Working with children and young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviour: evidence based guidance for professionals working with children and young people

Additional Resources

Prevention

Harmful Sexual Behaviour Prevention Toolkit: Stop It Now! toolkit designed for parents, carers, family members and professionals, to help everyone play their part in keeping children safe.

Shore: A website created by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation for teenagers who may be worried about their own sexual thoughts, feelings or behaviour. Includes access to direct anonymous support by livechat and email.

A summary of Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP) resources | Resources | Education Scotland: Resources available on the Education Scotland to promote children’s healthy social and sexual development.

CEOP Education Resources developed by CEOP for professionals, parents and children to protect children from online harm.

Marie Collins Foundation: Resources developed for parents and professionals in relation to online sexual abuse and exploitation.

Healthy relationships and consent: key messages for young people - gov.scot (www.gov.scot): A resource for professionals which aims to help them support young people in their understanding of healthy relationships and consent.

Assessment, Response, Intervention

NSPCC Responding to children who display sexualised behaviour guide: One-page guide setting out the range of behaviours across the Hackett Continuum and how to respond to these.

Underage sexual activity: National guidance for professionals on meeting the needs of children and young people and identifying child protection concerns in relation to underage sexual activity

AIM sexual behaviours monitoring form: Developed by the AIM project to help adults identify level of concern raised by children’s sexual behaviour.

Protective + Risk Observations For Eliminating Sexual Offense Recidivism (PROFESOR): A structured checklist to assist professionals to identify and summarise protective and risk factors for adolescents and emerging adults (i.e., individuals aged 12 to 25) who have offended sexually.

Forth Valley Managing Sexual Behaviour Guideline: Developed by Central Sexual Health team to help schools manage incidents involving sexualised behaviours.

Family Safety Plans Resources developed by Parents Protect for families where there are concerns about sexualised behaviour in a family setting.

AIM Intervention Manual: Manualised treatment manual for working with young people who have displayed sexually abusive behaviours

Keep Safe Manualised programme for young people aged 12 to 18 with learning disabilities who have displayed harmful sexual behaviour.

Girl Talk Workbook for girls engaging with harmful sexual behaviour: Free resource developed by Barnardo’s

Sibling sexual resources: Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse have developed two resources. A knowledge and practice overview for safeguarding professionals and a guide to responding to sibling sexual behaviour for professionals.

Sibling sexual abuse safety plan: Resource for families where a sibling has acted in a sexual way to another sibling or close family relative

Understanding sexualised behaviour in children: NSPCC resources for professionals on identifying and responding to harmful sexual behaviour

Highland Underage Sex Protocol: This web resource aims to support professionals in Health, Education, Youth Work and Social Work settings to tell the difference between an abusive and a consensual relationship and to respond appropriately to each.

CYCJ Developmental Intervention Approach: The Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice received funding from The Promise Partnership under the Corra Foundation, on behalf of the Scottish Government, to create a developmental intervention approach, a resource toolkit, and training for people who work closely with children behaving or communicating in a way that could, or has, brought them into contact with the law.

Additional resources for schools

Safeguarding; identify, understand and respond appropriately to sexual behaviours in young people: Resource designed by Education Scotland to help staff in education and training settings, from early years to senior level and including ASN/EASN provision, to identify, understand and respond appropriately to sexual behaviours in young people.

Preventing and responding to gender based violence: a whole school framework provides support to those working with and in schools to develop and strengthen universal and targeted approaches to gender based violence.

Safeguarding: identify, understand and respond appropriately to sexual behaviours in young people: resource for teachers on responding to harmful sexual behaviours in school settings.

Helping education settings identify and respond to concerns: Resources from Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse for education professionals on safety planning in education when an incident involving harmful sexual behaviour has occurred and communicating with parents and carers when there are concerns about sexual abuse or behaviour

A summary of Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP) resources | Resources | Education Scotland: Resources available on the Education Scotland to promote children’s healthy social and sexual development.

www.rshp.scot: A resource for teaching across all the levels of Curriculum for Excellence linked to relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) education for children and young people. This site contains activities linked to keeping safe and consent including those with additional support needs.

Promoting healthy relationships in schools: tackling technology-assisted harmful sexual behaviour: Education Scotland resource, with free training provided to schools on tackling online harmful sexual behaviour.

Additional resources for parents

NSPCC have produced resources for parents who are worried about their child’s sexual behaviour.

Parent’s Talk Harmful Sexual Behaviour Resources: Resources for parents on what harmful sexual behaviour is and what to do if you have concerns about your child’s behaviour, or the behaviour of a child known to them.

What’s the Problem: Resource for parents who are worried about their child’s sexual behaviour online, including accessing pornography, viewing indecent images of children and sharing self- produced sexual images (sexting). An Easy Read version is also available.

Parents Protect Digital Safety Plan: Resource for parents who are worried about their child’s online behaviour

Cyber Resilience Training: Stop it Now resources for parents and carers on online safety.

Talk PANTS (NSPCC): Prevention resource for parents promoting what helps younger children understand that their body belongs to them, and that they should tell someone they trust if anything makes them feel upset or worried. Materials also in Makaton and Gaelic.

Sex and the Law: CEOP’s materials for parents on sex and the law.

Other

GIRFEC website: Provides an over view of the National Practice Model, and the principles and values which underpin GIRFEC.

National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland: This guidance describes the

responsibilities and expectations for all involved in protecting children and will support the care and protection of children.

Managing Risk of Harm in the Community: A guide for practitioners and managers working with Children: The purpose of this guide is

to support the implementation of children’s rights under Article 37b of the UNCRC thereby reducing the need to deprive children of their liberty, while maintaining the safety of children and others. The guide does this through providing information on the approaches and responses that can be taken in the community in order to achieve a reduction in the risk of serious harm. The aims are two-fold. Firstly, it aims to assist practitioners to consider what intensive community supports for individual children could look like. Secondly, the guide aims to assist managers to consider what could be provided locally at a service and strategic level to help practitioners and children and families.

NSPCC HSB framework: This provides an evidence-informed operational framework for children and young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviours. It aims to support local work with children and young people who have displayed HSB, and their families,

by encouraging development of clear policies and procedures and local practice guidelines. It is supported by an audit tool for multi-agency partnerships to assess quality of service provision provided locally.

Key messages from research on children and young people who display harmful sexual behaviour: A literature review published by the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse.

The Expert Group on Preventing Sexual Offending Involving Children and Young People: 2020 report commissioned by Scottish Government outlining recommendations in relation to tackling harmful sexual behaviour in Scotland.

The Equally Safe Strategy: Scotland’s strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls focusing on the need for prevention of violence.

NICE Guidance on harmful sexual behaviour among children and young people: This English guideline produced by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence covers children and young people who display harmful sexual behaviour, including those on remand or serving community or custodial sentences. It aims to ensure these problems don’t escalate and possibly lead to them being charged with a sexual offence. It also aims to ensure no-one is unnecessarily referred to specialist services.