Approaches to Assessment and Intervention With Children and Young People Who Engage in Harmful Sexual Behavior: A Scoping Review.

This paper reports the findings of a project that conducted a rapid review of evidence regarding assessment and intervention approaches responding to children and young people who engage in harmful sexual behaviors. A literature review was conducted using a systematic search of academic databases and consultation with subject matter experts. The process resulted in 27 scholarly publications being included and analyzed to explore what was known about effective approaches with children and young people who have engaged in harmful sexual behavior. The review found that the current state of knowledge was limited, with few of the included papers reporting research outcomes. In the absence of a sound evidence base, additional theoretical literature and expert commentary have been drawn upon to better understand issues in this complex practice area. A key finding of this review was that growing awareness that children and young people who engage in harmful sexual behaviors are, first and foremost, children. They should not be regarded as soon-to-be-adults who are engaging in adult offending. This shift in thinking informs contemporary assessment and intervention approaches, challenging those models that previously focused on measuring risk using forensic approaches to predict the likelihood of future offending. A critical failure to understand the needs of specific cohorts of children and young people was also evident.

Still unseen and ignored: Tracking community knowledge and attitudes about child abuse and child protection in Australia.

In September 2003, we released the first results of a national community attitude tracking study about child abuse and child protection. At that time, we concluded that as a community, violence against children was tolerated. The community did not understand or appreciate the seriousness, size and cost of child abuse in Australia. There was evidence that child abuse was not viewed as an important challenge facing children in Australia. A second study conducted in 2006 found that nothing much had changed, indeed community engagement with the issue of child abuse may have even deteriorated. A third study in 2010 found that the community actively avoids the problem of child abuse rating it less concerning than high petrol prices. In 2021, 18 years after the first report was published, we have concluded again that child abuse remains out of sight and out of mind as a community concern. This article describes the findings of this fourth iteration of our survey and analyses the implications for ensuring that individuals are more engaged and committed to taking action to preventing child abuse and/or protecting children from violation.

Minority Stress for Care Experienced Young Queer People: A Case Study.

Young people who are placed in out-of-home care are amongst the most vulnerable in our community. Removed from or rejected by their families, they must learn to live with carers who may be strangers. They may have experienced the trauma of abuse or neglect. Post care, they may experience further social isolation and marginalisation due to limited social capital. These challenges are compounded for queer young people placed in out-of-home care. This study adopted a case study approach to explore the lived experience of two young adults growing up queer in and out of out-of-home care in Australia. Our investigation was framed by two complementary theoretical frameworks. The first, a model of minority stress, is informed by queer perspectives and enabled an exploration into the adverse impact of enduring stigma and prejudice associated with homophobia and transphobia on young people's capacity to thrive. The model of social capital was then employed to inform an analysis of relationships between queer young people in out-of-home care and trustworthy adults. The findings suggest that queer young people growing up in out-of-home care experience minoritised stress, with lasting negative implications. The presence however, of trustworthy adults who challenge dominant heteronormative assumptions and work to support queer young people can be experienced as stabilising and restorative.

From Adversity to Stability to Integration: how One Australian Program is Making a Difference in Therapeutic Foster Care.

This paper discusses two key strategies detailing how "relationship-focused" and "trauma-informed" intervention practices, which form the basis of an Australian therapeutic program called Treatment and Care for Kids (TrACK), made a difference in the lives of highly traumatised children. The TrACK program fosters highly traumatised children who, due to the complexity of their trauma needs, cannot be placed in traditional generalist foster care. Case files of 48 children were reviewed. Children were either current or former clients over a period of 18 years since the program was initiated. In analysing the data, we noticed that children who were once highly dysregulated in the domains of foster care placement, education, arousal regulation and peer relationships were now enjoying an enhanced level of stability in their lives.