We’re in this together now: How Together for Childhood is using a community-based approach to prevent Child Sexual Abuse in Plymouth

By Kieran McCartan, PhD., & Shelley Shaw, BA

 On Thursday 20^th of February, a celebration & learning event for Together for Childhood took place in Plymouth. Together for Childhood is an innovative, location-focused approach to the prevention of child sexual abuse led by the NSPCC in collaboration with relevant city councils, city leaders, and applicable public bodies (i.e., education, police., health, etc.). Together for Childhood is being implemented in four cities across the UK (Plymouth, Glasgow, Stoke-on-Trent, & Grimsby) and is changing community and social views on the prevention of child sexual abuse.

 Together for Childhood views child abuse (including sexual abuse) and neglect as community issues that impact individuals and advocates a community response to them. Together for Childhood is rooted in an Epidemiological Criminology (EpiCrim approach), a public health-framed approach to responding to and preventing criminogenic behavior. Together for Childhood, like EpiCrim, is grounded in community relations and the social and behavioral ecosystems of the people and place where it occurs (i.e., it focuses on the people and place of Plymouth as its guiding principle). The emerging research and evaluation highlight better community understandings of child abuse, leading to better public and community with professional stakeholders (i.e., health, justice education, charities, etc.) on the issue and increased reporting of abuse (to learn more about the project please listen to this UWE Changemaker podcast).

Together For Childhood is innovative as it sees child abuse as a community and societal issue that affects everyone, therefore all members of society and the different communities that comprise a local and regional area need to be involved in preventing it as well as responding to it. The idea of individuals across their different interpersonal relationships and communities working to identify and prevent child abuse within cities and regions that are supportive, compassionate, and trauma-informed is starting to shape, and embody a national conversation. Understanding that child abuse is preventable means that we can begin working with people at risk of offending and/or victimization earlier and therefore stop harm before it happens, which will have a cumulative positive impact across individuals, communities, and society.

The challenge of any large, multi-agency, community-based approach is sustainability and maintaining user engagement so that the initiative remembers relevant and fit-for-purpose. Together for Childhood in Plymouth recently had a public gathering as it reached its seventh year in operation, which was an opportunity to celebrate success and to re-energize the communities, partners, and professionals involved. With approximately 100 people in the room from all across the city, re-engagement was not an issue, it’s safe to say that Together for Childhood is alive and well in Plymouth and that there was an ongoing commitment to the project and a recognition that this project is changing the way that child sexual abuse is being thought of across the city. During the event, there was a series of workshop-based activities that resulted in a series of recommendations and commitments to action from the participants, whether they be community members or civic leaders, which included:

·       Bringing communications leaders together from across the Together for Childhood partnership in Plymouth to plan how to share a clear narrative that preventing child sexual abuse is possible.

·       Setting up a strategic conversation so as a city Plymouth has increased confidence to work with those who may sexually harm.

·       Working with young people to co-create the next phase of Scout and Girl Guides/Brownies sex and healthy relationship training and the related badges.

·       To support young people to influence the Plymouth Healthy Relationships Alliance to help inform development, delivery, and decision-making to help ensure education meets their needs.

·       To implement schools-based work promoting the NSPCC PANTS campaign (Editors note: Talk PANTS is a campaign designed to help children understand that their body belongs to them, and they should tell a safe adult they trust if anything makes them feel upset or worried) messaging and routinely sharing healthy relationships messages with parents and carers from one local school to another within the Trust.

·       Create a range of communication approaches to promote learning opportunities across agencies that center on actions to prevent child sexual abuse.

·       In addition, the partnership shared their commitment to come together more routinely for networking and sharing good practices.

Preventing child abuse and neglect takes a community and society driven by well-informed, engaged community members; but this can be difficult given the topic. What Together for Childhood shows us is that if we work together and support each other we can create communities of action that can prevent abuse. Now we must ask ourselves, how does this transfer out of the four pilot sites into other UK cities and what is the role of regional and national governments in facilitating this?

 

 

 

 

 

The power of change

By Kieran McCartan, Ph.D.

People change! For better or worse, they change. Behaviour, cognition, and personality are dynamic traits in people. Circumstances, contexts, and interactions change them. Change can be rapid or slow depending on the individual.

