Since 2009, the child protection charity the Lucy Faithfull Foundation has run the Parents Protect website. On the site, we try to squeeze into one place the lessons that victims and families have shared with us over the previous 15 years, to give adults the information, advice, support and facts they need to help prevent child sexual abuse.
Some of this involves helping parents understand the sexual development of children from birth to adolescence. What is 'normal' or 'healthy' sexual development - and when should we worry? How should parents respond, for example, when a child attempts to touch the genitals of other children or, indeed, other adults? When should we worry about a child's sexual behaviour?
The website also considers the warning signs to look out for in a child who may be being abused. These include becoming unusually secretive or unaccountably afraid of places or people; acting out in inappropriate sexual ways with toys or objects; development of nightmares or sleeping problems.
In her 2015 report, Protecting Children from Harm, the Children's Commissioner, Anne Longfield, acknowledged that some two thirds of child sexual abuse occurs within the family context. Perhaps the biggest wake-up call was about the scale of abuse – with an estimated 400,000 to 450,000 children sexually abused over the two years to 2014.
The report calls for a radical overhaul of our child protection system, with far greater attention to prevention. But most of its recommendations concern 'recognition and telling' – seemingly resigned to the inevitability of abuse.
But child sexual abuse isn't inevitable, and at the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, we want to identify further opportunities to reduce the risk of it happening - for example, by being aware of warning signs in potential perpetrators. Of course, the only person who bears any responsibility for the abuse is the abuser; but for partners and family members, it can be useful to know what to look out for so that children can be safeguarded and abusers identified. These warning signs include regularly offering to babysit and insisting on time alone with children without interruption; refusing a child privacy in attending to personal matters; insistence on physical contact – hugs, kisses, wrestling, even when the child clearly doesn't want this; repeatedly walking in on children in the bathroom; and showing an excessive interest in the sexual development of a child.
Since it was set up in 2002, the Stop it Now! helpline has dealt with more than 50,000 confidential calls. Calls from women worried about their brother's, father's or partner's sexual behaviour; calls from parents worried about the sexual behaviour of their sons and daughters.The helpline's role is to prevent children from being sexually abused, so we also reach out to adults concerned about their own behaviour and offer them a confidential helpline too. This isn't always easy for people to hear about or accept, but we believe it plays an important role in the prevention of abuse.
Our helpline is a place where men who are troubled by their own sexual thoughts concerning children can go to get help. They are often in a lonely place, which can increase the risk of them acting on their sexual thoughts. The helpline offers someone to talk to and to advise. It reminds about the harm that sexual abuse causes and the responsibility to be safe. And it directs the caller to ongoing sources of support – to meet their own needs, yes, but ultimately with the aim of protecting children.
Child sexual abuse is not inevitable. In 2016 and beyond, I hope we all play our part in preventing it.
For more information on keeping children safe, see the Parents Protect publications The Internet and Children – What's the Problem? and creating a Family Safety Plan.