We are ethical, open and honest. We are research-driven and base our actions on evidence. We follow through on our words and act with professionalism, show respect and consideration to all and do what is right.
Advice for parents, carers, professionals, and survivors, providing guidance on understanding key issues, responding to challenges, keeping children safe, maintaining wellbeing and where to find additional support.
We offer comprehensive support through specialised training, assessments, interventions, and case consultancy. We provide bespoke assessments, specialist interventions and consultancy in relation to child sexual abuse and harmful sexual behaviour.
Through research, we develop effective strategies, inform public policy and provide the best support and interventions for individuals and families.
Through our advocacy work, we press for the system changes that are needed to enable a greater focus to be placed on the prevention of child sexual abuse.
As a charity, we rely on the kindness and generosity of people like you to support our vital work to prevent child sexual abuse.
By donating, fundraising, or simply spreading the word about our work, your support will have a huge impact.
Michael Sheath has been working with child sexual abuse offenders since 1987, first as a probation officer and then as Principal Practitioner at The Lucy Faithfull Foundation from 1997 onwards. In 1997, he received the Butler Trust Award for his work with male survivors of sexual abuse at HMP Blakenhurst.
Coinciding with his sad departure from the Foundation after 25 years, he has published a collection of five theatrical monologues concerning child sexual abuse, trauma and secondary victimisation. They present a raw and thought-provoking exploration of loneliness and isolation, highlighting the rippling effects that offending behaviour can have on the family members of those who commit sexual crimes against children.
The book is available to purchase here. All proceeds will go towards Children Heard and Seen, a charity which supports children with a parent in prison.
I came across them accidentally, as you do on Twitter. There are virtually no services for children in that situation because they’re not seen as at-risk or in need as such but they have profound needs that the state doesn’t provide for. Children Heard and Seen provide children with mentors and they campaign about those issues and they run a summer camp. Particularly with the children of men convicted of sexual offences, the issues are more profound because you’ve got the prospect of direct risk of abuse as well as stigma and embarrassment which is very difficult for children of any age to bear.
I think there’s a particular potency to the post-internet age because many people have seen what previously only sexual offenders saw. I have concerns – as do detectives – about what the impact of seeing so many children being sexually abused will be.
I’ve seen many police officers suddenly go under and leave the job or go off sick. Sometimes they drink, sometimes they become very sad and get depressed. We will have a legacy, I suspect, of thousands of professionals from the police service and other services who have seen too much.
I’d heard of it a number of times. My wife’s a probation officer and she had male clients who’d said that their wives made tea for the officers and I’ve had men say to me that that had happened. When it was first performed, a lot of the audience thought it was implausible but police officers who see it nudge each other and say ‘we’ve had that’. Women in that position often try to find a tiny bit of control and try to civilise it. I don’t know if it’s an English thing, a British thing or a universal thing. The Wife was the first one I wrote and I’m sure it’s the most heartfelt.
The detective describes him that way because that is his experience. That is the dissonance – that we are seeing men that are extraordinarily ordinary doing this terrible thing. How is it that these ordinary men dip in and behave so absolutely appallingly online and then click their computers off and take their kids to the park? I say to them what if someone did it to your children and they say ‘I’d kill them’, and you think ‘what about these children?’ They don’t see those children as people. When they’re called to account suddenly the barriers between fantasy and reality all collapse. This is where the suicides come from – where you see how other people see you.
I think you need the new law but you also need a change in the culture. I used to work with priests a lot and I see exactly the same dynamic in religion as in sport and it’s in the power of the coach. The coach has psychological power, there’s the euphoria of success or failure that cleaves coach and coachee together and there’s room in there for coaches to take advantage. We’re just beginning to understand the psychological power that coaches have over all of their coachees and the damage that follows from that. I support legislation in that respect, it’s been too long coming, but in terms of prevention, I’d be much more interested in a cultural shift.
The daughter’s story is as much about contact offending in sport and its causes as it is related to the internet – the girl is additionally abused by being filmed and photographed. It goes around in a circle. Geoff is taking advantage of a girl’s abuse of some years previous. The timescale is quite long, with the whole piece going from seven years after Geoff’s arrest to seven years before Geoff’s arrest when the girl was abused for his entertainment. I like the idea that everyone is connected even if they haven’t met – seven degrees of separation. We have a duty to people we may never meet. You forget that at your peril.
The Lucy Faithfull Foundation is the only charity in the UK dedicated solely to preventing child sexual abuse. Our Stop It Now! helpline is open to anyone with a concern about child sexual abuse and its prevention.
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.
We are ethical, open and honest. We are research-driven and base our actions on evidence. We follow through on our words and act with professionalism, show respect and consideration to all and do what is right.
Advice for parents, carers, professionals, and survivors, providing guidance on understanding key issues, responding to challenges, keeping children safe, maintaining wellbeing and where to find additional support.
We offer comprehensive support through specialised training, assessments, interventions, and case consultancy. We provide bespoke assessments, specialist interventions and consultancy in relation to child sexual abuse and harmful sexual behaviour.
Through research, we develop effective strategies, inform public policy and provide the best support and interventions for individuals and families.
Through our advocacy work, we press for the system changes that are needed to enable a greater focus to be placed on the prevention of child sexual abuse.
As a charity, we rely on the kindness and generosity of people like you to support our vital work to prevent child sexual abuse.
By donating, fundraising, or simply spreading the word about our work, your support will have a huge impact.
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.
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.