Parents Protect Across Communities
Tool-kit Contents
Pages
- Developing a Strategy for Prevention2
- Introduction to Project Partners3 - 5
- Project Summary & Delivery Tips6– 14
- Outline of Resources15 - 16
- Acknowledgements17
1
Developing a Strategy for Prevention
This toolkit has been produced in such a way that its content, resources and learning, can be shared with, and used by, other organisations who would like to develop a project for the prevention of child sexual abuse within minority or hard-to-reach communities. It would not have been feasible to create a toolkit containing resources in multi-lingual formats, nor would it have been possible to address the full range of concerns that may be prevalent in potential target communities; but what we have been able to create is a set of visual, audio, and printable resources that organisations can use/have translated for use with non-English speaking communities – as a first step towards tackling the prevention of child sexual abuse.
The piloting of this intervention with the Somali community has taught us some very valuable lessons, and our project summary includes some useful tips for the delivery of such a project, which we hope will be helpful to others.
Partnership Working:
We anticipate that organisations wishing to make use of this toolkit will most likely work in the field of child protection, or in the field of community engagement & support. What we would be keen to underline – from our own experiences – is the importance of having both a sound knowledge of child protection practices AND the ability to engage with the target community, built into the planning and delivery of any future intervention/preventative projects. We would not have been able to deliver this project without the involvement of Praxis Community Projects and their existing relationship with the Somali community; similarly, Praxis would not have been able to deliver this project without the input of Stop it Now! and its experienced safeguarding practitioner team. It is therefore useful for organisations to ensure that they partner with other relevant bodies – where necessary – to ensure a community-focussed and well informed preventative project.
Equally important for any funded or government-backed work, is the ability to have that work properly evaluated so that outcomes can be measured. Whilst we were able to partner with the NSPCC’s Research Team for this project, we appreciate that other organisations may not be in a position to access an external, independent evaluation. We have therefore provided some sample documentation that can be used or adapted by future projects, to assist them in creating an in-house evaluation framework for their intervention. We acknowledge that it is difficult to measure whether a project has actually stopped child sexual abuse happening. We cannot say, for example, that “we have prevented 100 children from being abused” – but we can measure the difference our intervention has made to parents levels of confidence and their understanding about how child sexual abuse can be prevented, and how they can take action to help keep their own children safe.
We Can Help:
If your organisation is interested in developing a child sexual abuse prevention project with a BAMER community, we would be happy to support you in developing your initial strategy for this work and, thereafter, to act as mentors with whom you can discuss your work, and who you can call upon for advice and guidance.
Should you wish to discuss your ideas with us, in more depth, please contact Liz Maslen on (+44)01527 406915 or email
Who has been involved in PPAC?
The Lucy Faithfull Foundation – Project Lead Organisation
The Lucy Faithfull Foundation (LFF) is the only UK-wide child protection charity dedicated solely to reducing the risk of children being sexually abused. We work with entire families that have been affected by abuse including: adult male and female sexual abusers; young people with inappropriate sexual behaviours; victims of abuse and other family members.
Drawing on our expert knowledge about child sexual abuse we offer a broad range of services for professionals and members of the public. These include: assessments, intervention and treatment of known offenders, case specific advice and support, training and development courses and workshops, educational programmes for internet offenders and their families, circles of support and accountability and internet safety seminars for schools (teachers, parents and children).
We believe that child sexual abuse is preventable and that we can have a society where children are free from sexual abuse and exploitation. Our purpose is to safeguard children and young people from sexual abuse by preventing it and responding to it.Our vision is of a society where children are free from sexual abuse and exploitation. Our mission is to prevent abuse from happening by working in partnership with voluntary and statutory sector professionals as well as the general public.
Stop it Now! – a project managed by LFF
Stop it Now! – a child protection campaign managed by LFF, believes and acts on the principle that all adults are responsible for protecting the most vulnerable in society. Children can be protected from sexual abuse if adults are aware of how abusers operate, including those who abuse via the Internet. Adults also need to feel confident about what to do if they are worried that abuse might be occurring.
In recent times we have come to understand that children are more likely to be sexually abused by people they know. These are not the ‘monsters’ often portrayed by the media, but familiar and trusted adults, which can make disclosure far more difficult. For some children, whilst they want the abuse to stop, they also want the abuser to get help. All children must be able to tell, to be heard and be protected.
