The number of children on protection plans for child sexual abuse in England has hit a 30-year low, experts have warned.

An “alarming decrease” in the identification of CSA by safeguarding practitioners has left no or very few children on child protection plans in the majority of areas, said the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre).

The findings came in a CSA Centre analysis of data on child sexual abuse for 2023-24, which also flagged up a fall in the number of cases in which sexual abuse or exploitation was identified following a child in need assessment.

The analysis was based on the DfE’s 2023-24 children in need census, which identified year-on-year decreases in the numbers of assessments of children, children in need and children on child protection plans.

Declining number of CSA cases

However, the centre said that the number of cases involving CSA had fallen more steeply than average.

While the total number of child in need assessments recording any concerns fell by 0.4% from 2022-23 to 2023-24, the number identifying CSA fell by 8%, from 33,760 to 30,970, the lowest level since the pandemic year of 2020-21.

There was also an 8% year-on-year drop in the number of assessments that recorded child sexual exploitation (CSE) as a concern, with the 13,860 recorded being the lowest number since 2014-15.

Lowest number of plans for sexual abuse in 30 years

Just 2,160 children were placed on child protection plans for sexual abuse in 2023-24, the lowest number during the 30 years in which this data has been published. The 5.8% fall in the number of such plans from 2022-23 to 2023-24.= compares with a 2.8% drop in the overall number of child protection plans.

The centre also found that seven councils placed no children on plans under the primary category of sexual abuse, while 42 placed a “very low” proportion” on such plans (less than 0.2 per 1,000 children in the area).

In a further 54 councils, the data was suppressed because they had between one and five children placed on a plan for sexual abuse in their area during the year. As a result, 103 councils – two-thirds of the total – had no or very few children placed on child protection plans for CSA, said the centre.

The number of children placed on plans for sexual abuse was equivalent to just 7% of the children whose initial assessments recorded CSA or CSE as concerns in 2023-24. This was similar to the equivalent proportion for physical abuse (6%) but much lower than those of emotional abuse (24%) or neglect (37%).

The number of cases falls far short of the CSA Centre’s estimate – based on a prevalence study published in 2011 – that 500,000 children in England and Wales are sexually abused each year.

Lack of practitioner skill, knowledge and confidence

The findings follow the CSA Centre’s study of intrafamilial CSA for the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, published last year, which found practitioners were frequently not identifying abuse due to a lack of skills, knowledge and confidence.

A consistent theme from cases analysed and discussions with practitioners was an over-reliance on children verbally reporting abuse.

Practitioners reported being told in training that they needed to wait for children to approach them to disclose abuse, rather than proactively talking to them when they had concerns. They were also deterred from speaking to children by an “overriding fear of interfering with any possible future criminal investigation”.

This approach ran contrary to research indicating the multiple barriers children faced in disclosing CSA. Some children in the reviews reported waiting for someone to ask them in order to be able to disclose.

Ministers due to response to CSA inquiry

The CSA Centre’s latest report comes with the government due to publish its plan for implementing the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which reported in 2022.

Ministers have already agreed to implement the inquiry’s headline recommendation – requiring those in positions of trust with children to report cases of CSA that are disclosed to them, or that they witness, or face criminal sanctions.

CSA director Ian Dean said its latest report, and those preceding it, “[underlined] the need for system-wide change in how sexually abused children are identified, responded to and protected by all statutory safeguarding agencies”.

“We need to build a system where professionals have strong leadership, clear guidance, and proper support to identify abuse early and prevent further harm,” he added.

Agencies are not equipped to protect children from sexual abuse within the family, safeguarding leaders have found.

Children are too often ignored or disbelieved by practitioners who lack the knowledge, skills and confidence to combat infrafamilial child sexual abuse, according to an analysis of serious cases involving 193 children and 177 perpetrators.

As a result, they are frequently not being identified by practitioners, nor are they receiving the response needed for their ongoing safety and recovery, reported the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel.

The panel, which oversees and draws national lessons from serious cases, urged the government to produce a national action plan to drive up the quality of practice, including through improved training and supervision.

‘Robust strategy needed’

“The systemic issues identified in this report are longstanding,” said panel chair Annie Hudson.

Annie Hudson, chair, Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel

“It is vital therefore that government integrates the findings from this review into their reform programme and provides strong leadership to deliver a robust strategy to address [the] stark reality of child sexual abuse in the family environment.”

The review was carried out for the panel by the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (the CSA Centre), the Home Office-funded body that seeks to improve the understanding of, and response to, this form of harm.

What the review involved

The CSA Centre analysed 136 reviews of serious cases submitted to the panel from from June 2018 to November 2023. These involved 193 children who had been sexually abused by a family member.

The centre also held online discussions with 107 practitioners and managers who had been involved in 10 of the cases,  interviewed two children who had been abused and five people who had sexually abused a child.

In addition, they reviewed recent research and practice guidance on intrafamilial CSA and consulted other experts by experience and practitioners from agencies including children’s social care, the police and health.

