By Kieran McCartan, PhD.
The annual NOTA international conference took place in Cardiff, Wales,
this week. There were over 230 attendees, across three days, with six keynotes
and 36 parallel breakout sessions. For this blog post, we talk through the
highlights of a successful, engaging, and thought-provoking conference.
The conference kicked off on Wednesday morning in a sunny Cardiff with a
keynote from Professor Melissa Grady on the use of trauma
informed practice in working with people convicted of a sexual offence.
Professor Grady emphasized the importance of understanding past trauma in the
populations that we work with to develop the correct conditions and process for
treatment and rehabilitation. She indicated that we as a profession are trauma-aware
but may need to go further to be truly trauma informed. Additionally, she
highlighted the importance of attachment and the links between maladaptive
attachment, trauma, and sexual abuse. This theme was restated throughout the
conference. Professor Grady’s talk was followed up by a roundtable discussion on
the use of restorative justice in cases of sexual abuse, an often debated and
sometimes challenging topic. The roundtable had representation from across the
UK with Clifford
Grimason laying out the position of HMPPS to Restorative
Justice, both in general and in respect to cases of sexual offending; Stephen Barry
talked about some of the practice and therapeutic work being done by the BE
Safe Service in Bristol with children and young people who have sexually
harmed; and Ashley
Scotland from Thriving Survivors and David Russell
from Midlothian Council talking about the innovative work going on in Scotland
around the development of restorative justice approaches to sexual abuse cases.
The panel was varied in their views and the roundtable opened the opportunity
for a nuanced debate on an under discussed response to cases of sexual abuse,
with the final comment being the need for a sensitive and individualised
approach, as well as a promise to continue the conversation.
On Thursday the conference started with Pat Brannigan, Shelley Shaw, &
Jennie Hammond talking about the development and roll out
of Together for Childhood, a project in Plymouth and in Stoke. Together for Childhood
is a place-based approach to the prevention of child sexual abuse led by the
NSOCC in conjunction with local and regional partners. The talk emphasized that
sexual abuse is a community issue and that we need a community-building
approach to prevent and respond to it. This was followed by another
place-oriented keynote with Dr Sophie Hallett on innovative approaches in
preventing Child Sexual Exploitation in Wales. Dr. Hallet discussed the social
and political construction of child sexual exploitation before discussing why a
child-centered approach was essential in understanding and responding to sexual
exploitation. She asked the audience to consider whether we as professionals
listen to the voices and requests of our child clients enough.
The final day of the conference started with Dr. Wendy
MacDowall on research from the National Surveys of Sexual
Attitudes and Lifestyles (AKA NATSAL), wherein she discussed the changing
sexual lifestyles in the UK, the increasing inclusion of sexual abuse questions
in the survey, and the new sexual competency measure that is being introduced
in the current live version of the NATSAL. One of the topics that Dr. MacDowell
discussed that stood out the most was research from the NATSAL on the
importance of sexual education in school and its links to sexual behavior and
abuse. This led to the final keynote of
the conference by Professor Clare Allely on her recent research
on neurodiversity, autism, and sexual offending. Professor Allely gave an
engaging and thought-provoking talk on the relevance of understanding autism in
clients in terms of assessment, sentencing, and treatment. She reminded us that
problematic sexual behavior in autistic and neurodiverse individuals may not be
simply sexual deviance but could be a symptom of their diagnosis that is of a
sexual nature but not done for sexually motivated reasons (she gave the example
of an individual who as a child in crisis situations would drop their pants as
they knew they would be removed from that situation, but as an adult that took
on a different meaning and consequence).
Across the Wednesday and Thursday afternoon we had 36 breakout sessions
covering topics as broad as research and treatment on sibling sexual abuse,
harmful sexual behavior in young people, restorative justice, campus climate
surveys, masculinity and sex education, circles of support and accountability,
treatment, desistence, and updates from HMPPS on current policy as well as
practice. In addition, we also had an international roundtable on the
assessment, treatment and management of people convicted of a sexual offence
with speakers from leading professional organizations that work with people convicted
of a sexual offence from England & Wales (HMPPS), Scotland (Stop it now
Scotland/NOTA), Northern Ireland (Leonard Consulting/NOTA), France (CRIAVS), the Netherlands (NL-ATSA),
Latvia(Dardedze), and Italy (CoNTRAS-TI).
This year the conference had a special online edition of the Journal of
Sexual Aggression curated by Dr. Nadine McKillop; readers are invited to go to
the journal website and twitter account for more information.
Finally, we had a changing of the NOTA guard, with Professor Sarah Brown
stepping down as NOTA Chair and Stuart Allardyce stepping into the role. Thanks
for all your hard work and leadership Sarah and good luck to Stuart as he leads
NOTA forward. In closing, the conference was a great success. It was a great
opportunity to reconnect and reengage with colleagues as well as learn about
innovative research, policy, and practice.
No comments:
Post a Comment