We support schools and education staff to prevent and respond to harmful sexual behaviour.
- This includes behaviour that can harm either the young person themselves or another person.
- It can range from inappropriate through to problematic, abusive and violent.
- Research suggests that under-18s are responsible for around one third of sexual offences against children and young people in the UK.
How we can help you
Education staff can access confidential support and advice via our Stop It Now helpline on 0808 1000 900
We offer:
- advice, support and information, whether you are a teacher who has spotted inappropriate sexual behaviour in the classroom or designated safeguarding lead managing a particularly difficult case
- free one-hour call backs with specialist schools practitioners who can help you to manage incidents of harmful sexual behaviour and also offer expert advice on working with children and young people with special educational needs
- up to three hours free consultancy for schools who need extra support to respond to harmful sexual behaviour, which might involve more detailed safety planning work for individual students, twilight staff training sessions, or parent/student workshops
- information about our training and assessments, interventions and consultancy
Understanding sexual behaviour in children
We’ve made a series of guides to help you:
- tell if a child’s sexual behaviour is appropriate for their age, or if it could harm them or other people
- prevent harmful sexual behaviour
- work out the next steps if a young person gets into trouble for their online sexual behaviour
Safety plans
These school safety plan templates have been adapted from a version originally created by NSPCC practitioners in Stoke.
Before completing a safety plan, we recommend reading this guidance from the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse, and their guides to communicating with children who may have been affected by sexually abused and to supporting parents affected by child sexual abuse.
We ran a three-year action research project, collaborating with schools and the University of Surrey to develop effective leadership responses to harmful sexual behaviour.