Over-reliance on children reporting abuse

A consistent theme from cases analysed and discussions with practitioners was an over-reliance on children verbally reporting abuse.

Practitioners reported being told in training that they needed to wait for children to approach them to disclose abuse, rather than proactively talking to them when they had concerns.

They were also deterred from speaking to children by an “overriding fear of interfering with any possible future criminal investigation”.

This approach ran contrary to research indicating the multiple barriers children faced in disclosing CSA. Some children in the reviews reported waiting for someone to ask them in order to be able to disclose.

Not believing children

Despite these barriers, there was evidence that children had told someone about the abuse – sometimes on multiple occasions – in 72% of the reviews analysed.

However, the review found “many situations where children had directly told practitioners they were being sexually abused and were not believed”.

Photo posed by model (credit: Erika Richard/Adobe Stock)

When some children later retracted their disclosures, practitioners often took this as evidence the abuse had not happened, without exploring whether this was down to fear, shame, embarrassment or intimidation. As a result, children were left at greater risk of further harm.

Lack of consideration of disability and race

Practitioners also did not sufficiently consider children’s needs in relation to their race, ethnicity and culture, said the report. This included not identifying signs that a forced marriage was being planned for 14-year-old black African child from a Muslim family, who was subsequently raped by the adult cousin she was married to.

In another case, a boy of mixed white and Asian heritage was subjected to adultification bias by practitioners, who treated him as being older than his age and blamed for his behaviour.

Few of the reviews concerning disabled children provided evidence that their impairments had been taken into account.

Those who were non-verbal or pre-verbal were left without any response to their abuse because of the reliance on verbal disclosure, while practitioners did not pursue signs of possible CSA in children with learning disabilities because of potential communication barriers.

In other cases, practitioners attributed children’s distressed behaviour to their condition, for example, autism or ADHD, rather than considering CSA.

Not identifying signs of CSA

More broadly, professionals lacked understanding of the signs that might indicate a child was being abused, including harmful sexual behaviour or other sexualised behaviour, distress, seeking emergency contraception or sexually transmitted infections.

“We saw many situations where practitioners would seek other explanations for symptoms and behaviours in children that could indicate possible sexual abuse without seeking to establish a wider picture of the child and their family circumstances or build a picture of concern about child sexual abuse,” the report said.

Inadequate risk assessment of perpetrators

A third of cases involved a family member with a history of sexual offending or who was known to present a risk of sexual harm.

However, in some cases, they moved into homes with young children without a risk assessment or an effective safeguarding response being put in place.

Adults convicted of sexual offences against other adults were not perceived as a risk to children, while those whose offending was less recent were particularly unlikely to be identified.

Social work assessments criticised 

The report also criticised the quality of child and family assessments, which “did not sufficiently analyse signs and indicators of
child sexual abuse, despite this often being the impetus for them taking place”.

Photo: Krasimira Nevenova/Fotolia

It said it was “particularly striking” that those who knew the children best were often not invited to contribute, or practitioners’ views were disregarded when these differed from those of the assessing social worker.

Assessments often did not focus on the adult about whom there was concerns, even when the child had reported CSA, while the report said there was little use of genograms or other such tools to consider children’s relationships with extended family.

Where other forms of abuse had been reported along with CSA, as was the case with most reviews, practitioners tended to focus on them, “with the concerns of sexual abuse becoming lost from sight”.

Concerns over evidence thresholds

Practitioners also felt that the criminal justice standard of proof (beyond reasonable doubt), rather than the safeguarding threshold (the balance of probabilities), was needed to take action in a case.

As a result, referrals were either not made or were rejected on the basis that they did not meet the threshold for action, and investigations which resulted in no further police action led to all agencies ceasing their involvement.

This meant that not only was support not provided to the child, but further signs of abuse were then missed, for example, through councils rejecting further CSA referrals about the child.

Police and child protection enquiries ‘completely separate’

Poor joint working between the police and children’s social care was another issue highlighted by the review, which found that, in some cases, criminal investigations and child protection enquiries “happened completely separately”, with a lack of clarity about what information should be shared.

At times, the police acted on concerns before discussing these with children’s social care or holding a strategy discussion, which then undermined the assessment of risk

Lack of training, guidance and supervision

The panel’s report attributed the practice failings it identified to a lack of effective training, guidance and supervision for practitioners.

It noted particular training gaps in relation to identifying signs of CSA, understanding of grooming, child development, working with disabled children, assessing sexual risk.

It also found “a lack of robust supervision and managerial oversight” left practitioners “lacking confidence in organisational support to take action”.

On the back of its report, the panel said the government “must signal in the strongest possible way their commitment to make
sure that necessary improvements are secured and provide assurance that
this will be fully translated into concrete actions to make a tangible difference
to children’s lives

Recommendations for government

The panel’s key recommendation is for the government to produce a national plan to “secure the necessary practice improvements identified in this report”.