In criminal justice, individuals can change into people who commit offences and they, can, change out of people that commit offences. Change is motivated by many reasons and is always personal. The role of the criminal justice system, in its broadest sense, is to hold people accountable for their actions and to facilitate pro-social change in behaviour, actions and personality. People who exit the criminal justice system should be changed for the better, more pro-social and safer. Research and practice have demonstrated the benefits of pro-social behaviour change programmes that promote social inclusion and shared social values at reducing risk of re-offending. Additionally, there is an emerging literature on the impact of pre-offence or early career interventions at stemming offending behaviour. Change is possible, but its complex, dynamic and individual.

Currently in Scotland, England and Wales there is a crisis in our prison system. Our prisons are overcrowded with the criminal justice system relying on punitive measures, often short term, rather than looking at alternatives to justice (i.e., community supervision, electronic tagging, accommodation in hostels, etc). This has meant that there are too many people in our prisons, and we have recently reached an impasse. If we are not going to build more prisons but still send more people to prison, we have a fundamental problem. This impasse has resulted in a review of the prison population and the release of low-risk prisoners, a release of prisoners near the end of their sentence, or a reorganisation and reallocation of the prison population to lower security estates.

This is all based on risk of reoffending and dangerousness. Although in the majority of cases decisions being made mainly on the risk people opposed to the public (for instance low risk and lower tariff people being released to the community under the supervision of police and probation, and others being moved within the secure estate to lower risk/open establishments) certain offences (i.e., domestic violence, sexual abuse and terror related cases) are often off the table in terms of reallocation or release. The message here is that regardless or risk the index offence is paramount.

This is problematic. Severity of the legal system’s response should be based on assessments of risk more than on the severity of the index offence. There has been social and political commentary on whether this is endangering the public and whether the right decisions have been made. We have to trust the trained professionals in our criminal justice system. Decisions on release are not taken lightly given the socio-political context and media optics of early release and the risk management and audit culture that we live in. This, in turn, raises another issue related to change: trust. Trust in the system to know what its doing, trust in people to manage their behaviour and not reoffend and trust in society to accept them back in; all of which are challenging. Trust does not come easily. This means that we as individuals, communities and a society must change our views on rehabilitation, the power of change, and the potential for social integration. We must understand and start to trust more in the evidence, and work towards accepting change, not matter how difficult, in people.

In the UK, as across much of the world especially westernised and global north countries, we are at a crossroads in the way that we that we think about and respond to offending behaviour. Do we accept that people can change, regardless of their risk level and index offence, and work towards their postive social inclusion based on our trust in the professions that work with them? Or do we not? If not, what do we do? Build more prisons and incarcerate them indefinitely? These are challenging and nuanced questions, but ones that we need to start addressing. If we expect change in people who have offended so that they can return to society, do we not have to change as well to enable them to do so?

The Changing Context of Self-Care

By David S. Prescott, LCSW, LICSW, ATSA-F

It was just a few years ago that professional organizations began to include self-case in their codes of ethics. The American Psychological Association, Canadian Psychological Association, National Association of Social Workers, and American Counseling Association, to name a few, have all increased their focus on self-care. For many, this is not news. It has long been known that exposure to the traumatic actions and experiences of our clients can take a toll. Forensic psychiatrist John Bradford is an excellent example of someone who has been honest about this.

Looking back to an APA article from 2014, it can be interesting to see how self-care is described:

“Self-care has been defined as providing adequate attention to one's own physical and psychological wellness… As trainees, we receive mixed messages — perform at a high level and meet all rigorous training demands, while making time for outside activities, relaxation and fun… It is an ongoing challenge to make time for self-care (relaxation, sleep, time with family and friends) in graduate school… I feel that I have finally learned the value of self-care, in addition to the value of work. It is possible to find balance.”

 Likewise, the APA website has the slides from a presentation on “psychological wellness and self-care as an ethical imperative.” The slides describe that self-care is necessary due to distress, burnout, vicarious trauma, and (preventing) impaired professional competence. The slides are silent on what kinds of activities count as self-care. Elsewhere in media, much is made about the role of gratitude; less is made of kindness.

How have self-care activities been framed in the past? The examples above include outside activities, relaxation, and fun; finding balance; sleep; time with family and friends. A more in-depth article from a positive psychology resource includes things like treats and delineates micro and macro self-care. Macro self-care includes “’the important traditional category of self-care that includes the big stuff,’ such as eating well, getting enough exercise, taking a vacation, and forming positive relationships.”

