In today’s complex and challenging landscape of child protection, professionals and volunteers need robust training to manage and respond to sensitive issues effectively. Our training is led by experts with extensive frontline experience and provides the essential knowledge, skills, tools and confidence necessary to prevent child sexual abuse.
In this blog post, we delve into why our training programme stands out as a prime opportunity for professionals, by speaking to our Head of Clinical Engagement, Tom Squire.
Our training courses are meticulously designed to address all aspects of sexual abuse prevention. From working with adults who offend, to young people who display harmful sexual behaviour, to families impacted by child sexual abuse, and more, our training courses consider all possible angles to form a well-rounded approach to prevention.
Our training courses aim to:
By empowering professionals to better understand child sexual abuse and how to effectively respond to the different groups they work with.
Providing concrete tools and frameworks for professionals to use in their work, enhancing their ability to assess and manage risks.
Raising awareness around risks of child sexual abuse and providing guidance around processes for staff recruitment.
Our trainers come from diverse backgrounds such as qualified social workers, psychologists, former probation officers, and police officers and are actively involved in delivering clinical services. This unique combination allows them to speak from first-hand, lived experiences, providing credibility and authenticity to the training.
“The trainers understand the challenges of working in this area and can draw upon their experience in terms of anonymous case examples, so we can talk with credibility and authenticity about the reality of the work and the challenges that people face,” explains Tom. “I think our training is strengthened by the fact that we are the staff delivering these courses while being involved in the delivery of other services offered by LFF, such as our Stop It Now helpline, assessments and interventions, our children and young people programmes and more.”
Our training is designed to meet the specific needs of individuals or organisations, across multiple sectors, including but not limited to education, law enforcement, health services, and probation. Each package can be tailored to participants to ensure that our training is effective and has a positive impact.
Last year, we delivered 86 training events to 1,174 professionals in England, 20 training events that reached 583 professionals in Scotland, two half-day webinars for professionals and four keynote speaking events reaching 417 beneficiaries in Wales.
We hear from people who we trained that they then felt better placed to make better decisions about protecting children from harm.
“I found the whole course very informative and helpful especially using the right language, and identifying schemas which would help support me in my day-to-day work role if I came across a case of suspected sexual abuse or have a disclosure.” – Course participant
“The information was very interesting and helpful especially if you work with people who have offended or victims.”- Course participant.
“Training provided a great grounding in the context and research around protective carers. Gave some really helpful practical examples and signposted to the tool. Really enjoyed the training and found it very helpful. Thank you.” – Course participant.
Our philosophy is grounded in the belief that child sexual abuse is preventable. “We emphasise a mindset of curiosity, encouraging professionals to thoughtfully and effectively respond to the complex situations they encounter,” says Tom. “If people are more attuned to the issues and the complexity of the terrain, they are better able to think about how to respond. Our training helps professionals navigate the emotive subject of child sexual abuse, reducing anxiety and increasing confidence to make evidence-based decisions that help safeguard children in any arena.”
Our training epitomises the Lucy Faithfull Foundation’s core values.
Our trainers are well qualified and capable of delivering training courses, armed with their experiences of delivering other services, adding to our guarantee of authenticity and integrity. This informs their ability to address any issues that participants are grappling with.
“Our training team goes to great lengths to ensure that our training courses are up-to-date. We regularly work to tailor-make our courses and deliver bespoke content that is relevant to the individuals and organisations that sign up for our training programmes,” said Tom.
“By having discussions with organisations and participants about not just what the content is that would be most helpful, but how it can be delivered, as with our trialled and tested webinars, ensures that we are a step ahead.”
“Through the high-quality training events we deliver, we collaborate with other professionals by sharing our expertise, skills and insights to enable all professionals to play their part in ensuring the prevention of child sexual abuse,” emphasised Tom.
With a target of expanding the pool of people that our training courses reach, our ambition is to leave participants with a fresh and more rounded perspective on how best to prevent and respond to child sexual abuse.
“There’s so much that we can do to make a difference to protect children from sexual abuse. And some of those things are not complicated,” said Tom. “Training people to have the confidence or the knowledge or the awareness to be able to best tackle it, so they know what’s right for any particular situation… that’s the hope.”
“There’s sometimes a strong aversion to talking about and thinking about issues of child sexual abuse,” says Tom. “And I think often when people leave our training, they have been able to let go of some of that anxiety as they feel better equipped and capable of handling the day-to-day challenges they face.”
Some training course participants have even set up regular consultancies, building relationships with local authorities and organisations to stay up-to-date on best practices.
“An example included training for a local authority who then wanted to train up some champions within their social work teams, who would go on to lead on preventing child sexual abuse,” said Tom. “This led to ongoing consultancy and training over 18 months, to facilitate the champions within their local authority.”
One of the biggest outcomes of attending the training courses is the inspiration and empowerment of participants to start making a difference. “Everyone needs a little motivation to take the first step, and be able to get the ball rolling,” said Tom. “It’s rewarding when someone comes up to you and says ‘I can see how this could be a rewarding, valuable area of work rather than something that just feels kind of emotionally distressing, anxiety-provoking and I don’t know where to start.’
“It’s not easy, we know,” he added, “but prevention – it starts with us.”
Find out more information about our training courses, and register now.
We recently launched our latest report on the findings from our ‘Everyone’s Safer’ project to tackle harmful sexual behaviour in schools.
Research is at the heart of our work to prevent child sexual abuse and we regularly publish our practice-based insights and evaluation in the form of our Faithfull Papers. By sharing insights and opportunities, we can achieve the best possible outcomes for children.
Want to support our work to prevent child sexual abuse? Donate now.
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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.
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.