Alongside this, it said that ministers should:

• Review and update initial training, early career and ongoing professional development and supervision, so practitioners can improve their identification and response to CSA. As part of this, it should make guidance and training available for staff in universal and specialist services, such as social work, about how and when to talk to children and families when CSA is suspected.
• Require safeguarding partners to audit and review local guidance and practice so a clear distinction is made between thresholds about significant harm to a child (balance of probabilities) and those influencing criminal investigations (beyond reasonable doubt). It should also stress that safeguarding decisions must be based on all indicators of sexual abuse and should not rely solely on verbal statements from children.
• Review the application of the child sex offender disclosure scheme – also known as Sarah’s Law – to ensure police proactively inform the person best placed to protect a child when someone in the family environment has a conviction for sexual offending or intelligence has been received that they pose a risk.
• Make sure that whenever information comes to light which indicates that someone in the family (adult or young person) has a previous allegation or conviction (spent or unspent) for any type of sexual offending, this leads to a multi-agency discussion, which involves an up-to-date assessment of risk.

Social care reforms ‘will address recommendations’

In response to the report, a Department for Education (DfE) spokesperson said: “Any instance of child abuse is abhorrent, and this report importantly highlights the weaknesses in the system that have shielded abusers and left children at risk of harm.”

They said that the government’s children’s social care reforms, unveiled last week, would help address the panel’s recommendations.

“We will require every council to implement a joined-up approach to child protection, strengthen safeguards for home education and improve information sharing, to prevent children falling through the cracks,” the spokesperson added.

Recommendations for local safeguarding partners

The panel also made a number of recommendations for local safeguarding partners, including:

• Undertaking a multi-agency training needs assessment in relation to CSA and meeting identified training needs.
• Auditing multi-agency decision making in response to CSA.
• Ensuring that, following the conclusion of child protection and police investigations, multi-agency discussions are held to consider risk to children and how they will be protected and supported.
• Reviewing how people who present a risk of sexual harm and who have contact with children are assessed and managed, with consider the use of civil orders and other measures to effectively manage the risk.
• Take necessary steps to ensure that all practitioners (including foster carers) understand and are confident in talking directly to
  children, and families about CSA concerns, taking due account of ethnicity, language and disability.

Directors urge prevention focus

Giving the Association of Directors of Children’s Services’ response to the review, president Andy Smith said: “Prevention must be the ultimate goal to ensure that no child is subject to abuse. We need tackle this issue as a collective, with the full commitment of central and local government, all child protection agencies, voluntary organisations and the wider community.

“Directors and their local authorities are committed to working with our partners to ensure the right safeguards are in place to prevent child sexual abuse in all its forms so that all children are able to lead safe and happy childhoods.”

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Staff and volunteers working with children will face a duty to report child sexual abuse they are aware of, the government announced yesterday.

Those who fail to fulfil the mandatory reporting duty face being referred to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) and potentially banned from working with children.

Also, it will be a criminal offence to intentionally block others from reporting CSA, punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Government mandatory reporting plan

The Home Office said that it would introduce mandatory reporting of CSA through amendments to the current Criminal Justice Bill.

The duty will apply to anyone carrying out regulated activities, which includes all unsupervised work or volunteering with children or work for specific establishments that gives the person the opportunity to have contact with children.

Though it has not provided the details of its plan yet, yesterday’s announcement made clear that the government would be, broadly, pursuing the model of mandatory reporting that it consulted on last year.

This falls short of the blueprint put forward by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in its final report, published in October 2022.

CSA inquiry proposals

IICSA proposed that staff and volunteers working with children should be mandated to report CSA that was disclosed to them by the victim or perpetrator; that they witnessed, or in cases where they observed “recognised indicators” of abuse.

However, in its consultation, the Home Office rejected adopting the third criterion, after receiving “strong feedback” that “recognising child sexual abuse is likely to be difficult for those without formal training or who see children infrequently”.

This position was reflected in its statement yesterday, which said that the duty to report would apply in cases where the worker or volunteer knew that a child is being sexually abused.

Failure to report will not be crime

IICSA also said that it should be a criminal offence not to report abuse in cases where the practitioner had witnessed CSA or had it disclosed to them.

However, the Home Office said that it wanted to avoid inappropriately criminalising people who work with children and opted, instead, for referral to the DBS, potentially leading to being barred, as its chosen sanction.

IICSA saw mandatory reporting as being a way of tackling “systemic under-identification of CSA”, with experience from other countries showing that the policy led to a significant increase in identification.

Under-identification of abuse

The Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre) has estimated that about 500,000 children are sexually abused in England each year, based on a 2009 prevalence survey by the NSPCC, updated for changes in population.

This dwarfs the 2,290 children were supported through child protection plans for CSA in England in 2022-23, the lowest level in 14 years, according to the CSA Centre.

At the time of last year’s consultation, the Home Office estimated that its proposed model for mandatory reporting would not lead to significant increases in referrals.

Concerns over services being overwhelmed

Despite this, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services raised concerns about the prospects of a significant spike in referrals overwhelming services in its response to the consultation, and also following yesterday’s announcement.

