“Everyone deserves to be happy and safe": A mixed methods study exploring how online and offline child sexual abuse impact young people and how professionals respond to it

This study sought to develop an understanding of: • How young people who have experienced online or offline sexual abuse are impacted by it – with a focus on their voices and perspectives • Any specific effects of technology-assisted sexual abuse and related support needs • Professional responses to young people affected by sexual abuse and professional perceptions of technology-assisted abuse and its impact • Young people’s views on how prevention and intervention around sexual abuse, particularly technology-assisted, could be improved Key findings • Online abuse is sometimes perceived as having less impact and being of less immediate concern than offline abuse by professionals. • TA-CSA abuse is no less impactful than offline-only sexual abuse. • Technology provides additional routes both to access young people to abuse, and to manipulate and silence them. • With TA-CSA, there are additional elements for young people to contend with, related to control, permanence, blackmail, revictimisation and self-blame. • Some professionals noted that victims are more often ‘blamed’, seen as participating in the abuse or do not see it as abuse when it is online.

"To conclude, this exploratory study into the experience and impact of technology-assisted and other forms of child sexual abuse in the UK today, and associated professional responses, has findings that merit action now to dramatically improve prevention and intervention. These include training across the sector about the dynamics and impact of sexual abuse, including technology-assisted forms; preventative initiatives aimed at parents and young people, run by government, schools and others; and easily accessible, sensitive therapeutic support. Further research building upon this study’s findings will help to map out the longer-term impact of technology-assisted abuse and to understand better the impact of its different forms (for example, offline abuse widely disseminated online, as separate from online grooming without images further shared). Furthermore, the implementation of recommendations from this report and others in the field will provide further information on which to build best practice. We know enough to act, and we need to act to know more." (Hamilton-Giachritsis et al., 2017: 57).