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Download:LFF Annual report 2023 – 2024

LFF Annual report 2023 – 2024

This year we continued to make a huge contribution to child protection and ensured children across the country stay safe.

CEO - Deborah Denis
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The number of people we worked with directly across all our services.

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The number of completed assessments for local authorities and others.

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The number of people who received advice and support from our helpline. 

Download our previous annual reports.

Our reach
Imagine... if all adults who pose a sexual risk to children, get help before they harm a child. Imagine too that all adults responsible for children understood everything they need to know about child sexual abuse to prevent harm from occurring in the first place, and crucially, can access confidential help when they need it.
  • We worked directly with 15,450 people across our services (2022/23: 16,705).
  • Nearly 1,300,000 users visited our websites.
  • 8,774 people received advice and support from our Stop It Now helpline.
  • We completed 270 assessments for local authorities and others and delivered 84 pieces of intervention.
  • We started delivering psychological assessments and undertook two assessments for a local authority.
  • We worked with 439 men arrested for online offences to help prevent future offending.
  • We supported 292 family members affected by the arrest of a loved one for online offences and a further 957 people engaged in online peer support.
  • We worked with 109 young people who had got into trouble online.
  • We trained 171 people from 10 agencies across the UK and Ireland including those in health, education, the justice service, NGOs and care homes in how to help young people who have got into trouble online.
  • We delivered 86 training events reaching 1,174 professionals in England.
  • We delivered 20 training events reaching 583 professionals in Scotland.
  • We delivered two half-day webinars for professionals and four keynote speaking events reaching 417 beneficiaries in Wales.
  • We supported 29 separate press engagements, more than doubling the total from last year (14), including in the BBC, Sky, Woman’s Hour, The Guardian, The Times and The i.
Our research
Imagine... if, through research and development, we could anticipate the next serious risk that children might face – and create preventative interventions and campaigns ahead of time.
  • We published three Faithfull Papers which share data and insights about how best to prevent child sexual abuse based on our work.
  • Dr Sarah Wefers et al published our research on understanding and deterring online child grooming.
  • A paper was published exploring the impact of our public health campaign to deter viewing of child sexual abuse images online.
  • Stuart Allardyce published a paper exploring responses to sibling child sexual abuse.
  • We supported the publication of a paper looking at international secondary prevention initiatives to address the use of online child sexual exploitation material.
  • The University of Tasmania’s independent evaluation of our chatbot project was published. The evaluation has been instrumental in building the evidence base for warning messages to be deployed in online environments where searches for illegal material can be made. Vitally, the report showed that there was a statistically significant reduction in searches for sexual images of under-18s over the 18-month project.
  • We started a project with Cardiff University to explore the role of bystanders in preventing child sexual abuse and commenced a systematic literature review.
  • We started work with Professor Michael Seto at the University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research to develop an evidence base for intrafamilial child sexual abuse prevention.
  • We developed methodologies for an evaluation of our helpline and online resources being conducted with Professor Elizabeth Letourneau at Johns Hopkins University and Professor Michael Seto at the University of Ottawa. The evaluation will assess the impact we have in reducing risk and strengthening protective factors relating to online child sexual abuse offending.
  • Dr Erifili Efthymiadou and Dr Sarah Wefers conducted a symposium on research undertaken by LFF to understand the pathways and implementing best practice to prevent and disrupt online child sexual abuse offences at the IATSO conference.
Advocacy
Imagine... if government decisions put children’s safety first, and public policy and services were designed with the prevention of abuse – rather than the response after abuse – at their core.
  • Whilst the Online Safety Bill continued to progress through Parliament, we worked in coalition with charitable partners to support briefings to parliamentarians with quotes and case studies, and endorsed open letters. As a result, the government amended the Bill to include highly effective age verification for pornography sites and social media platforms, and announced the Independent Pornography Review.
  • We submitted a wide-ranging response to the Independent Pornography Review call for evidence, drawing on insights from all areas of our work, and attended a round table hosted by Baroness Bertin, who is leading the review.
  • We responded to both the government’s call for evidence and the consultation on mandatory reporting.
  • We worked with the Welsh Government and key partners to start creating the next National Action Plan for Preventing and Responding to Child Sexual Abuse, leading on the prevention strand.
  • We provided evidence about online harm to the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee.
  • In collaboration with the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre), we published new guidance for social workers and other professionals to support the whole family when a parent has offended online.
  • We held a joint conference with NOTA in November on the public health approach to prevent child sexual abuse.
  • We published 28 blog posts.
  • We continue to work with the UK government in the Tackling CSA Strategy Third Sector Stakeholder Group.
  • We worked with the WeProtect Global Alliance as part of their Civil Society Reference Group.
  • We are active members of the National Crime Agency-led Prevent Board and Protect and Prepare Boards.
  • We are part of the steering group of IICSA Changemakers, a group of more than 64 organisations across the sector who are committed to ensuring that the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) are a turning point for change.

All in all, it’s been a busy year, and the work cannot stop. Next year we will be just as busy, working just as hard to keep children safe and we will look to the future by developing our next strategic plan. As we do so, I say thank you to all our staff, funders, donors, supporters and trustees who help us deliver on our mission to protect children. Child sexual abuse is preventable, not inevitable.

CEO - Deborah Denis
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Our Stop It Now helpline, self help and programmes are there to help anyone concerned about child sexual abuse. Shore is for teenagers worried about sexual behaviour. 

Our helpline 0808 1000 900

2 Birch House, Harris Business Park, Hanbury Road 
Stoke Prior, Bromsgrove, B60 4DJ

Lucy Faithfull Foundation is a Registered Charity No. 1013025, and is a company limited by guarantee, Registered in England No. 2729957.

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As you may have noticed, our website looks a little different now. We’ve restructured and redesigned the site to be more accessible to you, so we’d love to know what you think. All feedback will remain anonymous; we do not collect any personal identifying information.

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