By
Anna Glinski (Deputy
Director for Knowledge and Practice Development at the Centre of Expertise on
Child Sexual Abuse).
This
blog was first published by the CSA Centre on the 18th March
2020 – Kieran.
Imagine
for a minute how it would feel to receive a knock on the door from a police
officer and social worker, who proceeds to inform you that an allegation of
sexual abuse has been made against someone close to you, a family member, your
partner, a friend – someone, you trust - would you believe it? What if
the allegation was made by your son or daughter? Would you be able to
think clearly enough to make some speedy decisions about what needed to happen
next? I suspect not. More likely, you would be overwhelmed with
feelings of shock, anger, confusion and disbelief.
Effective
multi-agency working with non-abusing parents is absolutely key to the future
welfare and safety of the child. Research indicates that
feeling believed by your main caregiver is one of the strongest mediators of
the long term mental health issues caused by sexual abuse. This
parent/caregiver will need to play a central role in protecting their children
from the person of concern, implementing safety plans and managing risks; and,
they will need to support their child with the immediate and longer-term
impacts of their abuse. These are hefty responsibilities for someone who is
also coming to terms with the fact their child has been abused by someone they
may have loved and trusted and is also likely to be experiencing other
pressures as a result.
After
the shock
The
consequences of believing someone in your family has abused a child (either on
or offline) can be enormous: shame, guilt, feelings of responsibility, an end
of a relationship, the loss of a home or an income and loss of support. And
fear - fear of losing your child or your partner, of a hostile response from
friends and family, of what people will think of you, of loss of autonomy, of
retribution from your partner. For many, it is not surprising that denial kicks
in: a normal and functional defence that allows us to protect ourselves against
something that is painful and distressing. As Still observes in her
useful book on assessing and
intervening with non-abusing parents, “It is not
uncommon to see the mother in a state of confusion and ambivalence, swinging on
a pendulum between believing the child completely one minute and not the next,
or believing some but not all of it: ‘I can believe this, but I cannot believe
that’.”
For
those from Black, Asian and minority communities, or with English as a second
language, or whose residence in this country is threatened, there may be
additional and significant consequences for what has happened. Additionally,
for those who have experienced sexual abuse themselves this process is likely
to be even more complex, confusing and painful. And what if one of your
children has abused the other/s?
Working
effectively with non-abusing parents
For
professionals to give the best opportunity to non-abusing parents to be able to
fulfil the tasks of support and protection, every interaction should be in the
context of building their strength and resilience, offering support and
understanding through an empowering approach. The limited research that
does exist indicates
that non-abusing parents and carers often do not receive the necessary empathy,
time, support or information to help. They can feel judged by professionals, ‘they
must have known’ (while battling with their own guilt about what has
happened).
We know that there are
parents who sexually abuse their children, or who do
not act protectively when they become aware of the abuse of their child, and
this needs to be properly investigated. However, non-abusing parents are too
often perceived to have been actively involved in the abuse. As Chaffin states “From
a trauma processing perspective, features such as denial, unfocused anger,
minimisation of the problem and ambivalence toward both the alleged victim and
abuser would be considered part of the course, rather than evidence of toxic
parenting or deep-seated psychopathology.”
Professionals
have an important role in understanding non-abusing parents’ reactions,
providing support to enable them to process what has happened and ensuring that
children are safeguarded. Effective assessment is an important part of this.
The safety of children is imperative and so even though denial is
understandable, children still need to be safeguarded as soon as possible.
The
CSA Centre’s work on effectiveness in services for children and young people
who have been sexually abused identified that suitable services
to non-abusing parents are essential to children’s safety and recovery. This built
on earlier findings by the NSPCC which
highlighted the importance of keeping children safe and well by working with
non-abusing parents. When a child is sexually abused, we must first ask
ourselves what that child needs, including their needs in the context of their
family.
Facilitating
necessary discussion
Sexual
abuse can be hard to talk about even for professionals and so the likelihood of
family members being able to talk about what has happened without being
supported to do so, is low. As helping professionals we have the skills to
talk about difficult matters and to help others do the same.
Professionals
need to facilitate discussion, and therefore healing and recovery, between
non-abusing parents and family members of a child who has been sexually abused.
Sexual abuse thrives in secrecy, and in not doing so we risk colluding with
this silence, and miss the opportunity to repair family relationships, and to
address feelings of guilt, responsibility, anger, distress, jealousy, blame and
torn loyalties which so often exist when a child is abused within the family.
Just think how much useful intervention we could provide by giving the
opportunity, for example, to a non-abusing parent to say they feel sorry to
their child for what happened to them; to tell them that they didn’t know it
was happening and if they did they would have intervened; to tell their child
that what has happened as a result of their disclosure is not their fault but
the fault of their abuser?
In
my practice experience, so many survivors have spoken about the harm the abuse
caused not just to them individually, but to every relationship within their
family. As such, I believe we have a duty to use our skills and roles with
families to attend to this integral part of their lives.
Resources
Educating
families about the signs, indicators and impact of sexual abuse is equally as
vital for prevention and effective response, and there are already some
excellent online resources available for them, and the professionals supporting
them.
- Parents protect has a wealth of
guidance and resources for professionals and families, including a sexual abuse
learning programme
- Stop it now supports adults
to play their part in prevention through providing sound information and
educating members of the public. People who are worried about their own or
someone else’s sexual behaviour can call their helpline too.
- The upstream project
is a Scottish resource (though available and relevant to other areas)
which offers tools and support on identifying, preventing and acting upon
child sexual abuse. In terms of keeping children safe from harm on the
internet.
- In terms of keeping children safe from harm on the internet Think u know offers
advice to children, young people, parents/carers and professionals.
- Mosac provides
supportive services for non-abusing parents and carers whose children have
been sexually abused.
Working
with non-abusing parents will be a key consideration in the CSA Centre’s future
work to develop useful resources and guidance to support professionals in
working with children, young people and their families, whether or not their
allegations of sexual abuse is proceeding through the criminal justice route.
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