“A rushed, poorly scoped and under resourced policy could adversely affect the very children it seeks to protect if services become overwhelmed and support is not available for children when they need,” said president John Pearce.

“Similarly, it may impact on workforce recruitment and retention, which is extremely challenging across a number of key professions, destabilising vital public services that children and young people rely on.”

While accepting that mandatory reporting was now government policy, Pearce called for talks with the Home Office, Department for Education and Ministry of Justice on the effective implementation of the plan.

Mandatory reporting ‘must be matched with resource’

There was also a cautious response from a coalition of 64 charities, IICSA Changemakers, set up to bring about changes in the response to CSA in the light of the inquiry.

“Adults and authorities’ responses to children’s disclosures are critical in ensuring young victims get the action and support they need,” said Vicki Green, chief executive of coalition member the Marie Collins Foundation. “But mandatory reporting must be matched with sufficient resources and easier access to therapeutic support services.

“Likewise, a legal obligation to report must not contribute towards young victims and survivors being unable to safely discuss abuse. It is vital that young people have safe, confidential spaces to discuss their experiences and talk to a trusted adult.”

Meanwhile, a former member of IICSA’s victims and survivors consultative panel (VSCP), set up to ensure victims’ experiences informed its work, stressed that mandatory reporting was just one of 20 recommendations from the inquiry.

Chris Tuck said: “It is part of a package of measures that need to be implemented in order to better protect children from child sexual abuse and exploitation. I personally welcome mandatory reporting but it needs teeth and sanctions in order to be successful.”

An estimated 55,000 people are waiting for child sexual abuse support services in England and Wales, with average waits of six months, experts have warned.

The Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre) found that just half of services were able to meet demand for services including one-to-one therapy or counselling, group-based interventions, helplines or advocacy for child or adult victims/survivors and family members.

A similar proportion delivered services to just 100 people each in 2021-22, with the centre estimating that there were between 10,000 and 20,000 victims/survivors per service in each of the regions of England and Wales.

Postcode lottery and significant service gaps

Alongside a postcode lottery in provision, the centre identified significant gaps in support for specific groups, including people from ethnic minority backgrounds, boys and men and victims/survivors of intra-familial or online abuse.

It also found that the majority of providers were struggling financially, with two-thirds not fully confident that they could sustain their existing service provision into the next financial year, often because of short-term contracts.

Services – most of whom were charities – also faced challenges recruiting and retaining staff because of the skills required and their difficulties in offering competitive salaries. More than half were using volunteers to fill roles such as befriending, administrative or technical support, and service promotion.

The centre’s findings were published in a report last week, Support Matters: The landscape of child sexual abuse support services in England and Wales, which it said was the most comprehensive picture of provision ever compiled.

It carried out a mapping exercise in 2022-23, identifying 468 specialist services for victims/survivors and their families in England and Wales, and then interviewed representatives from 168 of these, on which its findings were based.

‘Unacceptable’ lack of support

CSA Centre director Ian Dean warned that the research revealed a “huge” and “growing” gap between provision and need and said it was “unacceptable” that some survivors were waiting years to access services that could make a difference to their lives.

“Research and testimonies have consistently shown the vital role that timely support can play in reducing the short and long-term impacts of child sexual abuse, and the huge difference that services make to the lives of victims and survivors,” he said.

On the back of the research, the CSA Centre called for the UK and Welsh governments, councils and other commissioners to:

1. Ensure sufficient funding for services to maintain their current provision and provide timely support, including by offering long-term, unrestricted funding to ensure financial stability for providers.
2. Provide additional funding to enable services to expand to meet the needs of existing and new users.
3. Provide further funding to help services develop their infrastructure, for example improving data collection and analysis systems.
4. Resource services to train and upskill their staff and boost training for non-specialist staff in statutory services.
5. Commission research into specific groups’ support needs and access to services, such as those of boys, physically disabled children and people from ethnic minority backgrounds.
6. Improve commissioners’ expertise in funding CSA services.

Independent inquiry findings

The centre’s findings echo those of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), whose 2022 final report found “considerable unmet need for all forms of support services”, driven by a postcode lottery in provision, a lack of specialist support and tight eligibility criteria.

It called for the UK and Welsh governments to provide a national guarantee that child victims are offered specialist and accredited therapeutic support.

In April 2023, the Welsh Government accepted the recommendation in principle, but said it needed to “consider, with partners, the options for commissioning and delivering this support”.

The following month, the UK government said it accepted there was “more we can do to ensure that those who have suffered get access to the provision they need to help them recover and rebuild their lives”.

It said it was “committed to making sure these services are available to victims and survivors of child sexual abuse” in England, and that it would “elicit views on the future of therapeutic support, including possible systemic changes to provision”.

Safeguarding leaders have launched a national review into child sexual abuse within the family due to a “concerning number” of such cases.

The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel said the inquiry would examine how practitioners and agencies could improve how they identified, assessed and responded to CSA within the family.