Parents Protect! – a government-backed Stop! initiative aimed at public education
Because of our background in delivering public education around the issue of child sexual abuse, LFF were asked by the British Home Office to develop resources that would support the roll-out of The Child Sex Offenders Disclosure Scheme.Under the scheme, a parent, guardian or third party can make an application to find out if there is information which they need to know about in order to protect a child(ren) in their care. If there is a need to pass information to someone in order to allow them to better protect a child, then the police will disclose to whoever is in a position to use, or need, that information.
The Child Sex Offenders Disclosure Scheme was introduced by the Home Office in September 2008, with pilots being conducted in four police areas. In a further two police areas, LFF were delivering Public Education Pilots and, subsequently, LFF was invited to work alongside local police to provide the public with information about the scheme and about how they could help keep the children in their community safe from sexual abuse. The scheme has now been rolled out across the whole of the country.
Having developed a website ( and a range of resources to support the Parents Protect initiative, Stop! England has now been funded by the Department for Education to develop the roll out of the Parents Protect! initiative further – delivering training to parents and to frontline practitioners across England.
Parents Protect! Across Communities – a Stop! development funded by The Oak Foundation
Running parallel to our broader Parents Protect activities, we have also been involved in a separate project - Parents Protect! Across Communities –funded by The Oak Foundation. The aim of P.P.A.C. was to develop child protection interventions that could be used to help parents from non-English speaking communities to better understand the issue of child sexual abuse, and give them the information they needed to keep their children safe.
In order for us to pilot this work, we realised that it would be beneficial to partner with an organisation that had an existing relationship with a community, and who would be able to engage with that community on the subject of child sexual abuse in a culturally sensitive way. Our existing work in London had involved us with an organisation called Praxis Community Projects, who were already providing services to the Somali community, and they were subsequently invited to work with us on this new project. We were also keen to ensure that this work was properly evaluated so that the outcomes and learning from it would be fully documented and available for others who might wish to roll out similar activities with other communities. We therefore commissioned the NSPCC Research Team to become involved in the project, and they have built the evaluation process into each stage of the projects activities, so that we could evaluate and learn as we progressed through our work.
Praxis Community Projects:
Praxis is a busy centre in East London visited by over 10,000 people each year. It provides a wealth of advice and support services to migrants and refugees from all over the world, as well as a welcoming meeting place for displaced communities.
Its open access advice serviceis available daily, backed by health care support provided by Medicins du monde. They also work closely with the local council, primary care trust and homelessness partnership to offer a joined-up support service.
They have developed their own action learning approach to community development thatenables the leaders of refugee and migrant communities to share their experiences, build solutions to their problems together and voice their concerns to policy makers.
NSPCC:
The NSPCC's vision is to end cruelty to children in the UK. Theycampaign to change the law, provide ChildLineand the NSPCC helpline service, offer advice for adults, and a range of other services through their various projects.
Their services are driven by four principles:
- Focus on areas in which they can make the biggest difference
- Prioritise the children who are most at risk
- Learn what works best for them
- Create leverage for change
Their work focuses on those who experience neglect, physical abuse in high-risk families, those who experience sexual abuse, children under the age of one, disabled children, children from certain black and minority ethnic communities, and looked after children.
Project Summary
An Overview
This outline provides an overview of the ‘Parents Protect – Across Communities’ project. It aims to set out a road map for organisations wishing to explore child sex abuse within a particular community context, highlighting some lessons we have learnt over a three year period. In the following pages we have outlined key stages of the project alongside delivery tips for those interested in undertaking a similar piece of work. Where possible we have pointed to our own findings and document templates which may prove useful resources to reference.
The project stages outlined in this document may be adapted to suit your organisation and the context of the community you are engaging with, however we would stress the importance of not rushing to the end intervention. The process of engaging with a community about a difficult and taboo subject, all the while empowering community members by increasing their understanding of child sex abuse, risks and safeguards particular to their community, and developing their confidence to engage others, have been as important to this project as the end result.
Child sexual abuse is typically not discussed within the Somali community and, whilst we have no reason to believe it is a bigger problem in the Somali community than elsewhere, we also have no evidence that it is smaller. (NSPCC research (2011) suggested that 1 in 9 young adults have experienced contact sexual abuse in childhood) Most sexual abuse is committed by known and trusted adults or peers within domestic settings, it is therefore important to engage with parents & carers to raise their awareness and equip them to take action if they have a concerns.
