Please note this podcast contains mention of child sexual abuse. In 2015, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was set up to investigate where institutions failed to protect children in their care. The Inquiry's final report, published in October 2022, laid out a set of powerful recommendations to address past failings and protect future generations of children from abuse.
Recommendations for Change is a five-part podcast series from NSPCC Learning, examining why these recommendations are needed, how they'll work if implemented, and what impact they will have on the prevention of child sexual abuse. Episode one: an introduction to IICSA. Child sexual abuse, abbreviated to CSA, is when a child is forced or persuaded to take part in sexual activities. This may involve physical contact or non-contact activities and can happen online or offline.
Experiencing sexual abuse can have a long lasting negative impact on a child's well-being that can reach into adulthood. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, commonly abbreviated to IICSA, was a comprehensive examination of institutional failings to protect children from this kind of abuse. You're probably listening to this podcast in 2024. Over a year has passed since the inquiry published its final report.
Although the work of the inquiry has now been completed, the work of the NSPCC and other child protection organisations continues. We want to ensure that IICSA is not a wasted opportunity for the change that is needed to protect children from future harm, and that the recommendations do lead to improvements in the safeguarding systems across the UK.
In this podcast series, we'll be speaking with a range of experts from both inside and outside of the NSPCC, who will break down why the recommendations are needed, what problems they seek to address and how they might work if implemented. But first, let's learn more about how the inquiry was set up. Here's Peter Wanless, the NSPCC's Chief Executive, with a brief overview.
There were a cluster of very high-profile stories about terrible things that had happened in terms of child sexual abuse in and around a number of institutions, and this culminated in determination at the highest level to understand what it was that had been going on and what lessons might be learnt for the
future. So Theresa May, who was then the Home Secretary, announced that there would be this public inquiry, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, to consider the extent to which state and non-state institutions had failed in their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation; to consider the extent to which those failings had since been addressed; to identify further action that was needed to address any failings that were identified; and to consider what steps
it would be necessary for the state and non-state institutions to take in order to protect children from such abuse in the future. So it was a massive undertaking and an important one to which many people were compelled under legal oath to submit material and to give witness statements in order to investigate these child protection failures and to determine what should be done next.
What did the NSPCC do to support the work of the inquiry?
So, across the entirety of the inquiry, the NSPCC submitted a great deal of information. Formally, evidence was sought from us for nine of the investigations, which included investigations into residential schools, the internet, religious organisations and child exploitation. So we provided witness statements, we offered data from our helplines, we searched our records, we produced briefing papers, and NSPCC staff gave evidence at the public
hearings. And I remember very clearly giving evidence myself, as the NSPCC chief executive, in December 2020, in relation to the work that IICSA was doing to understand what effective leadership looked like in this space.
What was that experience like?
Yeah, there's nothing quite like giving evidence under oath to concentrate the mind. I gave my evidence during the lockdown. I remember vividly receiving a secure laptop and all the technology necessary to establish a secure link between myself and those who were interrogating me as a part of this inquiry. It was... It was a privilege. And it was a really important thing to do at that moment in time.
But for me, it also really clarified and reminded for me, as a leader of a significant organisation, what it really means to put safeguarding and child protection absolutely at the centre of one's organisation, not just in terms of policies and procedures, but also in terms of culture and setting that priority and expectation. So, the very experience of giving evidence personally, I think, changed for me the priority and the focus that I placed on this issue.
And I say that in the context of an organisation that spends its entire time focused about and thinking on issues to do with child protection. So we are all learning all the time and need to be vigilant when it comes to keeping children safe.
And finally, for you, what are the most important learnings that we can take away from the IICSA final report?
When IICSA published its final report, there were 20 interlocking recommendations which, taken together, would constitute a step change in the nation's ability to prevent the sexual abuse of children.