The panel, whose role is to oversee and draw national lessons from serious cases, has commissioned the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre) to lead on the review.

‘Concerning number of CSA cases’

Annie Hudson, chair, Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel

“We have seen a concerning number of safeguarding cases featuring this type of abuse,” wrote panel chair Annie Hudson to education secretary Gillian Keegan last month, in a letter announcing the review.

“The review will address how multi-agency local and national safeguarding practice can improve to reflect better the evidence on how to protect and respond to children experiencing this specific type of harm.”

The review, which the panel expects to report on by summer 2024, will have two strands.

The inquiry’s two strands

Strand A will examine how practitioners can identify and address hidden abuse, including where perpetrators are employing coercive control or deception.

It will also look at how social workers and others can assess situations based on evidence, such as the child’s voice or changes in behaviour, rather than by assuming too much from non-abusing parents about their ability to keep the child safe.

Strand B will probe challenges and barriers to practitioners recognising and responding to indicators of CSA; appraising relevant contextual information about families, and hearing the child’s voice without relying on verbal disclosure.

Building professional confidence

It will also explore triggers for practitioners suspecting and then reporting CSA and what can be done to build professional confidence in this area.

The review will draw upon, among other things, engagement with children’s services practitioners, safeguarding partners and young people and families.

The panel is responsible for overseeing cases where a child dies or is seriously harmed following suspected, or known, abuse or neglect, which councils must report to it.

‘Substantial underreporting of CSA’

Though the panel has seen a concerning number of CSA cases recently, experts have argued that there is substantial underreporting.

The number of children’s social care assessments in England that identified CSA as a concern rose by 15% in England in 2021-22, to 33,990, the highest level since this information started being published in 2015. A similar level was recorded in 2022-23.

However, the CSA Centre said this was well short of the 500,000 children it estimated fell victim to sexual abuse each year, in a report earlier this year.

Also, there has been a 15.2% drop, from 2018-19 to 2022-23, in the number of child protection plans in England for which CSA was the initial category of abuse.

And in its final report, issued last year, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) concluded that there was systemic under-identification of CSA.

Mandatory reporting

As a result, it said, professionals and others working with children should be mandated to inform the police or children’s social care of cases of abuse they had witnessed, observed the recognised signs of or had disclosed to them.

Failure to report disclosed or witnessed cases would be a criminal offence.

But while the government has agreed to implement so-called mandatory reporting, its proposed way forward falls short of what IICSA proposed.

Not only has the Home Office rejected the idea of a criminal offence for failure to report, it has also not taken forward the proposal to require reporting when a practitioner observed recognised signs of CSA.

And while the inquiry said the introduction of mandatory reporting in other countries had led to a significant rise in the number of children identified as in need of protection, the Home Office assessed that this would not happen with its plan.

The number of annual child protection enquiries has hit a new high but the proportion of those finding abuse or neglect has continued to fall, official figures show.

Directors warned that the 3.5% hike in the number of section 47 enquiries, from 2021-22 to 2022-23, reflected the erosion of preventive services on the back of “a decade of austerity”.

At the same time, an academic specialising in the overemphasis of safeguarding risks said that the increasing number of section 47s that did not result in a child protection plan was causing “irreparable damage” to children and families.

The trends were laid bare in the Department for Education’s annual children in need census, published last week, which also revealed that social workers’ assessment caseloads hit a record high in 2022-23, as did the average amount of time they took.

While last year’s census showed increases in children’s social care caseloads across the board, in the wake of the pandemic, this year’s figures showed a mixed picture, with decreases in the numbers of referrals and children found to be in need.

Section 47 case numbers continue to rise

However, the number of section 47 enquiries rose significantly in 2022-23 on top of a 10% hike the previous year, and there were almost 100,000 more investigations during the year than a decade ago (2012-13).

But the proportion of enquiries resulting in an initial child protection conference (ICPC) – meaning abuse or neglect were substantiated – plummeted from 46.6% in 2012-13 to 33.9% in 2021-22, and fell again over the past year, to 33%.

There was a similar fall in the proportion of section 47s resulting in a child protection plan, which is drawn up following an ICPC (see box above).

These trends were criticised by the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, which described them as indicative of a system that was overly investigative and insufficiently supportive of families.

Some investigations ‘causing irreparable damage to children’

Dr Andy Bilson, emeritus professor of social work at the University of Central Lancashire, said they showed that “the targeting of investigations has dramatically worsened”.

Bilson, whose specialises in research into the overemphasis of risk in the child protection system, said: “This year alone more than 130,000 children and their families were put through an investigation being accused of significantly harming their children which did not lead to a child protection plan,” he said.

“Such investigations cause irreparable damage to children and their families.”

The Association of Directors of Children’s Services attributed the trends to an erosion of preventive services, driven by government spending cuts to councils in the 2010s and resulting in authorities encountering children when their needs had grown more complex.

