My 2 cents is we can listen to children when they come forward and act. I think there is a mentality to ‘not get involved’ out of fear of repercussions or messiness or actually that the authorities wont actually do anything so why bother. That has to stop.
another thing is to shake up the stereotype of the ‘abused child’, the nspcc adverts whilst great at raising awareness all centred on small children, which I think creates a perception that teens cant be victims of abuse or that its somehow deserved or less severe. I imagine its that teenagers dont make very ‘good victims’, you know they’re moody, talk back, have more ‘challenging behaviour’, so be other adults in charge of safe guarding it gets missed.
to speak from personal experience, my mother abused me (physically, mentally and emotionally) as a teen, and after years, I broke down and told a friends parents, they did nothing. A friend’s parent (a GP no less) heard me getting dragged down a flight of stairs by my hair, did nothing. I told my head of year in school, did nothing. Drama teacher saw the abuse, did nothing. I even told the police, and you guessed it they Did nothing, even though I begged to be taken into foster care. In fact, aside from the parents who always gave my mother a wide berth and no longer let me go to their houses, everyone else sided with my mother and assumed I must of had it coming. In my experience, teens are easy to dismiss or its easy to ignore signs of danger