These are all important recommendations, and one of the risks that we now face in terms of implementing the report is that, the government picks and chooses certain recommendations that are perhaps easier to implement than others, and taking things forward in a partial and incoherent way will not achieve the ambition for positive change that the inquiry set out. For me, it's important that we understand the knowledge and understanding and appreciation of what child sexual abuse
looks like. The consistency with which that abuse is reported is important. The roles and accountabilities and the skills that those who the reports are made to; that's important. The remedial therapeutic support for those who have experienced child sexual abuse; that's really important. The data, the way in which we know and understand the nature and the scale of the problem; that's important.
And it's the combination of these things together that will achieve, for me, the three critical changes which we need to see. The first of those is there needs to be a step change in the policy environment and the resourcing and support which government gives to our child protection system and the wider knowledge and understanding of what needs to be done to keep children safe.
The second piece is that many, many more institutions — I include the NSPCC in that — but all of us can play a part in being vigilant, in knowing and understanding how our safeguarding arrangements are ever alert to the vital importance of preventing the abuse of children. And thirdly, the inquiry did a brilliant job of put in the voices on the perspectives of victims and survivors themselves front and centre in these debates and discussions.
And so, I believe we owe it to the thousands of them who had the courage to contribute to this inquiry to ensure there's a decisive and coherent response to the recommendations that the inquiry has made. And that is not proving to be entirely straightforward.
So, there are many of us, institutions and individuals, who want to continue to bang the drum and remind government institutions, organisations, the wider public, that there's a job to be done to keep children safer from child sexual abuse than may be the case at the moment. We can all play a part in that.
Government needs to give a lead, and we must continue to listen very carefully to victims and survivors of child sexual abuse themselves, including young people who, sadly, are experiencing these crimes against them today.
As Peter says, victims and survivors of child sexual abuse played a key role in informing the work of the inquiry. To ensure their needs and voices were represented in their work, IICSA set up the victims and survivors consultative panel, or VSCP. The VSCP provided input across all areas of IICSA's work. They were instrumental in establishing IICSA's Truth Project, which gave over 6,200 victims and survivors the opportunity to share their experiences of child sexual abuse with the inquiry.
The first section of the IICSA final report contains anonymised extracts from these testimonies, and we advise listeners to read these to get a full understanding of the devastating impact of CSA on victims and survivors. By speaking publicly about their experiences, members of the VSCP and the Truth Project elevated public awareness of child sexual abuse. However, IICSA identified that there is still more work to be done to empower conversation around the issue.
Recommendation four of the IICSA final report advises that the UK government and the Welsh government commission regular programmes of activity to increase public awareness about child sexual abuse and how to respond to it. For this podcast series, I spoke to Lisa McCrindle, Assistant Director for Policy, Communications and Strategic Influence at the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, the CSA Centre.
During our conversation, she explained why it's so important that we continue to confront the difficult topic of child sexual abuse.
So I think it's really important because it's something we'd rather wasn't happening and we'd rather not talk about it. And the reality is that far more children are being sexually abused than that come to the attention of services as the all of those — I think there were only over 6000 submissions to the Truth Project — most of them hadn't told anybody until they were adults or much later in life. They certainly didn't get the support they needed at the time that that harm was
happening. And what contributes to that is this general sense of, you know, understandably, child sexual abuse is not a nice thing to think about. It's not something pleasant. And we'd rather it wasn't happening. So if we're going to tackle it and if we're going to address those things that make us feel uncomfortable, we need to be getting more comfortable at talking about
it. We need to be less worried about talking about it and feeling more able to have those conversations and tackle those difficult issues that we might otherwise want to shy away from. I think it's really important that those conversations are continually happening. I think... And in many ways, an awful lot of people across the country will never have heard about the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. It won't have
been on their radar. They might have seen something in the press, but the IICSA inquiry probably doesn't mean a great deal to most people if you talk to them on the street. But what it did do, and through the continuous investigations that came out during the whole of the inquiry and the report, is continually give us new insights and new understandings around the nature of that harm that had been happening and why those things hadn't been identified and where the failings need to
be addressed. So that was continually bringing that to the fore. And what that's really important for is one, it keeps it front and foremost in terms of policy and practitioners and people that are making decisions about how do we respond to this in day-to-day life. But it's really important for victims and survivors to hear that their experiences aren't in the shadows and their experiences are acknowledged. For me, there's a really tangible impact that that has.