Background
‘Parents Protect – Across Communities’ was established to explore and develop child sex abuse prevention strategies within a BAMER (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and Refugee Groups) community. No specific community group was identified from the outset for the reason that the rationale for developing this project was not because child sex abuse was particularly prevalent in BAMER communities. Rather this project recognised that the mainstream response to this issue was tried and tested within White British communities but little work had been done to develop prevention strategies which had the involvement of BAMER communities or took into consideration their specific context, such as history and culture, family and kin relationships, or the role of religion and gender.
This project consisted of three phases; Phase 1 focussed on establishing a baseline for the project by interviewing Somali elders and professionals to establish potential areas of risk to Somali children, followed by interviews with Somali mothers to test these assumptions. Women who participated in interviews were then invited to take part in focus groups to develop ideas of appropriate interventions to be developed, tested and evaluated in Phase 2 of the project. The final Phase of the project focussed on creating a toolkit based on the project's experience and learning, of which this document is a part.
Project Partners
As mentioned above, three organisations, each with a different remit and area of expertise, came together to develop and deliver this project. This included Stop It Now! UK, who led the project, Praxis Community Projects, a community development organisation engaging with vulnerable migrant communities in London, and the NSPCC, who interweaved an evaluation into the project delivery.
Delivery Tips:
Establishing the roles and responsibilities of different project partners at the outset is critical. Within the parameters of Parents Protect – Across Communities, Stop it Now! UK provided project management, including liaising with the project funder and helping to establish the project milestones against which progress could be measured. Praxis Community Projects provided insight and reach within the community and helped to secure community engagement and buy in. The NSPCC provided an evaluation framework which ensured that information was robust and collected in an ethical manner, helping to analyse findings to inform future stages of the project. A clear understanding of the role and expertise of each project partner helped decision making within the project, such as who to defer to in areas of community engagement or research methodologies.
Community Engagement
Outline of activity:
At an early stage a decision was made to focus the project on the Somali community. As mentioned earlier, this decision was not informed by the prevalence of child sex abuse within the Somali community (for which there was no evidence) but was based upon the historic and good working relationship Praxis enjoyed with the Somali community. Following this decision, Praxis appointed a part-time Project Development Worker from the Somali community. Further down the line a Project Outreach Worker was also employed on a casual basis who was also from the Somali community.
Delivery Tips:
Staffing of a project which seeks to engage with a particular community about a subject such as child sex abuse, which may not be openly discussed, may define your engagement efforts success or failure. Recruiting from within a community is of the utmost importance if trust is to be built. Other factors to consider may include age and gender. As our project engaged primarily with Somali mothers having a female Somali Project Outreach Worker present in all interviews ensured that sensitive issues could be discussed openly.
Establishing a steering group to feed back project developments can be an important way to keep the community informed of a project’s progress and act as a sounding board for ideas. However, maintaining a steering group can be difficult and often other priorities can take precedence diminishing participation. Whilst efforts should be made to establish formal opportunities for feedback, affording such opportunities may cause project delays.
First Steps – Talking to Community Representatives
Outline of activity:
The project started by interviewing Somali professionals and elders – an important step outlined by the Project Development Worker in gaining community buy in due to the respect elders command within the Somali community. The Somali professionals and elders provided us with ideas as to where Somali children may be at risk of child sexual abuse. Following these initial interviews the project group decided to focus the project on reducing risk to children in domestic settings and to work closely with Somali mothers. The project group used this initial data to identify a set of provisional outcomes for a possible intervention targeted at Somali mothers in domestic settings. The provisional outcomes were underpinned by a set of hypotheses about the types of risk that Somali children were exposed to, and the levels of understanding and knowledge of Somali mothers.
Delivery Tips:
Having space for reflection, analysis and planning was an important aspect of this project. After each stage of the project, the project team, involving all partners came together to discuss findings and plan the next stage of the project. This close working relationship meant that each member of the team, stretching across three organisations, was aware of what information was emerging from interviews and was involved in the planning of the immediate next steps. This space also allowed potential obstacles to be identified in advance and realistic milestones to be established – for example setting interview timetables which consider the circumstances of the community’s childcare needs or of important cultural dates within the community calendar, such as Ramadan, which must be considered in advance of project delivery.