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Safe from harm
Researchers call for a national
response to harmful sexual
behaviours among children.
By Wade Zaglas
A
newly released book by Dr Lesley-
Ann Ey and Professor Elspeth
McInnes of UniSA is pushing
for a national, coordinated response to
growing rates of children’s harmful sexual
behaviours, or HSB.
However, a key problem they’ve identified
in addressing the problem is inconsistent
policies across different jurisdictions.
As the researchers explain in their
book, Harmful Sexual Behaviour in Young
Children and Pre-Teens: An Education Issue
(Routledge), “HSB occurs when children act
out age-inappropriate sexual behaviours”.
Such behaviour can indicate other issues,
including childhood abuse or trauma,
and can have “significant psychological,
behavioural and developmental impacts
on affected students and for children and
adults who witness the behaviours”.
The rationale for the book can be easily
justified by the Royal Commission into
Institutional Responses to Child Sexual
Abuse (2013-2017). The royal commission
concluded that a significant 23 per cent of
survivors reported having been abused by
another child.
As part of their own research, Ey and
McInnes surveyed 107 teachers from
preschools, primary schools, and out-ofschool
hours care, spanning all states and
territories. Their research uncovered that,
while 93 per cent of educators could detect
a number of HSB elements, only 65.3 per
cent had received any substantial training
that would enable them to discern between
“harmful, concerning and developmentally
normal sexual behaviours in children”.
“The educators’ role in a universal
education system means that they are the
profession most likely to observe harmful
sexual behaviours,” the authors say.
“However, there are inconsistent
approaches around Australia to mandatory
reporting training, and the guidelines in
identifying and responding to children’s
harmful sexual behaviour. This highlights
a need for educators’ access to consistent
and holistic teacher training materials
and support.”
The book’s authors highlight that each
state and territory have different guidelines
and polices for teachers reporting
behaviour such as HSB. With such a
“disparate” approach to reporting and
educators bearing the burden of identifying
and reporting suspected HSB in children,
the authors contend that it’s highly likely it
isn’t being reported.
“Educator training programs on child
protection in Australia are limited,” Ey and
McInnes say, “and are conventionally
delivered through courses focusing on
mandated reporting of child abuse to child
protection authorities.”
The researchers also point out that
educators are required to report different
things in different jurisdictions. For
example, in Queensland, Victoria and
the ACT, teachers do not have to report
“neglect, exposure to domestic violence,
or psychological abuse, which can be risk
factors for HSB”.
“This disparate approach to mandated
notification across states and territories
is problematic for effective sexual abuse
prevention,” they say.
“Although all educators are required
to report sexual abuse, terms such as
‘sexual abuse’, ‘sexual offences’, ‘sexual
perpetrators’, and ‘sexual offenders’ typically
reference adults rather than children, which
may result in children’s harmful sexual
behaviour being overlooked.”
As a result of the research, the authors
are calling for a nationally consistent
approach to training educators on HSB.
Three key areas for training have been
identified as pre-service training for
educators at university, “child protective
curricula”, and mandatory training in
response to child abuse and neglect.
“Education, training, reporting and
responding should be a national approach,
not state by state,” says Ey.
“Developing a national approach to
harmful sexual behaviours training for
educators would enable the development
of a shared language, definitions, reporting
and response frameworks, and pedagogy
approaches,” both authors say.
The authors also contend that Australia’s
uncoordinated response to HSB affects
response rates and “subsequent actions”,
and has a “psychological and emotional
impact on educators faced with HSB”.
Affected educators reported high levels of
“vicarious trauma, toxic stress, and burnout”,
intensified by the lack of a formal, national
response to HSB.
“In addition to teacher education
and training, on-demand resources
and support services are critical to
ensuring educators are not left with
all the responsibility with insufficient
resources. A consequent risk of harmful
sexual behaviours, apart from impacts on
children and families, is the impact on the
learning environment and the wellbeing
of educators.” ■
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