‘Lack of preventive services driving section 47 numbers’

“This has undoubtedly impacted on our ability to meet need sooner within our communities, resulting in a significant rise in the number of section 47 enquiries over the same period when these children could potentially have been supported earlier were the resources available,” said Helen Lincoln, chair of the ADCS’s families, communities and young people policy committee.

She said this had been exacerbated by the pandemic and the fact that more families were experiencing hardship or crisis than previously.

“We need government to address the root causes of these issues and commit to a long-term plan for children, along with a funding settlement that commits more than the bare minimum and prioritises those most in need of support.”

The association’s calls for increased funding were echoed by the Local Government Association and NSPCC.

Children’s services across country ‘under-resourced’

“This new data shows a decline in the number of child protection plans being actioned in England despite an increase in assessments taking place,” said the NSPCC’s associate head of policy & public affairs, Joanna Barrett.

“Children’s services across the country are under-resourced and under-funded and this is more pronounced in areas of higher need, where assessments may be even less likely to lead to a child receiving support due to the lack of resources.”

“The government must offer consistent funding and resource across the country when they action their upcoming plans to implement more family support services. This will help ensure that all children receive the care they need at the right time.”

For the LGA, children and young people board chair Louise Gittins said the government needed to find more funding to help councils meet “this continually high demand” in next month’s autumn statement, which will set out ministers’ latest taxation and spending plans.

“Councils continue to innovate in order to reduce costs, but further funding is required in order to meet demand,” she added.

Family support and child protection reforms

The figures come with the government testing a new approach to family support and child protection in three areas through its families first for children pathfinders, an approach proposed by the care review in its final report last year.

This involves the merger of targeted early help and children in need provision into a new family help service, designed to improve support for families and make it less stigmatising. As part of this, non-social workers would be permitted to hold child in need cases, a move that has sparked concerns about increased risk from the British Association of Social Workers and Ofsted.

At the same time, specialist child protection lead practitioners would take responsibility for section 47 enquiries, in order to enhance the quality of investigations.

The three pathfinder authorities, and nine others also due to test the system, will each receive a share of £37m to put it into effect.

But both the LGA and NSPCC stressed the importance of funding being rolled out to all 153 authorities, in order to effectively improve family support.

Concerns over drop in findings of sexual abuse

The census also revealed ongoing falls in the number of child protection plans for which the initial category of abuse was either physical or sexual abuse.

In the light of a 15% drop in the number of plans for which sexual abuse was the initial category since 2019, the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre) voiced concerns about high numbers of victims going unnoticed and unsupported.

“We estimate that each year half a million children in England and Wales will experience some form of sexual abuse, clearly there remains a huge gap between the numbers of children being sexually abused and the identification of abuse recorded by children’s services,” said the CSA Centre’s assistant director, policy, Lisa McCrindle.

Last year’s final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) identified systemic under-identification of CSA, leading it to recommend practitioners face a duty to report cases.

The government has vowed to bring in so-called mandatory reporting, though IICSA chair Alexis Jay has criticised ministers for not accepting its recommendations in full.

McCrindle said that one year on from the IICSA report, government, councils and other agencies needed to prioritise the issue.

“The children’s workforce must be equipped with the knowledge, skills and confidence on identifying and responding to concerns of child sexual abuse in all its forms,” she added. “Beyond this, we echo IICSA’s recommendation for a commitment to a regular prevalence survey exploring the true scale of child sexual abuse to inform better prevention and response.”

By Anna Glinski, Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse 

A few years ago, I was invited to deliver a session at Community Care Live on child sexual abuse.

The session focussed on social work practice across all areas and types of child sexual abuse, but I was struck by the fact that the majority of questions at the end of my presentation related to concerns around sibling sexual behaviour and abuse

During discussion, one social worker said that, in their local authority, they had a blanket policy which stated that siblings should be separated when there was evidence of sexualised behaviour between them. In the case she described, the children were under the age of three.

It was at this moment where the need for clear evidence-based guidance to support social worker’s understanding and decision-making for these children became evident to me.

The risks of blanket policies

In my view, if blanket policies result in siblings younger than three years old being separated, rather than informed assessment and decision making, which recognises the importance of sibling relationships, it is concerning.

This is especially so when we consider that the sibling relationship is probably the longest relationship an individual will have in their lives.

At the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse, we produce digestible and evidence-based guidance to support practitioners to better identify and respond to sexual abuse of children.

At the time I delivered that session, although there was some academic research into sibling sexual behaviour and abuse available, there was very little information that was easily accessible to support practice.

In 2021 we decided to address this and embarked on a project to combine evidence from research and practice into our first resource in this area: Sibling sexual abuse: A knowledge and practice overview.

Helping social workers work with affected families

Having established key themes and findings from research and practice, we were keen to develop a resource that gives social workers a useful and practical framework for working with children and families affected by sibling sexual behaviour or abuse.

We are delighted to have now published this resource, Sibling sexual behaviour: A summary guide to responding to inappropriate, problematic and abusive behaviour.

This accessible guide supports professionals to negotiate the issues raised by sexual behaviours between siblings. The guide is split into two. Part A covers the identification and understanding of sibling sexual behaviour and part B covers the professional response.