Interestingly, there is rarely any mention in the primary texts of the role of spirituality, including spiritual pathways or religious activities. These are significant sources of comfort as well as meaning and purpose in the lives of so many. Amid all the discussion about eating right and exercising, why isn’t more attention paid to the activities that bring us closer to the core of our identities? Why is there so little about what brings us joy? Or fills us with awe and wonder? A friend colleague recently described going outside on a clear night and looking at Polaris (the North Star) and reflecting on all the roles that it has played to others across time, place, and culture, including as a navigational aid for mariners trying to find their way.

Of interest here in the current era is how much clearer the context of our stresses has become. Where we have long talked about vicarious traumatization, we are only beginning to recognize the role of workplace toxicity as a broader issue. A 2022 survey found that one in nine US workers described their workplace as toxic (with the primary causes being bad leadership, unclear job roles, and harmful social norms). Likewise, a recent report in the UK notes:

“We surveyed over 2,000 employees across various industries and a staggering 75% of them have experienced a toxic workplace culture. Of those, 87% of respondents also agreed that a toxic workplace culture has negatively affected their mental health” (Emphasis in original).

Attempting to ameliorate similar effects, a colleague recently advertised a training on workplace bullying in social media and received vicious responses from anonymous strangers. One might wonder where on Earth self-care begins in this scenario, with one obvious solution being a social media hiatus and digital detox.

Likewise, in this time of uncertainty, many of us are seeing workforce and funding cuts and the resultant anxiety, stress, and depression. It is no surprise that there has been an increased recognition of institutional betrayal and betrayal trauma. It is no wonder that our colleague and meditation advocate, Janet DiGiorgio-Miller frequently emphasizes the importance of simply checking in with colleagues and asking, “How are you doing?”

Where self-care was once about bubble baths and beach vacations,  we realize that it’s not as simple as taking time off from stress; sometimes it’s inescapable. A strong meta-message in the past has been that if you’re burned out or otherwise can’t cope, it might be because you haven’t done enough yoga and meditation. Self-care, like our states of mind is no longer simply about the toll that our work with clients can take or the stress that occurs when we’re behind in paperwork.

Having experienced suffering and social injustices in his home country of Vietnam, Thich Nhat Hahn talked about the importance of “engaged Buddhism,” in which meditation and the study of Buddhist ethics are not just a way of coping, but of staying engaged in times of injustice and suffering. Likewise, even the Black Panthers strongly advocated self-care as vital to the survival of the Black community, especially at a time when they couldn’t trust a government that was almost entirely white. They focused on areas such as health care, housing, and childcare – all things based more on community needs than the individual. Less known is that Rosa Parks was a yoga practitioner against a backdrop in which self-care was not seen as a luxury but a way to become more empowered. Understanding that our experiences cannot be compared to theirs, to what extent, and in what ways, might we learn from these examples to benefit ourselves, others, and the communities we serve?

Ultimately, self-care can mean many things. It can take the form of individual time spent recharging, and it can involve communities taking care of themselves when no one else will. It might be that special spa day that provides brief respite, or it could be that opportunity to rest with a specific goal of getting back to the work of helping others and overcoming the toxicity that can overtake us if we’re not careful.

 

Reflections on the Prevent to protect through support (2PS) “Risk and Desistance Hexagon” training.

By Kieran McCartan, PH.D., Kasia Uzieblo, Ph/D.,, Sophie King-Hill,  Ph.D., & Josie Solle, B.A

On the 30^th  of January 2024 the Prevent to protect through support (2PS) project held its second professional networking and training event in Brussels. The networking event focused on the importance of understanding risk and risk assessment in the prevention of child sexual abuse.

The context of the event

Risk assessment is often a challenging area of professional practice because of its links to sentencing, treatment planning, release, community integration and public protection. Assessing risk is a significant foundation in modern societies (especially northern hemisphere and westernized societies) approach to preventing future sexual offending, reducing victimization and managing challenging, as well as dangerous individuals. However, it is also a contested area with several different risk assessment approaches (i.e., the use of actuarial risk assessment scales, structured professional judgment, clinical insights, etc), several different risk assessment scales and tools, as well as different professional, cultural and country-based attitudes to and understanding of good practice. This means that assessing risk and developing good evidence-based practice looks differently organisationally, nationally and transnationally. This poses and issue for the development of coherent national and international standards on the issue. Therefore, we have a challenging and hotly debate landscape that can be confusing for professionals and policy makers, never mind the public.

