Respecting Sexual Safety: A Program to Prevent Sexual Exploitation and Harmful Sexual Behaviour in Out-of-Home Care

ABSTRACT

For children and young people living in residential care, recent Victorian and national inquiries have found that harmful sexual behaviour carried out by children and young people, and child sexual exploitation perpetrated by adults, are significant problems. Efforts to address harmful sexual behaviour and child sexual exploitation in Victoria include the establishment of sexually abusive behaviour treatment services and the Sexual Exploitation Protocol. Applying the public health model of prevention, these programs of work are tertiary prevention interventions that respond after the abuse has occurred. A gap exists in secondary prevention efforts for children and young people living in residential care that target this vulnerable group and intervene early when warning signs emerge. This paper describes a secondary prevention program, Respecting Sexual Safety, that may provide an early intervention response to harmful sexual behaviour and child sexual exploitation for children and young people living in residential care. The program has been designed, and is being trialled and evaluated, through an action research collaboration.

IMPLICATIONS

• Multi-agency collaboration to intervene earlier to address harmful sexual behaviour and child sexual exploitation for children and young people living in residential care requires strengthening.

• Residential carers require upskilling and support to respond to children and young people going missing from the home to keep them at home.

• Residential carers require upskilling and support to identify problematic sexual behaviour and ensure appropriate intervention.

KEYWORDS:

• Children and Young People
• Harmful Sexual Behaviour
• Child Sexual Exploitation
• Prevention
• Early Intervention
• Out-of-home Care
• Qualitative Research

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by MacKillop Family Services, the John T. Reid Charitable Trusts, the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare, and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by MacKillop Family Services, the John T. Reid Charitable Trusts, the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare and the Department of Health and Human Services.