Child with family and professionals sat around a kitchen table

Supporting parents and carers guide

To help professionals understand more about how child sexual abuse affects parents and their children, when concerns have been raised or identified, so that they can support them effectively.

How can this resource help you?

By supporting parents and carers, professionals are not only helping the whole family recover, but also increasing the likelihood of the best possible outcome for the child.

Understandably, when we think about sexual abuse, we think about the impact of the abuse on the child. However, it is important to remember that the sexual abuse of a child affects the whole family and there are likely to be feelings of shock, anger, confusion and disbelief more broadly.

Research shows that the support the child receives from their main caregivers and wider family is one of the most significant factors in affecting the longer-term impacts of sexual abuse and will have a big influence on how a child will understand and respond to what has happened.

 

This helpful resource includes guidance for situations where the child has been sexually abused by an adult or adults or experienced another child’s harmful sexual behaviour, whether this has taken place inside or outside their family environment.

Find out more:

The guide explores the impact of child sexual abuse carried out in different contexts, and how such abuse can affect families differently. It explains why parents need to receive a supportive response from professionals, and what this involves, and it provides lists of resources and sources of support for professionals to support their work and share with the parents they are working with.

Watch the video to hear from our Deputy Director, Anna Glinski on why how professionals react and engage with parents and carers is vital and the respectful, open and honest relationships professionals can build, to support the whole family.

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