The development of the “Risk & Desistence Hexagon”

For many years the focus of understanding risk was based on reducing re-offending, managing challenging people in the community and public protection; however, with increasing conversations and frontline practices focusing on preventing first time offending the assessing risk conversation has moved upstream. Preventing first time offending, especially sexual offending, is challenging at best for many reasons aside for professional attitudes to risk assessment, including, a lack of information, a lack of guidance, a lack of an evidence bases to compare the individual back to ands a lack for professional experience in doing this work. As part of the 2PS project Professor Nicholas Blagden was tasked to develop a secondary prevention a tool to help professionals assess the risk of first time offending as well as to understand the early career offending behaviours of people at risk of committing a sexual offence. The idea of assessing risk in in the secondary prevention sphere is challenging. Over the last year Professor Blagden, with colleagues from the 2PS network, has developed the “Risk and Desistence Hexagon” which is a professional decision making tool based on a traffic light system to help professionals understand the risk at their clients pose and plan their service deliver, interventions or referrals appropriately. It is a living document that can be revisited and built on across the professional’s engagement with their client. The aim of the Hexagon is not to define risk, but rather too assesses the risk that a person poses and plan accordingly with the aim of preventing offending behaviour and/or an escalation on offending behaviour.

The event was the first opportunity to road-test the tool to professionals, academics, and practitioners from across Europe; therefore, a good opportunity to gain some insights into the Hexagon and its use.

Academic reflection

Dr Sophie King-Hill: There is something to be said about getting a range of experts in a room, in person, to spend a day picking apart a problem and looking at ways to approach it. The transparency around the tool was useful in relation to its development and intentions. One key point that is pertinent to any assessment/mapping/planning tool for harmful sexual behaviours interventions is the balance between the complexity that is needed to approach a multi-faceted issue coupled with the simplicity that professionals need. This simplicity is required due to lack of training, resources and time. There is no easy solution to this thorny problem. The use of a ‘traffic light system’ is a good example of this – on one hand it is visual, gives key and immediate indicators as to how urgent an issue is and is easy to understand given its application to everyday life. However, the risk with the simplicity of it is that it may wash away the context and the professional judgement needed for such complex issues. There is no easy fix for this. Meeting in Brussels at the 2PS event to discuss the prototype of an important tool gave time for these key issues to be unpicked.

Practitioner reflection

Dr Kasia Uzieblo: Assessing the risk of first-time offending in practice is no simple task; it not only presents practical challenges but also raises important ethical and deontological questions. A fundamental challenge lies in determining when we can realistically speak of a risk group for sexual offending. What signals should practitioners rely on to make such an assessment? Unlike organizations such as Stop it Now!, which often have a clearer (though not always definitive) framework for identifying individuals at risk, many other services may struggle with these questions. How should frontline professionals, social workers, or helpline responders interpret early warning signs, especially in the absence of a concrete offense? This is precisely where the Risk and Desistance Hexagon sharpens these questions from practice. Rather than providing rigid categorizations, it offers an evidence-based tool to facilitate structured decision-making, particularly in areas such as child protection. The Hexagon does not claim to define risk in absolute terms but rather equips professionals with a structured approach to assess potential concerns and determine appropriate actions. 

As the coordinator of a frontline helpline for people affected by violence, sexual abuse, and child maltreatment, I see the potential of the Hexagon in certain cases. Its structured framework makes it accessible for professionals in different settings, including frontline services. At the same time, we experience a need for a tool that supports decision-making regarding (acute) risks and advisory processes, particularly based on information obtained solely from victims or their surroundings. These cases present unique challenges, as risk assessment often relies on fragmented information, making structured guidance even more crucial. 

In addition, for this tool to have its full impact, it will be essential to ensure that decision-makers at various levels, across different settings, are also aware of its existence and application or at least be aware of the evidence base concerning risk and desistence factors. Developing a shared language and vision across different settings and professions remains crucial, as continuity in assessing risks and intervention is key to effectively preventing harm. These discussions will be instrumental in refining the tool further and exploring its validity and integration into existing risk management frameworks.

Conclusion

Over the next couple of months, the hexagon will be piloted across a broad European professional network as part of its development process. If you would like to learn more or attend a piloting event, please get in touch with the 2PS team. The next 2PS professional engagement and networking event will be on the 26^th of August in Poznań, Poland as part of the International Association for the Treatment of Sexual Offenders (IATSO) conference.