Before I came to work at the CSA Centre, I worked at the NSPCC, and while I was working there, the scandal about the sexual abuse of boys in major football clubs came to light and the NSPCC set up a helpline in response to that. Now, immediately after that reporting of that case, there was literally thousands of calls that came into that helpline from a whole range of young people who had been — well, adults and children — who had been harmed in sport settings and other
settings like that. But they'd not felt able to have their abuse acknowledged before because it hadn't been talked about. And I think it's really important that we talk about the different ways in which this abuse does happen to people, because that gives confidence, it validates. Everything that happens to victims tells them that maybe they're imagining it, or they have a fault in it, or they have some responsibility for it. And all of these things are silencing.
And what we do when we talk about sexual abuse is we strip that power of that silence away. IICSA was really important in doing that over a period of time, and it's really important that those organisations that have been involved in it and have a role to play continue to have that conversation.
At the NSPCC, we believe everyone needs to be aware of the IICSA findings, but particularly anyone working or volunteering with children and young people. Many of the recommendations in the final report will directly affect safeguarding professionals and the work they do, as the NSPCC's Director of Strategy and Knowledge, Maria Neophytou, explains here.
A central tenet of the NSPCC's strategy is that we are all responsible for keeping children safe. The work of IICSA is, of course, particularly important for professionals working and volunteering with children, and understanding the findings is helpful in that professionals are in a unique position to recognise the signs of abuse and take action to prevent it.
IICSA's findings also demonstrate that we need wholesale change in how child sexual abuse is tackled, and safeguarding professionals will play a crucial role in driving these changes. Some of those recommendations will directly affect the work of safeguarding professionals. So, for example, there were recommendations and proposals around mandatory reporting, around systemic changes like the creation of child protection authorities and ministers and strategies for children
in England and Wales. As well as those systemic changes that are proposed, the report itself is a body of knowledge that is very useful for safeguarding professionals to be aware of and delve into. It's a vital evidence base for practitioners who are involved in safeguarding decisions.
For instance, in the first part of the report, victims and survivors of child sexual abuse describe their experiences in their own words, and these powerful testimonies are critical for professionals to understand the experiences that victims and survivors had, the impact that it had, and the nature of the response.
The inquiry published 24 research reports on a range of topics, including support services, online-facilitated abuse, schools, children's homes and residential care, and custodial settings. And it also published statistical reports on a quarterly basis until the first quarter of 2022. So, as a body of evidence, it's unparalleled in its scope and its relevance to everyday practice and safeguarding.
Ultimately, the recommendations from IICSA should provide the foundation for a robust safeguarding system that protects children from abuse, and the NSPCC will, of course, continue to call for the implementation of the recommendations, the strengthening of preventative measures, more therapeutic and support services for children, and a more coherent and systemic response from government and all those in positions of decision-making and positions in child protection.
As Maria says, professionals working with children and young people have a crucial role to play in preventing abuse and neglect. I asked Lisa McCrindle what advice she would offer professionals on how they can improve their ability to identify and respond to CSA.
At the CSA Centre we pretty much always start with the 101. So, this isn't about complex, deep knowledge about sexual abuse. You don't need to be an expert in child sexual abuse. Most of the professionals we're talking about, their job is to work with children and to understand children. What prevents really good practice in response to child sexual abuse is often just feeling uncomfortable about sexual abuse and worrying about it.
So, the first thing that professionals can do is to get comfortable with talking about sexual abuse, to understand child sexual abuse more, to understand that it is much more common than they will think. There is often this idea that it's quite rare, but what the data tells us from surveys with children and with adults, is that child sexual abuse is just as common as emotional abuse and domestic abuse and neglect.
