Preventing and responding to child abuse and neglect: A review of best practice system approaches

The Australian Child Maltreatment study (ACMS) estimates that around 1 in 4 (28.5%) Australians aged 16 years and over have experienced child sexual abuse, with females twice as likely to have experienced child sexual abuse than males.

When a child discloses severe abuse, whether it be sexual, physical, emotional or take another form, it offers an important opportunity to ensure the mental health needs of the child are addressed while also addressing the risk factors for re-victimisation. Often, families face a range of complex barriers when accessing therapy services, and research suggests that approximately half of child sexual abuse survivors will be sexually victimised in the future.

In some jurisdictions, the main barrier is a lack of integration of specialist child sexual abuse therapy services into investigative responses. As well, there is a need for complementary family focused services to address practical barriers to engagement, and direct support to address resistance to engaging with mental health care.

Drawing on research by presenter Dr James Herbert , this webinar:

1. Made the case for taking a public health approach to the accessibility of specialist mental health services post-disclosure
2. Emphasised the need for a unified and collaborative response across government and non-government agencies
3. Explored solutions that address both the harms of abuse, and the conditions that lead to high rates of re-victimisation

Key learnings and next directions for the work

• In Australia, multi-agency responses are primarily focused on investigations rather than providing holistic support for affected children and families. There's a substantial need for integrating specialised services to address safety concerns that do not necessarily meet the threshold for a statutory response.
• Lack of clear information about accessing therapeutic services, especially in Western Australia, hinders improvement of the service system.
• Timely access to these services is crucial to prevent re-victimisation and mitigate the long-term impacts of abuse on individuals and communities.

Presenter

Dr James Herbert, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Social Impact UWA

James is a social researcher undertaking research and evaluation on the topic of cross-agency collaboration in responses to child sexual abuse, particularly the design and implementation of investigation and therapeutic support teams and addressing institutional barriers to effective collaboration. He is currently undertaking research on addressing the barriers to therapy engagement for children who have disclosed sexual abuse. Working across child protection topics, James also has a key interest in the translation of research evidence into policy and practice change and building the capacity of the sector to apply evaluative thinking to complex social policy issues.