Co-designing community resilience to Online Child Sexual Victimisation

• In Event: Conceptualising and applying vulnerability policing: Innovative methodologies and problem-based solutions.

Abstract

Services working with vulnerable children "often overlook or underestimate the impact of their online lives" (El-Asam, Katz, Street, Nazar & Livanou, 2020, p. 7). Indeed, self-generated sexual imagery from children aged 7-10 has increased three-fold between 2020 and 2021 (Jay, Evans, Frank & Sharplin, 2022). Whilst part of this may be due to more sophisticated discovery tools, access to technology and increased awareness and focus of law enforcement efforts to identify online child sexual abuse imagery, it highlights the need for effective prevention and response mechanisms to support children and young people in communities. This paper will outline the emerging findings from a study of inter-agency responses to Online Child Sexual Victimisation (OCSV) in one northern English Town with implications for community-based responses elsewhere. It will explore links between online and offline child sexual abuse as they relate to current preventative efforts from organisations across police, education, health, social care and the voluntary sector in Blackpool. It aims to: (i) understand how public sector organisations, voluntary groups and the public – particularly parents and children – identify and address OCSV and the links with vulnerability; (ii) identify how the police can best work with others to anticipate, respond to and prevent OCSV; and (iii) co-produce a locality-based online child sexual abuse quality standards framework that can be applied nationally with scope to develop in an international context. In collaboration with local services as well as parents, children and young people, and community members, preventative tools are being co-developed to tackle the local manifestation of the problem. The project will assess how effective the framework is, with the intention that it can be adopted in different areas across the UK and beyond.

Authors

• Larissa Engelmann, University of Leeds

• Corinne May-Chahal, Lancaster University

• Christine A Weirich, University of Leeds