We Put Children First—Understanding Harmful Sexual Behaviour

As part of our response to this year’s National Child Protection Week, Life Without Barriers launched We Put Children First—Understanding Harmful Sexual Behaviour.

Every day, Life Without Barriers offers support and care to children. We want every child to feel safe and respected. We all have a responsibility to make sure children are safe, well cared for, protected from abuse and given the respect they deserve.

We know talking about child sexual abuse can help keep children safe. Life Without Barriers has built on our We Put Children First campaign each year, to strengthen our capacity to protect the children and young people we support from child sexual abuse, and to respond appropriately if we’re concerned.

All children and young people engage in sexual behaviour. Most of the time this is normal and healthy. Sometimes, however, sexual behaviour is not appropriate and can be harmful for children and young people. We call this type of behaviour harmful sexual behaviour.

It’s important to understand the difference between normal sexual behaviour and harmful sexual behaviour is, and how and when to respond. We need to be able to support children and young people in a caring and non-judgemental way.

To help with this, Life Without Barriers has developed a new eLearning module for staff and carers called We Put Children First: Understanding Harmful Sexual Behaviour. The module uses animated video to explain how to identify harmful sexual behaviour, why some children and young people engage in harmful sexual behaviour, how it impacts children and young people, and how we can best respond.

If you are concerned about the safety or behaviour of a child or young person in your care, speak with a Life Without Barrier’s care team – they’re there to support you.

You can find more information about harmful sexual behaviour in the Life Without Barriers Carer Guide.