So, you know, we should be expecting to see that just as much as we're seeing those other forms of harm. And yet, what we do find in service data is that far less sexual abuse is identified. And that's what we see coming through in the Truth Project, with so many of those victims and survivors whose harm was never identified while they were children, and they go on to experience that in silencel.
So, in terms of what can professionals do: number one, familiarise yourself with an understanding about child sexual abuse. Be aware that it's much more common than you may think. So, we would expect that 1 in 10 children by the age of 16 will have experienced some form of child sexual abuse. Then the next thing that what we find that prevents professionals addressing child sexual abuse is feeling uncomfortable talking about it and talking to children about their concerns.
So again, getting comfortable with that, thinking about how you would have those conversations, potentially even with your colleagues practising those conversations. How would you do that and how are you going to respond if a child does give you either a direct indication that something's happening or perhaps an indirect indication that something's happening and you need to respond to that? I would say that you don't need to do that on your own.
There are lots of resources out there to support professionals in doing that. And when I say professionals, again, I'm talking about all of those different professionals that work with children. What we do know is that children are more likely to be confiding in people that they
know and trust. So, those individuals that have a trusted relationship with children are much more likely to be the ones that can identify concerns in the child's behaviour, in the behaviour of those around them, but can also then maybe be the people that children will be able to tell if they support them to do so. So we have resources available for
that. In terms of understanding, our key messages from research series are really, really succinct summaries of the research evidence around a whole different range of aspects of child sexual abuse they are completely readable with a cup of coffee and a slice of cake, with your elevenses as a professional, and you could get the key bits of information that just gives you the knowledge and the confidence.
We then have a series of practice resources that help professionals to understand the signs and indicators of sexual abuse, to think about how they would communicate with children about sexual abuse. So, understanding what are the barriers that prevent children from talking about it, and how can they, as professionals, support children? We have resources around supporting parents and carers. As I said, parents and carers are really the key to supporting
children. They spend the most time with them and they're going to have the biggest impact on child's recovery. So, really important to support parents and carers. So there is lots of information out there in terms of the resources available as well as the training that we offer at the CSA Centre.
At the NSPCC, we recognise that the work of professionals involved in safeguarding can be challenging, and we will continue to strive to provide you with the support you need to best protect children. Here's Peter Wanless once more.
My message to those people who are working directly and indirectly with children who are at risk of child sexual abuse, or who have experienced that, is: thank you for everything which you do to help these children.
It's much more difficult than it might be as a consequence of so many of you working in a system that can feel dysfunctional, disconnected, insufficiently resourced and supported, and with many people around you having multiple priorities that don't always seem to put the victims and the potential victims of child sexual abuse front and centre. I acknowledge that. The inquiry acknowledges that and sets out an ambitious agenda for positive change.
So, in the hurly-burly and pressures of those of you who work with children continuing to do that vitally important work, when it sometimes feels against the odds, be assured that there are many of us who are going to continue to press for and argue the case for decisive change to secure a better organised, resourced and supported national approach to keeping children safe from child sexual abuse.
Thanks to Maria Neophytou, Lisa McCrindle and Peter Wanless. You can find a link to the CSA Centre's key messages from research series, as well as other resources around recognising and responding to child sexual abuse, in the podcast show notes. In the next episode of Recommendations for Change, we'll be looking at the importance of data to child protection. How does gathering and analysing data help us to effectively respond to child sexual abuse?
If you've been affected by any of the issues raised in this podcast, you can reach out to the NSPCC Helpline for support. Call 0808 800 5000 or email help@nspcc.org.uk. This podcast series was produced in Autumn 2023. All information was correct at the time of recording, but the world of child protection is ever-changing. To stay up to date, visit the NSPCC Learning website at nspcc.org.uk/learning.