Working with families affected by sibling sexual behaviour and abuse can feel complex – where it is problematic or abusive, social workers need to think not just about the child who has been harmed, but also the child who has harmed.

Families often experience these events as a crisis, so supporting parents and carers is essential.

Assessing whether behaviour is appropriate or abusive

Assessing whether sexual behaviour is developmentally expected, inappropriate/problematic, or abusive can be challenging and, as we know from research (Yates, 2018), it is also mostly subjective.

But this resource is designed to help and we hope this step-by-step guidance will give social workers the confidence that they do already have the skills to respond.

Practitioners need to decide what level of risk the behaviour presents and how best to manage it, whilst holding the welfare of both (or more) siblings in mind.

Guidance on contact and living arrangements

And, crucially, making decisions on living and contact arrangements based on the assessed risk and impact of harm is important. This resource guides social workers through this decision-making process, prompting reflection and review to inform and support them.

It supports social workers to think about providing a response to the whole family, from initial support to assessment and intervention. Concise summaries of the key points alongside useful reflection points are provided throughout.

Thinking back to my own cases and those that I supervised, I truly believe this resource would have helped my team and I make better decisions for these children and their families.

While every case, and every sibling relationship is different (exactly why blanket policies are inadvisable), having a structured guide to guide identification and response decisions will, we hope, be very helpful.

You can download the resource for free here.

Anna Glinski

Anna Glinski is deputy director, knowledge and practice development at the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse

Reference

Yates, P (2018) ‘Siblings as better together’: Social worker decision making in cases involving sibling sexual behaviour. British Journal of Social Work, 48(1):176–194.

By Natasha Sabin, Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse

Across the UK in 2021, there were, on average, over 850 arrests for online sexual offences every month. Sadly, the ease with which child sexual abuse material can be viewed and shared has led to a huge growth in the production of abuse images and in the numbers of people accessing them.

Data shows that, compared with those convicted of other forms of sexual offending, individuals who access child sexual abuse material are more likely to be married and have children. So, hundreds of families will find out a parent or carer has viewed and shared child sexual abuse material each month and social workers need to feel able to support them through this discovery.

When the police (sometimes accompanied by a social worker) make their initial visit to the family home, this will, for many families, be the first contact that the child(ren) have had with a police officer or social worker.

Devastating impact on families

Unfortunately, children are often there at the time of arrest and may witness a distressing series of events, without any ability to make sense of what is happening. Similarly, discovering that a partner, who may be the parent of their child(ren), has viewed and shared child sexual abuse material is likely to be devastating.

I know from working with many social workers and social work managers that this is an area which, understandably, can feel challenging. Many social work managers have told me that their staff teams feel deskilled and don’t know where to go to find up-to-date, practical, and concise guidance, which feels disheartening.

Managing the risk and trauma of online sexual offending needs careful consideration of the impact on the whole family, a full understanding and appreciation of risk, and the ability to draw all this together to ensure safety in, and for, everyone in the home.

Step-by-step guidance for social workers

In collaboration with the Lucy Faithful Foundation, we have created a new, practical resource to help. Managing risk and trauma after online sexual offending: A whole-family safeguarding guide helps direct social workers through the steps they should take in practice.

It provides guidance on understanding the impact on the family as a whole, and individually; sets out what is known about the risks posed by people who access, possess or share child sexual abuse material, including key considerations for assessments; shares practical suggestions for supporting the whole family; and, finally, offers important information about how social workers can take care of their own wellbeing.

For a child in this situation, their distress at this time may be rooted in a whole range of experiences, including witnessing the arrest of their parent, experiencing their non-offending parent’s own distress and confusion, having their home searched and electronic devices taken away, losing friendships and the natural grief and loss from the absence of their offending parent.

For the parent who has just discovered their partner is someone who may have offended, they are likely to be in shock, confused and frightened, and unsure what to tell their child(ren) to help them make sense of what has happened.

Elevated suicide risk

When we are considering the impact on the family, we cannot ignore the fact that the risk of suicide among men arrested for accessing child sexual abuse material is estimated to be 100 times higher than the suicide risk among the general population.

There appears to be a heightened risk of suicide at times when there is a threat of public exposure and when the legal process becomes a reality – for example, at arrest, charge, trial, and conviction.

The death of a parent by suicide is devastating for children; they will experience feelings of grief, but they may also feel that the person has chosen to die or ‘leave them’. Such an impact on the child is likely to be lifelong and will leave the family living with a whole new reality.

It’s important to recognise that those early responses you give to the family are extremely powerful. By being credible, accessible, and honest you will support the family to navigate their way through a time of great distress.

Balancing risk assessment with support

As social workers, you often have the delicate task of both assessing risk while providing support. When a parent sexual offends online you need to do just that: to have an understanding of the factors which may indicate a child has or may be sexually abused, while offering essential support to all the family.

I was delighted when I spoke to a manager who has very recently used this resource in supervision and who saw an immediate increase in the confidence of the social worker to support the whole family.

