Introduction
In The Netherlands, Denmark and Scotland special awareness on the subject of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation was raised by national investigations on the prevalence and content of sexual abuse in residential and foster care. In Flanders (Belgium) it was the start of the so called Helpline 1712 (in 2012) to report on sexual and physical violence, that raised awareness on the subject.
The investigations showed that professionals perceive very few of the cases of sexual abuse in residential and foster care and in many cases the perpetrators turn out to be peers. This drew attention to a central issue: the incapability of professionals to support a healthy sexual development and discuss sexual behaviour with children and young people, their (foster) parents and other professionals.
Sex is a subject that is not easily talked about and most professionals feel insecure about. Moreover, professionals appear to be incapable of recognizing unacceptable sexual behaviour, setting limits and making them subject of discussion and intervening effectively.
In this project four Universities and four practice partners in the four countries mentioned above work together in an Erasmus+ project to develop education and training for (future) professionals to help them to build competences on guiding young people’s healthy sexual development and to interact with children and young people, their (foster) parents, colleagues and other professionals on the topic of sexual behaviour, intimacy and inter-personal relations in order to prevent for sexual abuse of children and young people in care. A central question therefore is what competences (knowledge, skills, and attitude) are needed for:
• the guidance of healthy sexual development,
• discussing intimacy, relations and sexual development with children and young people in residential and foster care, their (foster)parents and other professionals,
• sexual education (including e.g. feelings, gender-aspects and ‘knowing your own body’) and setting norms in relation to unacceptable sexual behaviour of children and young people in residential and foster care, their (foster)parents and other professionals,
• taking social, religious and cultural diversity on sexual matters into account.
Method
The education and training modules to be developed will be based on:
• a review of studies on determinants of staff behaviour that cause the incapability of professionals to support a healthy sexual development and discuss sexual behaviour
• a review of publicly available training programs, guidelines and tools in the project countries,
• expert interviews in the participating countries
• focus groups with professionals working in residential care or with foster parents in the practice partners in the project.
Results
In this presentation the first outcomes of the review study, interviews and focus groups will be presented. Attention will be paid to:
1) determinants of staff behaviour, 2) evidence based information, 3) core competences and behavioural characteristics, 4) commonly experienced dilemma’s and 5) diversity issues.
Residential child care , Mental health of children and young people in care
