Our new strategy shows our big ambitions to prevent child sexual abuse

We’ve just launched our strategy that will shape our work to prevent child sexual abuse between now and 2025.

We have big ambitions, and The Lucy Faithfull Foundation is not a huge charity. So, are we trying to do too much? We don’t think so.

We are in a unique position. We deliver a wide range of services throughout the UK and are supporting developments across the world.

Our Stop It Now! helpline is the largest of its kind in the world for people who are looking for advice on child sexual abuse prevention. More than 6,000 people contact us each year looking for support in relation to preventing and responding to child sexual abuse. Almost half of whom are people who have abused, or those with the potential to abuse, looking to manage the thoughts or feelings they have towards children. Tens of thousands of people use our online resources because they are struggling with sexual behaviour that can put children at risk. We assess hundreds of adults and adolescents each year who have been charged with sexual offences and provide groupwork interventions to several hundred more.

All of our pioneering work is supported by a psychology team that ensures everything we do meets the highest professional and ethical standards; our interventions and approaches are informed by current scientific evidence.

We have access to some of the most important data in the child sexual abuse prevention field and while we already analyse what we do, to ensure that our work is robust and that impact can be evidenced, we must do more.

With the support of others, we could conduct additional research that betters our understanding of child sexual abuse and what we need to do to eradicate this social problem. This could be better understanding the processes by which adults abuse children online, so that we can use technology more effectively to disrupt the activities of those who abuse children. Or it could be understanding the contextual drivers of abuse in organisations where sexual abuse happens. Or it could be learning about how we more effectively motivate individuals who are worried about their sexual feelings towards children so they can take the first step forward and ask for help before abuse occurs.

And by advancing our knowledge and understanding, we will be better able to educate policymakers and the public, and to build new partnerships that will drive forward innovation in protecting children.

Together we can lead the way and demonstrate that child sexual abuse is preventable, not inevitable.

Read our strategy now. 

Deborah Denis CEO

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