The CSA Centre blog

The CSA Centre’s new Advisors for Wales, Nici Evans and Mark Vaughan, introduce themselves and set out their vision for improving practice and increasing access to evidence around child sexual abuse in Wales.

As the CSA Centre publish an updated report on mapping current research into child sexual abuse, Dr Helen Beckett guest blogs about the importance of supporting the welfare of those researching child sexual abuse.

Last week the Office of National Statistics (ONS) published a child abuse compendium. The CSA Centre has been involved in the working group developing the child sexual abuse (CSA) chapter of the compendium over the past two years.  Senior Research and Evaluation Officer, Kairika Karsna, writes about what we can learn from the new report and some of the challenges it highlights.

In this blog Deputy Director for Knowledge and Practice Development, Anna Glinski, discusses the tension between the criminal and safeguarding burdens of proof and how this can impact on social work decision making where there are concerns of child sexual abuse.

Our Practice Improvement Advisor (Multi Agency), Nick Marsh, writes about his recent trip to Australia and sharing learning internationally about working with adolescents who have experienced extra-familial sexual abuse. 

This week the CSA centre published ‘Key messages from research on identifying and responding to disclosures of child sexual abuse’. In this blog our Practice Improvement Advisor for Social Work, Jane Wiffin, reflects on what those key messages mean for the safety of children and young people and what needs to be done within the statutory child protection system to best respond when children signal or speak out about the abuse and harm they are experiencing.

Senior Research and Evaluation Officer, Sherrelle Parke, reflects on the challenges local authorities face, and why bridging the gap with research knowledge is welcome on the front line.

Our Practice Improvement Advisor for Health, Dr Michelle Cutland, reflects on improving understanding of the paediatric medical examination for concerns of CSA and the importance of professional curiosity.

Our Director, Cassandra Harrison, announces a change in leadership for the CSA Centre.

This blog is part of a series where our Deputy Director for Research and Evaluation, Dr Sophie Laws, highlights research done by other people (not the CSA Centre) that improves understanding of child sexual abuse.

This blog is part of a series where our Deputy Director for Research and Evaluation, Dr Sophie Laws, highlights research done by other people (not the CSA Centre) that improves understanding of child sexual abuse.

Senior Research and Evaluation Officer Kairika Karsna explains how local authorities in Wales can help us uncover the truer extent of CSA encountered by social services.

This blog is the first in a series where our Deputy Director for Research and Evaluation, Dr Sophie Laws, highlights research done by other people (not the CSA Centre) that improves understanding of child sexual abuse.

Gregory outlines some of the challenges involved in evaluating and commissioning effective services and how the CSA Centre is working to improve understanding of ‘what works’.

Cassi reflects on giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee, the challenges we face in preventing and responding to CSA and how we can improve our capacity to better protect children.

Gregory looks at the difficulties of assessing risk in relation to CSE and lays out how the CSA Centre is working to explore and address some of these issues.

Gregory explores the question 'How common is child sexual abuse?', what the research currently tells us and what that means for practice.