Very flatteringly, their social worker said that this was “the best step-by-step guide to responding to online sexual offending they have ever read”.  I hope this new guide also gives you also the knowledge and confidence to support you through this process.

Do download the guide today and share it with your colleagues.

Natasha Sabin is practice improvement adviser at the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre) and author of the Managing risk and trauma after online sexual offending guide

Child sexual abuse (CSA) remains “very hidden” despite increases in the number of cases identified over the past year, experts have warned.

While the identification of CSA in assessments in England reached record levels in 2021-22, relatively few were placed on child protection plans for this reason and many more cases of abuse went hidden, warned the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse.

The CSA Centre also identified a “concerning” postcode lottery in the identification of the abuse in assessments of children and in numbers subsequently placed on child protection plans, in a report on data trends in 2021-22 published yesterday.

It said the report showed the need for both improved data and better training and support for practitioners in relation to sexual abuse.

Record case numbers but well short of estimates

The number of children’s social care assessments in England that identified CSA as a concern rose by 15% in England in 2021-22, to 33,990, the highest level since this information started being published in 2015.

However, while CSA Centre welcomed this rise, it said it fell well short of the 500,000 children it estimated fell victim to sexual abuse each year, leaving a “huge gap between those children who get help and those who remain unprotected”.

The extent of underidentification led the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) to recommend the government place professionals under a duty to report CSA whenever they received a disclosure, witnessed the abuse or observed recognised indicators of it. The government is due to respond shortly to the inquiry’s final report, published last October.

While assessments identifiying CSA had increased, those identifying child sexual exploitation (CSE) fell for the fourth consecutive year, to 16,330 in 2021-22, down from 20,000 in 2017-18, said the CSA Centre.

Low conversion of identified concerns to CP plans

And despite the number of child protection plans for which sexual abuse was listed as the main concern rising by 3%, to 2,520, in England in 2021-22, this was the equivalent of just one in 20 of the children whose assessments recorded CSA or CSE as a concern.

The difference was far smaller for other types of harm, with the number of assessments identifying neglect as a concern being only three times higher than the number of child protection plans under this category, and ratios of 4:1 for emotional abuse and 13:1 for physical abuse.

The CSA Centre suggested these figures hid the numbers of children on plans experiencing CSA, citing 2015 Office of the Chidren’s Commissioner research that found social workers were more likely to categorise children under neglect or emotional abuse than sexual abuse, where there were CSA concerns.

This was among a number of data gaps identified by the report, which also highlighted that no figures were recorded about sexual abuse concerns in relation to children on child in need plans, those referred to early help and looked-after children.

In Wales, the number of children placed on the child protection register for sexual abuse, whether uniquely or as part of the ‘multiple abuse’ category, fell, from 220 in 2020-21 to 190 in 2021-22.

‘Concerning’ postcode lottery

The report identified a “concerning” postcode lottery across both countries in the identification and response to CSA.

The centre found three-fifths (92) of English authorities placed “no or very few children” on child protection plans because of CSA, with one-third (47) placing five or fewer children on plans.

This issue was regionally concentrated with all councils in the East of England and all but one in outer London placing two or fewer children per 10,000 population on a child protection plan for CSA. Rates were comparatively high in the West Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber.

There were also significant local and regional variations in England in the the rates of assessments that identified CSA as a concern, the centre found.

In Wales, half of authorities placed more than two children per 10,000 in the population on child protection plans for CSA (including in cases of multiple abuse) with the rest below this rate.

Underidentification of abuse of black, Asian and mixed children

The study also highlighted an underidentification of CSA among children from black, Asian and mixed ethnic groups, who made up 17% of children on child protection plans for sexual abuse in England in 2021-22, but 26% of all children in state-registered nurseries and schools.

A 2020 report by IICSA and the Race Equality Foundation found that cultural sterotyping by practitioners – for example, the idea that abuse was part of a child’s culture – created barriers to disclosure for children from ethnic minority backgrounds.

On the back of its latest report, CSA Centre director Ian Dean said: “Sexual abuse is a very hidden form of harm which many professionals find challenging to identify and it will take a significant and sustained effort to address this – but it must be a priority.

“We urgently need better data, not just to get a more realistic picture of the scale of child sexual abuse but also to better understand the nature of this abuse and how professionals can intervene to keep children safe.

National prevalence study urged

The centre called for the UK government to introduce a regular national prevalence study of CSA to identify the current scale and nature of the problem.

It also called on government to initiate improvements in the quality, consistency and comparability of data collected by agencies, including children’s social care. The CSA Centre has previously produced a guide for organisations on improving their information on child sexual abuse, including a core dataset of measures they should collect.

And in an echo of its response to the IICSA final report, the centre urged improvements in pre- and post-qualifying training for practitioners working with CSA, including social workers.

This would ensure they had “the knowledge and confidence they need to better protect children by
identifying and responding to concerns of child sexual abuse and recording them appropriately in data systems”.