Appendix 1: CSA Centre advice guides for education settings

We have developed a series of brief advice guides as supplementary resources to draw on as your audit and improvement work progresses; they are not required reading for all staff at the outset. You can download them below.

The framework is designed for all education settings and all children, but your audit may reveal that particular groups of children in your setting face a heightened risk of sexual abuse or harmful sexual behaviour – or that staff would benefit from additional knowledge and confidence when working with those children. The guides can provide that knowledge and confidence.

They cover the following areas:

1. Adopting a child-centred response to all concerns. This guide supports staff to respond in ways that keep the child’s needs, safety and voice at the centre of every decision from the first moment a concern arises. It includes practical advice on language – in particular, how to avoid inadvertently implying that a child bears any responsibility for what happened to them, and how to use open, non-leading questions.
2. Capturing children’s voices to inform practice. This guide provides practical approaches to listening to children and using what they tell you to strengthen your setting’s practice. It is designed to be useful throughout the improvement process, and particularly during the audit stage when children’s perspectives can enrich your evidence base.
3. Supporting children from different ethnic, faith and cultural backgrounds. This guide helps staff understand how factors such as ethnicity, faith, culture and language can shape how children experience and talk about abuse, and how your setting responds. It draws attention to the importance of not making assumptions, and of ensuring that your practice is genuinely accessible to all children – including those whose backgrounds may affect their ability or willingness to seek help.
4. (a) Responding to harmful sexual behaviour in young children. Aimed at settings working with early years and primary-age children, this guide helps staff to understand age-appropriate sexual development, identify when sexual behaviour falls outside expected norms, and respond in ways that are proportionate, child-centred and consistent with safeguarding responsibilities.
   (b) Responding to harmful sexual behaviour in older children. Designed for for education settings working with secondary-age and post-16 children when concerns about harmful sexual behaviour arise, this guide includes advice on balancing the welfare needs of both the child who has displayed the behaviour and those who have been harmed by it.

5. Responding to technology-assisted harmful sexual behaviour. This guide supports staff to understand and respond to harmful sexual behaviour that takes place online or through digital technologies. It clarifies the immediate steps that any staff member should take; the designated safeguarding lead/professional’s referral responsibilities; how to talk to a child who has been harmed online (including by avoiding the common mistake of implying that their online presence contributed to the harm); and how to respond to a child who has displayed this behaviour. Also addressing prevention through the curriculum, the guide is relevant to settings working with children of all ages, recognising how central digital technologies are to children’s social lives.
6. Supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities. This guide helps staff to recognise that children with SEND can face a significantly heightened risk of sexual abuse, and that additional barriers – including communication difficulties, dependency on adults and social isolation – may make it harder for them to tell someone what is happening. It supports staff to ensure their response is accessible, appropriately adapted and inclusive.
7. Supporting children who are exploring/questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity. This guide covers sensitive responses to the specific experiences and vulnerabilities of children and young people who are gay, lesbian or bisexual (LGB), or are questioning their gender identity. It helps staff to understand the barriers these children may face to disclosing abuse – such as fear of being outed, having a limited number of trusted adults, and concern about professional prejudice – and common assumptions that staff should actively avoid making.

You may find that one or two guides are immediately relevant to your setting’s context; others may become relevant as your improvement plan develops. You are not expected to use all of them, and they do not need to be read in order.