also delivered individually.
All Stop it Now interventions address healthy
sexual development through offering information and education; they are based
on the premise that sexual abuse and violence is a public health problem that
can and should be prevented and this belief has been central to Donald’s
motivation to develop Stop it Now. Donald is clear that if we are to make
progress in reducing levels of sexual abuse we need to have better informed and
aware individuals, families and communities. The work of ATSA member, Stephen
Smallbone in Australia has been particularly influential for Donald in
developing a prevention framework.
When considering the future, Donald speaks
eloquently about the need for more outcome data in the UK to measure the effectiveness
of prevention interventions. Under Donald’s leadership, Stop It Now UK is
playing its part with the evaluation of the Helpline (for more information go
to www.stopitnow.org.uk). In fact, in June 2014 an independent evaluation of the Stop it Now!
Helpline, conducted by specialist researchers from NatCen Social Research,
was published. The report has been described as 'overwhelmingly positive' with
findings showing that the Helpline provides a valuable contribution to tackling
child sexual abuse by helping people who have sexual thoughts, feelings and
behaviour towards children manage their behaviour, and by assisting all callers
to be informed about how to protect children and young people from risk of
harm. Study participants who had offended could report feeling more in control
of their sexual thoughts and behaviour after using the helpline. Positive
change was also reported in areas identified as protecting against
re-offending, such as:- improving emotional and psychological well-being;
addressing beliefs that can facilitate and maintain sexually abusive behaviour;
strengthening motivation to desist; reducing the risk of social isolation; and
increasing engagement in fulfilling and productive activities. The findings
from the research were synthesised and used to develop a toolkit outlining how
similar programmes could be implemented elsewhere in the UK. The toolkit was
also tested with other project partners in Germany and Finland. More
information can be foundhttp://www.stopitnow-evaluation.co.uk. Stop it Now continues to grow and now
has a presence in a number of other European nations.
Jon Brown, MSc
References
Smallbone, S., Marshall, W.L. and Wortley, R. (2008) Preventing child sexual abuse: evidence, policy and practice, Cullompton, Devon: Willan
Publishing.
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